Noisy Deadlines

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams

Headphones

I decided to try Audible for 90 days. I never understood the appeal of listening to a book. For me, reading is a calming experience and depending on the book I will slow down or speed up my reading. I will stop and just look at the world around me when a phrase inspires me. I highlight and take notes (yes, we can do that with an e-reader). Could I do that with an audiobook?

I am used to Podcasts. I normally listen to them when I am walking towards an errand, doing the dishes, running at the gym or, occasionally, driving. When I am listening to a Podcast I sometimes catch myself wondering about my to-do list or remembering a past event. Then I realized I've been distracted and I come back to the listening. But that's okay because it's not a book, I don't need to follow every sentence to understand the message. When I get lost I just move on.

Now, books... I like to pay attention to every sentence. It's a contemplative experience to me. And that's why I always thought that “listening” to a book would ruin the introspection. This article from the New York times got me thinking about the differences between reading and listening to a book:

Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?

Basically the conclusion is, it depends:

Print may be best for lingering over words or ideas, but audiobooks add literacy to moments where there would otherwise be none.

So I am trying it for myself and I will see how it goes!

I chose the book The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu as a first try.

The first thing I noticed is that the narrator was too slow. So I am listening at 1.25x speed. It's better.

#reading #audiobooks #books

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Every year I set myself a reading challenge on Goodreads.

Goodreads is a kind of a book cataloging network, with discussion groups, lists, reviews and book recommendations. I like using it because of the bookclubs and the integration with my e-reader (Kindle).

Books in 2018

I've been doing the Reading Challenge since 2012 and I broke my record in 2018 reading 52 books in total: an average of about 1 book per week. 🤘🎉

2018 Reading Challenge

I read 15,432 pages across 52 books

I can say that I read more because I decided to cut back time on other activities, like browsing social media. I realized that I was swapping reading time with mindless scrolling and that made me take a step back and evaluate how social media was affecting my habits.

That led me to uninstall all social media apps from my phone, delete accounts and use my “idle” time to read on my Kindle. During my bus commute, instead of checking Twitter on my phone I would take my Kindle. Instead of sitting down at home after work and check my phone I would open my Kindle. I decided to ignore the urge to be online receiving updates all the time. I wanted to retrain my brain to be able to deep focus. And reading requires focused attention.

Average length

The cool thing about the Goodreads Reading Challenge is that by the end of the year we get a report with some stats and the complete list of the books read. It's nice to look back and remember all the books I experienced!

Books in 2018

Here goes a list of my favorite books in 2018:

For 2019 my challenge will be to read 52 books!

Books in 2018

#books #readingchallenge

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

“Do not wait; the time will never be “just right”. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along” -George Herbert

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

(for the record, -12°C – feels like -18°C – Ottawa)

Lovely winter day - Ottawa, Britannia Bay

#winter #photo #noisymusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

All the books I read
Ariadne's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (read shelf)

