1. A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers, 365p: I love Becky Chamber's writing style. And this one is a delightful read following the coming of age of two characters from the first book. One is a former sentient ship AI that was transferred to a synthetic humanoid body to move around and explore the world. The other is about a little girl that was born to work in a factory, barely escaping it and being taken care of by an AI. It's so beautifully written! It's focused on character development and the world building just flows with it. It touches on identity, friendship, diversity of gender and sexuality, exploitation, and oppression.  But it's all done through the lens of intimate, emotionally charged characters perspectives. Very well crafted!

2. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Scott Pilgrim #1) by Bryan Lee O'Malley, 168p: After I saw the first season of the 2023 Netflix animation “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” I wanted to get into the original black and white material. And it's so fun! There is a direct reference to Amazon.ca, which is hilarious. Also, I loved the tea scene. Great sense of humour, with Canadian references and funny dialogues. Will continue reading.

3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Scott Pilgrim #2) by Bryan Lee O'Malley, 200p: Sweet and funny. I love the dialogues and the fight scene at the Toronto Reference Library was awesome! I like that there are so some many references to Canadian life, like celebrating the “first t-shirt day” after winter and walking around Toronto seeing a “Second Cup” café and Casa Loma in the background. I already got volumes 3 and 4 from the library to continue reading.

4. A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys, 336p: This is not really my flavour of sci-fi, but it gets points for its unique perspective.  It's a first contact story where the conflicts are not carried in a violent, physical way. For a first alien contact situation, things go pretty smoothly. There is a lot going on here: efforts to reverse climate change, representations of different identities, gender spectrum and sexuality, diverse families, exploitative corporations, Watershed Networks, ecology, Jewish culture, parenting. There is a LOT of talking:  most of the conflicts are resolved with dialogues. The story is told from the main character's point of view, and she doesn't hide her flaws and insecurities: we get to feel them all! I thought the future imagined was too close to our time (50 years ahead) for humanity to have changed that much. Interesting read, but it was not so easy to get to the end. This was a Book Club read for me and it certainly raised intriguing discussions.

5. Exadelic by Jon Evans, 448p: This is a very weird book. It's a mash-up of Ready Player One, with Matrix, Outlander and Assassin's Creed. Seriously there's so much going on here! Dark magic, AI's, time travel, obscure pseudoscience, cults, witches, sex rituals, post-apocalypse worlds (just to name a few). There are a lot of technical programming terms and references which I didn't get most of the time. What kept me reading was wanting to know where the story would end up and yeah, it's bonkers. The short chapters and mini cliff-hangers me helped me stick with it, but it was a wild ride. I wanted to see what the point of the story was, and I don't think I got it at the end.

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Post 10/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

I'm enjoying some slower days at work. There has been only one big procurement project with tight deadlines to deliver a budget. All the other budgets I've been working on are for internal projects, buildings that are already under construction and the deadlines can be easily negotiated. I can allocate enough time to deliver all those budgets comfortably.

This is very unusual! And I'm loving this phase! 🌟

It feels like I'm back in the early 2000's when things overall ran at a slower pace. I remember my first job in a construction company: I didn't have a work mobile phone, the only way to directly contact me at work was via the land line at my desk or in person. I had a computer with internet access, but it was slow and mostly used for checking and sending a few emails. The volume of emails was very manageable, nothing compared to what we have today. I worked on one thing at a time.

Right now, I have plenty of time to plan my day, plan my week, plan my month without feeling I should be tackling my to-do list right away. It’s a refreshing and unique experience: I find my workload to be perfectly manageable.

I like it this way. This situation reminds me of the emerging trend in productivity: slowing down intentionally. I love the ideas described in “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport and “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown, but I recognize that not all work environments allow us to fully implement these ideas. These strategies require a good amount of agency and independence over our workloads.

Despite the obvious challenges of my fast-paced work environment, I'm still convinced I can introduce minor adjustments to my schedule to make it more manageable.

