Where’s… everything? →

Published April 12, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 12  ·  

It doesn’t matter how you store things, only that you do. If I know that, somewhere, I know something… and I can find it… that’s success. There are two parts to remembering (aka storing in such a way that it can be later found and used) everything: First, capture it in some form and put it somewhere intentional. Second, when you go for something and it’s not in the first place you looked (it’s instead in the 3rd place you looked), move it to the first place you looked.

These books helped educated people cope with the “information explosion” unleashed by the printing press and industrialization. They were highly idiosyncratic, personalized texts used to make sense of a new world of intercontinental trade, long distance communication, and mass media. Commonplace books could contain recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas, notes from sermons, and remedies for common maladies, among many other things.

~ Tiago Forte from, Commonplace Books: Creative Note-Taking Through History

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Of course, the hard part is getting in the habit of capturing things. Our minds are terrible at holding ideas. Our minds are for having ideas (and composition and creation and more.) The best day to begin capturing your knowledge was yesterday. If you missed that opportunity, today is also good.

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Work →

Published April 11, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 11  ·  , ,

No country ever was built by people sleeping in. Austria was not built by people sleeping in. America was not built by people sleeping in. People struggled, people suffered, people worked their asses off to build this country.

~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

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The cake is a lie →

Published April 10, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 10  ·  

I’ve tried everything. Lists, timers, project management systems, Pomodoro, time blocking, dashes, scheduling, time tracking… everything. It turns out: There are things I enjoy doing; they get done. There are things I don’t enjoy doing; they are a struggle. This is the way.

This lie is often called “work/life balance.” And it’s a deviously demotivating false dichotomy. A narrative designed to stigmatize work and trivialize what work is really all about. It reduces transformation to a mere transaction.

~ Cierra Martin from, «https://www.gapingvoid.com/must-we-hate-our-jobs/»

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There’s no need to struggle against my nature. It’s futile and that way lies madness. What remains is to reign in my Idea Monster. I also do not need to attempt everything I can possibly imagine that might be fun or productive. Essentialism is the middle road I steer towards more and more. This is the way.

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Feedback on peers’ work →

Published April 9, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 9

There are few opportunities where I get together with other podcasters to review and improve our work. Just spend time listening to various pieces from some peers in prep for a zoom call this evening.

Priority →

Published April 9, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 9  ·  ,

The root of the word ‘priority’ is singular… It was a singular word—the one thing. In modern times, we’ve turned it into ‘priorities,’ but then all of a sudden it turns into eight, ten, 15 things and that defeats the purpose.

~ Shaka Smart

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Open + Curious →

Published April 8, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 8  ·  ,

I’m excited to share that Jesse Danger and I have begun a new podcast show, Open + Curious. I’ve been writing up my thoughts around conversation, and this podcast is a new part of the Open + Curious project. Please consider subscribing to support our efforts.

Are you looking for ways to bring conversation alive? Then you are in the right place.

In each 15-minute episode we begin with a question, and work our way to a challenge. Some questions we explore have clear answers, and some lead to more questions and further unknowns. The challenge we seek to find, at the end of each episode, is meant to help you explore each question on your own.

https://openandcurious.org/bringing-conversation-alive/

April 07, 2024 — #79 →

Published April 7, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 7  ·  

Reading time: About 5 minutes, 900 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/79

The beginning

I accept →

Published April 7, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 7  ·  

I have had the privilege of standing—not in the exact cedars and mountains you’ll discover below—but nonetheless in cedars, in mountains, in northern Japan. It wasn’t a pilgrimage. But it sort of was. It was a long train ride. A very long walk. A very nearly exhausting long ascent. No guide. Just a curiosity. Just two of us. At the top… I realized that the journey—if we had wanted to continue—had only just begun. Choices about time and commitments to others were made.

As a faint mist settles in among the towering cedar trees (some more than 1,000 years old), our funeral procession slowly ascends Mt Haguro’s stone stairway. It’s summer, but the air here is still cool. When the poet Matsuo Bashō made a similar journey through these holy mountains in 1689, he wrote a haiku describing the summer wind being ‘scented’ with the clearly visible snow of Mt Gassan in the distance. Today, it smells of pine needles and earth.

~ Tim Bunting from, More radical and practical than Stoicism – discover Shugendō

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Is mine a story I’ve shared, or a suggestion?

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Reading →

Published April 6, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 6  ·  ,

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

~ William Godwin

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Not me, I’m certain →

Published April 5, 2024  ·  All posts on Apr 5  ·  

Three words matter much: Not me, I’m certain I am uncertain. I’m not simply uncertain. Not simply indecisive, beset by unknowns, nor stymied by possibilities.

The virtue of intellectual humility is getting a lot of attention. It’s heralded as a part of wisdom, an aid to self-improvement and a catalyst for more productive political dialogue. While researchers define intellectual humility in various ways, the core of the idea is “recognizing that one’s beliefs and opinions might be incorrect.”

But achieving intellectual humility is hard. Overconfidence is a persistent problem, faced by many, and does not appear to be improved by education or expertise. Even scientific pioneers can sometimes lack this valuable trait.

~ Michael Dickson from, Intellectual humility is a key ingredient for scientific progress

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The compass for me is, “so what?” When I’m certain of something, I ask myself: So, what? Connecting that which I’m certain of, out into the world via, “so, what?” challenges me to look at the underpinnings of my beliefs, and the integration with my knowledge in total.

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