“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams
(for the record, -12°C – feels like -18°C – Ottawa)
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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
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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!
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:
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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.
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.
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.
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
Doit.im
Toodledo
TickTick
Remember the Milk
GTDNext
Amazing Marvin
Any.do
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.
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!
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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.
I am not a writer. I am an introvert. I spend a lot of time with my own thoughts. A L L the time! And it seems that writing helps me to quiet down those voices in my head. I have a Wordpress blog but somehow I don't feel the urge to write there. It seems too noisy. Too flashy. Too much attention, even though nobody reads it. So I haven't written on my blog for more than 6 months now. But that itch to write something has been on the back of my mind for months. Am I a writer? Should I be a writer? I think probably not. But writing is a kind of therapy to me. It gives order to chaos. It silences the worry, the anxiety, the fear that haunts my thoughts. I never know if the thoughts create anxiety or anxiety that creates anxious thoughts. Are they the same? Anyway, I just needed a blank empty space that welcomed me to write. I think I found it here. I am not afraid of being judged. I feel free!
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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.
I have been decluttering my life for some years now. In terms of material possessions I have reached a point where I consider I have enough. I have the essential now. I have a capsule wardrobe that works for me. I don't own physical books or CD's anymore. I prefer not having decorations on the walls of my home.
Right now I am focusing on the less corporeal items of my life. I've been critically evaluating my online activity for quite a while now.
After I read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport in 2016, a light bulb turned on inside my head that made me think: Am I too distracted? Are we too distracted?
And the answer is “Yes, we are distracted!”. The combination of cellphones and social media has dramatically changed my behavior towards technology and that is scary! I love technology, don't get me wrong. I grew up in the non-digital world and I remember when I connected to the Internet for the first time. The Internet was a marvelous unexplored space with enormous possibilities. It meant freedom! Democratic access to information! Connection!
And now I feel entrapped when I am online. I feel like I don't have control. I feel like I am inside a weird experiment where my choices are not my own. I feel like a victim. So I decided to take some action!
The Process
My decluttering process was like this:
Hello!! It was a little quiet around here and I'll explain why.
Around 6 months me and my husband left our home country to start a new life in Canada (the picture is a hint of exactly Where in Canada). And I can tell you that these first 6 months were intense!
Moving to a foreign country is a marvelous experience. During the first months I felt like I was reborn because I was learning new things 24 hours a day. In a sense I felt like a child again!
Everything was new:
......and many, many more things. It has been quite a ride!
So now that the most urgent life essentials are dealt with, I got a job and my routine is running smoothly, I will get back to writing here.
I survived winter (and loved it!), I saw the Tulips Festival I don't own a TV for the first time in my life and I feel rejuvenated.
I continued to read a lot during these months and I've been rethinking my social media usage.
So, I want to recommend 2 articles by Cal Newport:
They really got me thinking about my relationship with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. What is connection? Is having followers a useful type of connection? Why we feel the need to post photos of our food to strangers? What is happening? Who owns my data after it is published? Aren't we just being used?
Cal Newport makes a distinction between “social internet” and “social media”. The first is about meaningful connections and learning, the second is about companies monetizing these interactions. And Newport gives some ideas on how to embrace the social internet. He is in advocate of everybody having their own website:
“In other words, acquire your own damn digital land on which you can do whatever you want without anyone else trying to exploit you or influence your behavior.” — by Cal Newport
That is an interesting approach because social media is now a huge business in which our attention is being used for monetization. That is scary! And how come clicking a “like” button or blindly sharing headlines have become a social expression?
Anyway, these were all reflections I had during these months amidst living new experiences and having the best time of my life doing so. I will write more about these topics.
Spring is here (if you are in the northern hemisphere) so let's be mindful of our time and escape from being negatively influenced by social media.
Note: Cal Newport is writing a book on “digital minimalism” and I am really looking forward to it!
#socialmedia #attentionresistance
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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.