2018

  • Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion – Sam Harris, 257p
  • Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead – Brené Brown, 312p
  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life – Mark Manson , 229p
  • The Night Masquerade (Binti #3) – Nnedi Okorafor, 205p
  • The 30 Day Heartburn Solution: A 3-Step Nutrition Program to Stop Acid Reflux Without Drugs – Craig Fear, 179p
  • Scoundrel (The Blades of the Rose, #2) – Zoe Archer, 400p
  • The Easy Acid Reflux Cookbook: Comforting 30-Minute Recipes to Soothe GERD & LPR – Karen Frazier, 196p
  • Beyond Shame (Beyond, #1) – Kit Rocha,355p
  • Night's Master (Tales from the Flat Earth, #1) – Tanith Lee , 244p
  • What to Say When You Talk to Yourself- Shad Helmstetter, 256p
  • Your Digital Life 2.0: Everything you need to know to get your life organised and your technology working for you – Carl Pullein, 242p
  • American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy, #1) -Sierra Simone, 392p
  • Pestilence (The Four Horsemen, #1) – Laura Thalassa, 381p
  • We Are Legion – We Are Bob (Bobiverse, #1) – Dennis E. Taylor, 304p
  • For We Are Many (Bobiverse, #2) – Dennis E. Taylor, 321p
  • Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness -Daniel G. Amen, 352p
  • Earth's End (Air Awakens, #3) – Elise Kova, 348p
  • Home (Binti, #2) – Nnedi Okorafor, 176p
  • Fire Falling (Air Awakens, #2) – Elise Kova, 380p
  • The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store – Cait Flanders, 189p
  • Air Awakens (Air Awakens, #1) – Elise Kova, 330p
  • The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3) – Nnedi Okorafor, 208p
  • Jade City (The Green Bone Saga, #1) -Fonda Lee, 512p
  • The Happy Mind: A Simple Guide to Living a Happier Life Starting Today- Kevin Horsley, 127p
  • Fast Focus: A Quick-Start Guide To Mastering Your Attention, Ignoring Distractions, And Getting More Done In Less Time! – Damon Zahariades, 153p
  • Stranger (The Blades of the Rose, #4) – Zoe Archer, 463p
  • Abaddon's Gate (Expanse, #3) James S.A. Corey -547p
  • Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now – Jaron Lanier, 160p
  • Trabalho organizado: Encontre equilÍbrio e significado num mundo cada vez mais sobrecarregado – Thais Godinho, 283p
  • Fast Tract Digestion Heartburn – Norman Robillard, 217p
  • Caliban's War (The Expanse, #2) – James S.A. Corey, 595p
  • All These Worlds (Bobiverse, #3) – Dennis E. Taylor, 260p
  • Effortless Journaling: How to Start a Journal, Make It a Habit, and Find Endless Writing Topics – S.J. Scott,158p
  • Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2) -Martha Wells, 160p
  • Magic Burns (Kate Daniels, #2) – Ilona Andrews, 260p
  • Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – James Clear, 319p
  • Zeroes -Chuck Wendig, 437p
  • Kissing Sin (Riley Jenson Guardian #2) – Keri Arthur, 355p
  • Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life – J.D. Meier, 274p
  • All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1) -Martha Wells, 156p
  • Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life -Jim  Benson,218p
  • Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-To Book – Jeff Warren, 288p
  • Autonomous – Annalee Newitz, 298p
  • Getting Things Done with Todoist – Daniel LeFebvre, 87p
  • You Are Not A Gadget – Jaron Lanier, 224p
  • Rebel (The Blades of the Rose, #3) – Zoe Archer, 398p
  • The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5) – Diana Gabaldon, 1456p
  • Binti (Binti, #1) – Nnedi Okorafor, 96p
  • Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More – Courtney Carver, 255p
  • The Minimalist Vegan: A Simple Manifesto On Why To Live With Less Stuff And More Compassion – Michael Ofei, 147p.

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I have always loved stories about robots, AI's, bots or any sentient like machine. This book reminded me again why I love these stories. It is excellent!

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1) by Martha Wells

One thing that happened to me while reading the first chapters is that I automatically assigned a female gender to Murderbot. I don't why I did it, but Murderbot was so relatable to me, I created empathy for all its fears, anxiety and social awkwardness. But then it is clear that Murderbot doesn't have a gender, because it is a security bot, not a sexbot. I wonder if the book cover led me to think that. Although I showed it to my husband and he told it was a totally gender neutral bot in that cover.

Maybe that is proof of how engaging and well written the character is. It's all about what it means to be alive, what it means to exist and think, no matter what or who you are. It was so interesting to be inside this bot's head and find out that it doesn't know what it wants, kinda like a human mind, all confused and asking why the universe existed:

It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.

I loved that Murderbot enjoyed watching television series:

And in their corner all they had was Murderbot, who just wanted everyone to shut up and leave it alone so it could watch the entertainment feed all day.