As I said, it's been easy-going these past few weeks, but I know that when things get crazy busy again, I have these tools at my disposal:

• GTD: The GTD framework helps me a lot to make sense of all the “stuff” that comes my way. I use it all the time and when times get tough, it's even more valuable.
• Time Blocking: Finding those small pockets of time for reflection and prioritization (Plan the Day in the morning and doing a Shutdown Routine at the end of the day)
• Short breaks: Using brief moments to breathe, grab a snack or stretch and quick recharge my mental batteries.
• Pomodoro Technique: For when I need deep focus. The ticking timer becomes my companion, urging me forward.
• Remember to Write Down Things: Capture, Capture, Capture! Reduces mental clutter (see GTD above).
• Weekly Review: Another GTD practice that helps turn chaos into order. It’s essential!

As much as I'm enjoying these calm waters at work, I know it won't last forever. The storm will return: the urgent emails, the deadlines, the unexpected crises. But I feel equipped to deal with whatever comes.

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Post 09/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

• 😊 This week just flew by! I thought about how well I'm feeling now if compared to the weeks after I got COVID back in March. My energy levels are back to pre-pandemic levels and I'm sure getting my iron infusion has helped a lot.
• 📝 I am still not sure what got into me that I wanted to change my to-do app to Todoist. I had this plan that I would use it for 90 days to really test it out, but I couldn't stand it more than a couple of days. I think it was the whole overhead of setting it up and wanting it to behave like Nirvana. Lesson learned: it's easier to just use Nirvana than bend something else into being Nirvana-like.
• 🔔 Still on the productivity tools arena, I realized that I was neglecting the Reminders app in iOS. Sometimes I want to set up a reminder and doing it with the Outlook Calendar is not quick and easy. But using the iOS Reminders app is way simpler!

• 👟 Next Sunday I'll do a 10Km race “Run for Women”! And talking about running, this is my log this week:

  1. May 20 => 5.15Km

  2. May 23 => 7.15Km

  3. May 26 => 9.15 Km

• 🎧 I listened to this Cal Newport podcast: EP. 299: OUR LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY and in the Deep Dive segment he talks about the 20-year personal productivity history and what were the books that captured each “trend” throughout the years. From Stephen Covey's “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” to Jenny Odell's “How To Do Nothing”, among others.

• 🎮 I'm still playing Stardew Valley very deliberately and I've made a breakthrough! I finally managed to get a furnace, to turn copper ore into copper bars and finally get a copper axe! Now I can cut down trees, expand my chicken coop, and open some areas for more crops, getting ready for my first winter. I also now have mushrooms in my cave.

• 🧩 Made some progress on our Ancient Map puzzle! All the decorative borders are done!

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Post 08/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

This week I decided I had some time and headspace available to experiment with Todoist for my GTD (Getting Things Done) system. Why??

Back in 2019-2020, I had used Todoist and enjoyed it. But then there was a big update that altered some features and screwed up my existing setup. As a result, I explored other tools, eventually discovering NirvanaHQ (which is my current tool of choice).

I’ve tried Todoist before throughout the years, and I could never get it quite right. I know Todoist development is continually active, and I thought I could give it a go again because… well, maybe this time they’ve changed things that could work for me now? 🤷‍♀️ Also because I felt I could spend some time tinkering with the tool, which I usually enjoy.

So, I tried setting it up again. I took a look at the GTD Official Guide, sat down with my pen and paper and started to think:

• Do I want to link projects to next actions? => Yes!
• Ok, so I will use projects as projects and labels as contexts.
• I want to have projects separated between Work and Personal. Ok.
• I will have Someday-Maybe folders separate for Work and Personal. Ok.
• I will use labels as contexts to organize my next actions. Ok.
• I want to make sure that I don’t see actions that are in Someday-Maybe showing up in my next action lists. Ok, so I will use filters to be able to exclude items that are inactive in Someday-Maybe.
• This is something crucial to me, because sometimes I have a project started, with labeled next actions, which then is postponed or put on hold. I want to be able to move the project to Someday-Maybe so that all of it is removed from next actions. I know I could un-label the actions, but I don’t like doing that (then when it’s active again I would have to re-label everything... not my jam).
• I will have a “Routines” project for all recurring actions (daily. monthly checklists and reviews). Ok.

So, I set up the basic folders. I added initial labels (the typical @computer, @home, @errands, @agendas, @calls). Now it was time to set up the filters. That's when I got frustrated. I know I could set it up the way I wanted it, but the process was not as fun as I've initially imagined 😐.

I had to tweak the filters to exclude incompletable tasks and exclude subtasks from showing by themselves without their parent task (because subtasks can have their own labels in Todoist), to separate work and personal, and on and on.

