The Week #263

by
  • 5️⃣ I missed it a few weeks back, but I hit 5 years of The Week without missing a week! Half a decade! 
  • ✏️ I received my Supernote Manta and I am in love 😍. It's hard to describe just how good and freeing digital paper is. No longer do I need to carry multiple notebooks with me. No longer do I have to decide to have a single type of paper in a given notebook.Write a note, two-finger circle it, new task managed in a central location. Flub a note, two finger on the sidebar circle to delete.

    I'm not sure exactly how my work notes will "end up" organizationally , but for starters I'm keeping it simple. Mostly I'm just separating  them out by product / person with an index page that lets me quickly jump between them. I haven't used the linking function much, but I've only had it for 1 work-day.

    For my personal notes, I've started doing Morning Pages. Each morning you sit and handwrite 3-pages of whatever is on your mind. Rather than having stray thoughts pinging around in my noggin, I can write them down. Then it's much easier for me to either action them, add a task to track it, or just get it out of my system. Working through why I am thinking certain things has been helpful. Do I need an e-ink tablet to do any of this? No. Does it lower the barrier to entry to nothing, yes. Starting a brand new notebook just for morning pages is a hurdle when you aren't sure you will continue while starting a new file is easy and free.
  • 💔 It's been a month since the Air India 171 accident and the preliminary report was released. The plane was operating exactly as it was meant until someone in the cockpit manually turned off the fuel to the engines. 10-seconds later (presumably by the other person) fuel was turned back on and the engines starting spinning up, but it wasn't high enough to have enough time to recover.

    It's tragic. If it were a mechanical failure there's at least a logical reason for the failure. But this? You don't want to accept it. Mental health is so important. We've got to check in with the people in our lives – not just a surface "how are you doing?", but "how are you really doing?".  And have the courage to model and be vulnerable and let them know that things aren't good when they aren't.  I'm fortunate that my work places a lot of effort to encourage us to take care of ourselves (physically and mentally), even having entire weeks dedicated to mental health. It's helped me tremendously this past month.
  • 🍔 A friend from uni I hadn't seen in years called me out of the blue and we went out for dinner and a coffee. It was a lot of fun. It's good for the soul to meet up with friends. I should do it more often.