And I already started reading the sequel, because this is one of those “Hell, yeah” kind of stories.

Highly recommended!

Book info:

#books #bookreview

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

The Hyperlink versus the Stream: a nice quick discussion point on what is going on, from Cal Newport : From the Hyperlink to the Stream: Hossein Derakshan’s Critique of the Internet in the Age of Social Media

Note: the article from Hossein Derakshan can be found here. Worth a read or re-read!

#socialmedia #digitalminimalism #attentionresistance #noisymusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

This year I tested lots of task list managers, project managers and to-do list apps. I was not happy with my current system which consisted of Evernote + Todoist + Google Calendar and Google Drive to store files.

You see, I've been using the GTD method for 5 years now. It all started in a moment in my life when I was feeling extremely overwhelmed. I had a full time job and taking courses for a masters degree in Civil Engineering. I felt disorganized. I didn't have a clear view of my life. And so I started looking for ways to get in control.

Phase 01: Evernote

I started having everything inside Evernote: contexts, references, projects lists, checklists, areas of focus and all the higher horizons of GTD. That worked for a while but soon I felt that I needed a dedicated app for task management. Evernote didn't give me the satisfaction to cross off a task, per se. It was all done with tagging, so not very practical. I spent a lot of time tagging and untagging notes.

Phase 02: Todoist+Evernote

Then I started using Todoist. I kept my projects in Evernote and created the tasks in Todoist. In GTD actions are the most important part of the system: we only complete project by executing actions. So the “contexts” idea of GTD is kinda the central pillar of the system. Actions are always inside a context. And so I had a huge list of actions inside contexts, as we all do. And even though GTD tells us to prioritize actions based on context, time available and resources, I could never do it without getting overwhelmed.

The other issue I had was having the actions separate from its projects. There is a recommendation in GTD that it is better to keep actions separated from projects so that you keep focused and engaged on doing, rather than planning. Since I had all my projects in Evernote and tasks in Todoist I felt like this always created a duplicated effort: list the next actions inside the Evernote's Master Project Note (MPN) and then copying them to Todoist. I've never thought this was a practical approach to project management.

So then I tried to use Todoist as a project management tool, with the tasks associated with each project. BUT, since the notes section in Todoist is quite simple, I still had the MPN's inside Evernote. And it was not working well. The final straw for me was the inability to install Evernote on my computer at work when I got a new job. Long story short, 2018 was the year I started to desperately search for other solutions for my productivity system.

Testing Tools and Apps

Todoist-Filters-08-2018.jpg

First of all I tried to customize Todoist to my system. I read dozens of articles on how to create queries for filters in Todoist. I tried the Eisenhower Matrix method, I tried creating custom filters, combination of tags, minimal tags, priority flags and nothing seemed to work right for me.

I then went out on a frenzied testing sprint:

  • Nirvana HQ

    • Full GTD.
    • I like the minimalist look, simple and only focused on next action.
    • I like both the mobile app the web version.
    • I like that I can set up “Areas” and filter all tasks according to these areas. So I can have “PERSONAL” and “WORK” and “BLOG” or whatever. Seems nice! The advantage is that the filtering is already built into the software, so I don't need to create specific filters.
    • Doesn't have integration with Evernote or Google Drive. But I can add links to a task.
    • I like the schedule function (it's the implementation of the “INCUBATE” in GTD.
    • Parallel vs Sequential tasks in a project: love this! It's something I've always wanted to implement specially for sequential tasks. That way I don't have unwanted tasks out of order showing up on my lists (I know I could solve this with tagging and weekly reviews, buy sometimes I had these tasks coming up during the week). It's a very handy feature!
    • I like the “Zen” aspect of Nirvana. Really, I don't feel overwhelmed with it (like I always did with Todoist).
    • Features:
    • Filter by area (it hides the rest)
    • Easy to tag and filter for context (I really hate Doit.im's Context vision.)
    • project template
    • sequential/parallel options for projects
    • Reference Lists that can be turned into a project (eg. grocery list)
    • easy recurring task
    • the focus tab for actions with a deadline, or things you tag with a star (= things you will do today)
    • the Later tab, for things between Next and Someday

  • Doit.im

    • Full GTD.
    • The mobile app is okay.
    • Says it has integration with Evernote. I tried and it didn't work.
    • Keeps saying I have to confirm my e-mail address but I never get their confirmation message.
    • Can't export data.
    • The company is hosted in China.
    • Seems like they are not very active in developing the app.

