Dinner for Eight
Near the middle of the summer of 2021 I sat down and have dinner with most of my team at work. There were exactly eight of us. The flow of the conversation and evening went perfectly. I started thinking to myself is 8 the magic number for a dinner party? Especially important as we restore a our social lives to a semblance of what was. But if we resort to the same old two step are we doing ourselves a disservice? Yes, this is an epistemological look at the structure of a dinner party. If experience is the stuff of life and dinner parties are an experience, than this is important stuff to ruminate on.
Deliberate Practice
The deliberate practitioner won’t just rely on one source for skill development. You have to learn across multiple mediums. Go out and read on the history of your interest, listen to podcasts, and watch how-to tutorials from masters.
Optimizing a Home Office
Work From Home has become what my wife calls, live at work. Each one of us adapting in our own way to a semi-permanent remote worker status. Dining room tables, closets, garages, and empty guest rooms have transformed into make shift offices and classrooms. My experience in working remotely for extended periods of time is not new. Having worked from home in some capacity since 2008. During that time it became clear to us the value of planning office space in your home in some capacity up front.
90-Days of Fender Play
Sharing a short post that demonstrates some of the techniques and styles I learned after 90-days of practicing with Fender Play. Please forgive the audio quality. I don't have a proper amp, and attempted to record through GarageBand & QuickTime without adjusting the tuning. Also, keep in mind, I am a lazy musician and started from scratch.
Hobbies to Habits to Skills
A formal education is great. but it is not the only way to learn. So long as you can read and digest information, you can learn. So read what you are interested in and let those topics organically lead you from one subject to another. You will learn naturally without pressure to keep up with a curriculum. This approach is known as Interest Based Learning. Many home schoolers are familiar with this style of learning but it is atypical for all other styles of formal education. I wasn’t home schooled, but can see how this environment is great for picking up and diving deeper into new subjects.
Dry and Veggie January Reflections
We decided to participate in Dry January and added on a Vegetarian (not Vegan) only diet for the start of the year. Another idea we discussed was also cutting out coffee, but two changes were more than enough. We did, however, try to cut the caffeine down to one cup a day and no sooner than 1.5 hours after waking up. But like I said earlier, crash changes are not sustainable or successful. So we planned some approaches around how to stick to and get the most out of these experiments.
Finding Time for Hobbies
Defining a plan for the day, sets the chess board and allows you to see all the moves you can make to maximize your day. Being rested gives you the energy you need to get through the low periods. Isolating tasks gives you the concentration you need to get challenging tasks done.
How I Work
This post is inspired by and modeled after the Lifehacker Series by the same name. I thought to create a similar post after a flurry of mentoring meetings with Colleagues and Graduate & Undergraduate Students. Many of the questions asking about my working approach reminding me of the Lifehacker posts. So, through the sincerest flattery, I will summarize here, my approach to productivity and work.
My Design Obsession
Great design can be applied to yourself as well. Every decision factors into how we design the experience of our lives. Whether we create or just consume. What are commute will be, or how our weekends will flow, or what our morning routine will be. We can sketch out truly meaningful and interesting lives when we apply careful reflection on past experiences and emotions and an eye on the bigger picture.