I spend a lot of time reading—frankly, as much time as I can sequester for it. I’ve read several of Seneca’s letters, randomly over the years. A while back I bought this delightful edition from Chicago Press and I’m beginning at the beginning. (There are marks in the book where I’ve already used it for referring to some of the letters.) What knowledge are you putting into your mind?
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The view, when I’m doing my work is quite often a notebook and a computer. I try to make it be outside as much as I can too. Show-your-work photos are booooooring, I know. But capturing and gestating my thoughts, and then tapping on a keyboard. That’s mostly what I do.
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In the most-recent Podcaster Community campfire we got to talking about what tools and services are we currently paying for as part of podcasting. So today I put up a simple post in a few places to ask just that.
It’s one thing to talk about what we prefer, it’s another for us to have voted with our dollars. Me?
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Stany Foucher recently wrote a book, Art du Déplacement: Au delà du saut. I’ve been working on translating it for my own reading. I can read the French language at an “advanced beginner” level. From the epub version of the book (which I printed so I can write on it), I’m working in a notebook… writing things out longhand is part of the learning process. I don’t simply want to read this book, but rather I want to apprehend this book.
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This morning I was working on adding some quotes to the ‘ol collection. I have a little box with the most-recent quotes, blank 3×5 cards and other little office-supply-ish things. Every now and then I pick up a bunch of those new quotes and move them back into these boxes. Today I realized, the second of these boxes is now nearly full—it seems like only yesterday that I moved the first few inches of cards (like ~400) into the first box. Time to order more of these storage boxes!
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I’ve been thinking about ways to get participants to engage after the session. I talked to a few experienced coaches about this, and there doesn’t seem to be a way that works well. Sure, after any session a few students might ask questions. But cultivating engagement beyond that is a big question—everyone I talked to said to tell them how to do it if I figure it out.
My first thought was to imagine something people could take a picture of. (Giving people things like business cards would be silly and wasteful.) Coaching in the context of Movers Mindset, I imagined a printed card with MM logo/name and QR to MM’s web site and lots of room for me to write. I imagined I could write a question on it; thinking it could be interesting enough to entice people to take a photo of it.
But further thinking led me to create this little card. It’s printed on some 4x postcard stock from Avery, where a full sheet is perforated to tear apart. In the phot you can see a little sketch showing how the printed parts are all arranged in the center of the full sheet, enabling printing very close to the final cards’ edges on the two sides that aren’t the actual printing margins.
My idea is that I’ll use these little cards for my notes as I’m preparing for a session. Then, any changes, problems, questions, etc. that come up are easily captured. This way I can close my personal loop of wanting to reflect afterwards into my more permanent notebooks.
And anyone who notices the card I’m holding, (referring to, writing on, stuffing in my pocket…) may want a photo of it. There we go! There’s no “please take a photo of this” pressure. Instead, if someone is interested, I have the perfect thing for them with some notes and details about the session and a QR to reach me. (The MM site has an email list and a contact form to reach me.)
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The first 90% of anything is vastly easier than the second 90%. Beginning something (an issue of 7 for Sunday, a new podcast episode for any of my 3 different shows) is so much easier if I know that all I have to do is go through these steps—look, it fits on one sheet, how hard could it be? I can totally do this…
Well, many of those tiny steps are big parts like “write the thing”. But by having all the little paper cuts listed out, I know that I won’t lose the entire kingdom for want of one horseshoe nail at the very end.
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I have tons of ideas. That’s the source of my greatest challenge: trying to decide what not to do. The first step is to fully think through an idea.
This one is about an idea for little bonus videos for the supporting members in the Podcaster Community. It’s been simmering in my head for a few weeks. This morning, walked in the glorious weather, to my fave little cafe. An hour of thinking to paper powered by coffee and a sandwich. :)
Now… should I do it? …or leave it in my notebook? 🤔
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I return often to Kleon’s matra of “show your work“.
I always fade out from the process. I think the reason is that I’m not necessarily doing something related to podcasting every day. (Which is fine.) Without a strong habit of podcast-specific work (for example, “I do podcast stuff at 9am every day”) I don’t get in the habit of doing the extra little bit of work to capture something showing my work…
I’m convinced, my work would be better—and it would help others too—if I showed my work more. But I can’t seem to crack this nut.
Zooming out, away from podcasting . . .
I keep thinking: I don’t have a clear, single thing that is “my work” — it’s not podcasting, it’s not blog writing, it’s not community building [here], … For example: Here’s some notes I took, over the course of an hour thinking about coaching movement, based on a long conversation I had with a coach I respect. We had a coffee meeting where I wanted to pick his brain…
I post all sorts of things here, on the ‘ol blog. In recent years, my posting grew, become a weekly thing which I cleaved off to be the 7 for Sunday weekly email. Here I continue to post new quotes from my collection, copies of all the podcast episodes I do [all shows, anywhere], and a lot of “this is interesting” links that I find.
This morning, I’m thinking: My blog has long been the place where I work with the garage door up. Maybe I should lean into that?
…develop the habit of showing something (anything, from any project I’m working on) there on my blog. 🤔
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I juggle many things (recent days have been a lot of dirt moving related to garden beds). But I love sitting with a pen and paper. Working on an issue for Open + Curious.
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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.
“Show your work” isn’t about showing the finished work. It’s about being open and honest about the work you do. I hope that showing my work inspires others to dig into whatever it is they are passionate about. The photo the final bunch of things, all finished today, after many months of hard work… a new podcast is launched. openAndCurious.org ;)
Back in… not sure, 2020? I started a daily podcast of me simply reading quotes from my collection. Last year I decided to slow down to only 3 quotes per week. I record and schedule them in batches. Screenshot of episode 1,399 being recorded. o_O
30 years ago, I put a few quotes on my first blog. Then things escalated. I collect quotes from all over the place. But sometimes, I dive (using a random number tool to pick one of the 2,000 pages) into this door-stop of a book, 40,000 Quotations Prose and Poetical. Found a few on this page. This one is becoming number 1,431.
I jot down little conversation-related things I find. Then I work them into being posts on https://openandcurious.org/ This little, weird question caught my eye in January.
There’s a magnifying glass in the back there too. Extra pair of low-reflection reading glasses. Lip balm; don’t need it until I need it. Rubik’s cube so I can kill a few minutes without spinning off starting something that then turns into a rabbit hole. What do you keep at hand when working?
There’s a lot I can say about episode notes for individual podcast episodes. I have trouble writing them from scratch. But I’ve been using OpenAI’s LLM for a while now and tinkering on some prompts that work well. It takes me at least half an hour of writing (me writing and revising) to go from a raw transcript to solidly useful episode notes.
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I’ve tried to do digitally the thinking and creative part of writing. It just doesn’t work as well as scribbling on paper. I use these tablets to capture ideas. This seed has been bumping around for 3 months (if you zoom in, it’s interesting that this seed happens to be _about_ reverberations!) Today it gets turned into a new something for Open + Curious.
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I’m a major process-person. Process is discipline. For me, inspiration always runs out. But process enables me to put one dumb foot in front of the other— and then course correct as I go. Pre-flight checklist here minutes before a guest joins me for a recording.
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Currently in my personal knowledge system I have notes on ~400 audio recordings. (Raw recordings I’ve done, podcasts of my own I’ve published, other shows I’ve been on, etc.) That can be my episode notes and writing, but also program-readable meta information. Today, I spent time writing some new tooling to help me sort out transcripts (which recordings have them, which have been sent out, etc.)