  • Toodledo

    • List based.
    • Seems more complicated than it needs to be.
    • Lots of manual configuration/filters to be done to be a GTD system.

  • TickTick

    • Looks like a simplified version of Todoist. Very similar, with date based tasks.

  • Remember the Milk

    • So ugly!
    • I still had my account that I set up to try in 2012!
    • I hated the side bar menu.

  • GTDNext

    • GTD focused.
    • It seems it doesn't have any mobile app yet.
    • Seems old fashioned.
    • Kinda ugly.
    • No new Twitter activity since April/2018.
    • Lots of “problems” in the community forums.

  • Amazing Marvin

    • It's more like a daily planner that you can customize.
    • It's a different concept but I think that after years trying to get GTD right, I am going to go full GTD with the simplest and straightforward configuration possible.

  • Any.do

    • Simple.
    • Has a nice feature to filter by time or area of focus.
    • But it doesn't have sub-tasks.

Phase 03: Nirvana HQ

I really liked this app! I used it for about 2 weeks but then the lack of a good notes field and no integration with Google Drive or Evernote let me down.

Phase 04: Enter Kanban and Trello

My-Work-Trello-Board.jpg

I have never used Kanban but I knew it was a thing. So I decided to test Trello. And I read articles and the book about it Personal Kanban.

I loved the approach!

Trello is easy to use and the visual aspect of it is great. I transferred my work and personal related projects to Trello. And I decided to stick with it.

Until today, when somehow I was curious to know how Asana, Meistertask and Zenkit worked. Just in case they were awesome and I was missing out. So I spent about 1 hour today testing those apps and reading articles about them. They aren't for me. They are more business/teams oriented. But I had to see!

And so that made me wonder why am I always searching for a new productivity app? Why can't I just be happy with the tools I have?

So I decided: I will stick with my latest Trello installment, which combines GTD principles with Kanban and be happy. I think 6 months is a reasonable amount of time to test my system and make it work for me.

We will see!

#productivity #GTD #trello #kanban

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

At the beginning of this year I set a goal: read 50 books in 2018. I actually started wanting it to be 52 (1 book per week) but by the middle of they year I saw that I was behind. I adjusted course, so now I have 16 days left to read 2 books to reach my goal! I am halfway through one book so I still can do it!

It's my last home run!

2018-books-goodreads-Capture.jpg

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Yes, I did it!

I was by no means an Instagram heavy user but I became more and more annoyed with the amount of ads appearing on my feed. And since Instagram is focused on the mobile interface, I couldn't find any workaround to remedy this annoyance. I've managed to tweak my Facebook so that it became less overwhelming to me but I couldn't find any workarounds for Instagram.

And you know what? I don't miss it. AT ALL!

Sure, it was a kind of an outlet for me to explore my amateur photographer side but the model of “likes” and “follows” and ads really irked me. Even if I was not following anybody the ads were there draining my attention. I've been using social media less and less. I still have a Twitter account that I use to check the weather and traffic conditions occasionally. My Facebook is heavily tweaked so that the only reason I go there is to participate in some Groups I find value in. And that's it. No feeds. No ads. Nothing popping up and demanding my attention.

I love this interesting article distinguishing between “social internet” and “social media” by Cal Newport: On Social Media and Its Discontents.

So, almost 4 months without Instagram and life is beautiful!

#socialmedia #attentionresistance #noisymusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

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