I had initially thought I would incorporate the priority flags with the context’s filters (something like, P1 is priority, P2 is next, P3 is later, etc...) but THAT was me overcomplicating things! I scratched that idea.

And then I thought about a moment in the future when I wanted to add a new context, and create a filter for it, and all the hassle to have it done. Too complicated! I imagined future me wondering why the hell did I complicate things this much?

Long story short…

…the energy and disposition I thought I had to set up Todoist wasn't there anymore. I'd rather spend that time reading a book.

And when I went back to my normal day, using Nirvana as usual, I just felt this peace and calm, seeing everything organized in its place. I recognized I already have a system that JUST WORKS as it is. Is it perfect? Hell, no! But it works for me! 😊

I was also altering a previous Todoist setup I had in my account, so maybe that was the wrong approach. I should have deleted everything and started 100% from scratch. But now I don’t really want to try Todoist anymore. I am happy with what I currently have.

So that's the story of my failed experiment. I could have pushed through and had all the context filter issues sorted out? Yes, I'm sure I could have. It's not Todoist's fault. It's a great app. But just not for me at this moment in my life.

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Post 07/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

• 🏝️ I got 2 days off work and had an extra-long weekend with Monday 20th being a holiday here! 🥳 I didn’t have anything planned, I just took the time to relax and slow down. Reading, journaling, playing Stardew Valley, long walks, yoga and running. That’s about sums it up!
• 📖 I finished reading “A Closed and Common Orbit” by Becky Chambers and I absolutely loved it! I also had lots of fun reading “Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life” by Bryan Lee O'Malley.
• ✈️ We finally booked our flights to Brazil. We will travel in December, so we wanted to guarantee the best rates because we know prices will only go up from now on. Excited to go but also not too excited to be there in the high of summer (it’s going to be 40C ! ).
• 🎒 I’ve decided to upgrade some of my daily gear: my old backpack and my wallet. I’ve been using the same for quite some time now. The wallet could easily be 20 years old, the backpack maybe 15+ years? I’m not sure. I got myself a tote bag that turns into a backpack and a wallet that has a pocket for a phone and can also turn into a mini cross-body purse. I was inspired by the upcoming trip, and I wanted to be prepared with versatile gear.
• 📒 And talking about changes: I’m rethinking my GTD system, more specifically the app I use every day for tasks. I’m feeling less anxiety overall and I feel ready to explore other options. I want to be able to capture things more easily across my devices reducing ALL the friction. Also, I miss reminders and being able to customize a few lists. I feel I’m in a good headspace to spend time tweaking and testing with no rush.
• 📝 So, I decided I will test out Todoist for 90 days and see how it goes. It will require some time to set it up, test it, tweak it. Nirvana gives me structure and boundaries. Todoist a highly customizable app and I feel I’m ready to dive into something less structured. I’m in an adventurous vibe now!

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Post 06/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

• 📒I stopped time blocking hour by hour with Cal Newport's planner, and I'm doing a more “focus of the day” type of planning with the Rocketbook week spread pages. I'm liking it. It gives me a different perspective. Stil testing how it goes.
• 🚄I finally booked my train ticket to Scintillation 5 in Montreal. It’s a small literary convention where we geek out about sci-fi and fantasy, mostly.
• 👷‍♀️I went to a job site visit with my estimating team. It’s always nice to see in full scale what we measure on paper.
• Me and my partner went the Tulip Festival this weekend. It was an hour bike ride to get there, and it was very busy! The tulips were in full bloom, it was a nice day.
• 🏝️I’m taking 2 days off work this week for the Victoria Day holiday. Yay!

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Post 05/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

This is a note to self about planning my day:

• Lunch & Shutdown: Schedule the Lunch break and the Shutdown blocks.
• Email time: Add blocks to handle emails.
• Meeting Buffers: Insert buffer times before and after meetings for preparation and follow-up.
• Breaks: Add breaks/snack time.
• Check-ins: Rearrange my “Organizing” and “Check-in” blocks.
• Work Focus Blocks: Add work blocks by context or projects
• While I'm working on focused blocks, don't look at emails!
• Revise plan as needed.
• 🍵Take it slow, no need to rush!

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Post 04/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

• 📒I've been using my Rocketbook for a week or so now, and I'm enjoying it! I didn't like the pen that comes with it (a 0.7mm black Frixion) and got 0.5mm Frixion Synergy pens in assorted colors and I love them. I've always liked smooth paper, so it wasn't hard for me to adjust to the polyester paper.
• ✏️After getting an executive size Rocketbook I got a letter sized one, which is bigger for planning and time blocking. I still don’t know if I want to use both at work or use one for personal notes and the other for work notes/planning. I’ll experiment more this week.
• 📅I used my big Rocketbook to plan the month. Even though I have all the events on my digital Calendar, writing them down manually helps me become more aware and less anxious about the future. It just makes things more tangible if that makes sense.
• 🎈I’ve been thinking about better organizing my blog ideas. I have a list in Standard Notes, but I forget to look at it. I’m thinking if I should have them in my to-do list, in a separate Areas of Focus in Nirvana. And then, how to I get down to write? I’ve been not feeling very wordy lately. Some food for thought.
• 📺I started watching the Fallout Series on Amazon Prime. I never really played the games (I can’t remember why it was never on my radar) but the show is really good. I like the dark humour/satirical tone in it and the 50’s aesthetic.
• 🎸Had a good time re-listening to the first Black Sabbath album from 1970 on the radio. Every Sunday night my city’s local rock station plays a classic rock album non-stop. It’s called the Sunday Night Vinyl Series. With music streaming services I spend way less time listening to full albums.

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Post 03/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

1. Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes #0) by Travis Baldree, 339p: I loved going back to this cozy fantasy world with a younger Viv. We can see how her experiences in this book lead to her choices in the first book. Viv is injured on a fight, and she must stay in this small town to recover. She ends up making friends, helping the town people and discovered a passion for reading. I loved the bookshop being renovated! And Viv's enjoyment of romance books, it was so relatable! It's the perfect read to get out of a book slump or just have fun and relax.

2. That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Demon (Mead Mishaps #1) by Kimberly Lemming, 277: This was a fun read in a medieval fantasy setting with lots of humour and romance. It's funny, whimsical and can't be taken seriously. There are demons, all kinds of shape shifters and evil witches. The language is very modern and full of slang.  I gotta say that there were some violent deaths that were dissonant with the book vibes. It's not a book you read for the plot, you read it for the laughs and feel-good vibes.

3. The Getting Things Done Workbook: 10 Moves to Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen, Brandon Hall, 224p: This was a re-read for me. I got out of the GTD wagon, and I just needed a quick workbook to get back to the basics. I realized there were some issues with my capturing habit and that I was overcomplicating things. It’s a nice GTD refresher.

4. Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport, 256p: Interesting ideas about knowledge work, and how to adopt a slower pace while doing relevant things. It's perfect for people who have lots of autonomy towards their work. I didn't feel I could use all the suggestions presented. Even though I'm a knowledge worker, I don't really have that much control over my working hours to be able to work at a natural pace or really do fewer things. I enjoyed the story about how Jane Austen got to write her books (it was NOT by writing a few words here and there in between house chores). Maybe because I've been listening to the author's podcast, I didn't find the book to be ground-breaking, and I already knew most of the stories he uses as example or inspiration to the slow productivity principles. It was not a hugely impactful book for me if compared to his previous ones.

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Post 02/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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

• 🥳The horrible COVID headaches are gone!
• 📒I got a reusable notebook: Rocketbook Fusion and some blue and colored Pilot Frixion Synergy pens in 0.5mm. It comes with a black 0.7mm and I prefer writing in blue. I really like the feel of writing on it, it's exceptionally smooth. I haven't had much time to use it, I'll test it more in the following days.
• ✏️I realized (not surprisingly) that handwriting makes me slow down, it's good for me! And my handwriting got worse over the years. Gotta practice more!
• 🚲Me and my partner went for our first bike ride of the year after the winter. It was a total of 37km, I was completely exhausted after the ride but feeling great! It was 21C, perfect weather. I anticipate some post-exercise muscle pain tomorrow.
• 📺We got 30 days of Amazon Prime (trial) and we caught up on the “The Grand Tour: Sand Job (S05 E03)“. Just fun with cars and gorgeous visuals, this time they start in Mauritania and drive all the way to Dakar in Senegal.

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Post 01/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

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