The Art Of Not Asking Why

Good morning!

Todays breakfast sandwich 🥪 is one of my favorites: goat cheese, reddish, brussels sprouts, and mustard.

Have you ever read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? There’s a catchy phrase there, TINSTAAFL: there is no such thing as a free lunch. I want to suggest TINSTAFM: there is no such thing as five minutes. Any takers?

I tried to get into Stage Manager like all the cool kids for the last two days, but I can’t. The idea is nice, but it’s just so unintuitive. I keep fighting the UI, and I don’t need this level of separation between apps. I’m used to work with virtual desktops.

I must have spent an hour this morning reading posts on Microblog. Intriguing points from @jack, a relatable post from @amit, and a nicely written opinion from @ayjay, who I discovered today through the magic of Discover. Speaking of Discover, I got my personal card & stickers! Thanks @jean !

I picked up The Maid by Nita Prose 📚 at random from the library recommendations (most popular list of fiction). Read a sample, felt the writing is to my liking, and now I’m two chapters in. I think I will enjoy this one.

Anyone has an idea how to quickly scan something to iCloud as a PDF file? I want an independent PDF, not the Notes version.

Currently I go to Files > menu > scan document. I want something quicker and more intuitive.

2024-08-11: Since then, I found an iOS Shortcut that does the above workflow and placed it on my homescreen.

I finished reading: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch 📚 last night. I feel the central idea of this book, multiple parallel dimensions, is discussed too often these days. The story takes it a little further and gives it more of a scientific flavor. The plot is interesting, though cliche and somewhat flat.

A good checklist…

1. Breaks down complex known projects (“How do I start this huge task?")¹.
2. Shows a clear start and a clear end (has a known goal)
3. Goes by order (first A, then B, then C. Not A and then D)
4. Contains short steps (the law of three to four words)²
5. is NOT time-based (a time of day, how long to do, etc.)

Here’s a good example, my “Rebound” checklist:

• Check ServiceNow (SNOW) for new Tasks
• Check Outlook for current flags/pins
• Check Outlook for new emails to flag
• Check Teams' activity for chats I’ve missed
• Check Slack

It is a complex project, and I can feel lost starting when I need to catch up with work, and I’m worried I missed something.

It does not show a clear start or end, though those are known: I start not knowing what’s going on, and by the end, I have an idea of what I missed.

Interestingly, order here is not critical, though it is implied by my priorities. Tasks in SNOW are the first to catch up with, then Outlook for flags and pins I tend to use when I can’t digest emails fully and convert them to a doable task.

Then, read emails to search for potential emails that look important and make them into tasks (or respond to emails and ask for more information to determine if there’s a task to do there and what it is.)

Then, Check Teams. People chat me, and I can miss it. Usually, when I receive a chat through Teams directly (someone is giving me a task), I create a task workflow on the spot or create it through our digital form at work (or ask them to do it so I have a record). The case here is not for that; it’s just to catch things I might have missed when I was grabbing lunch or something of the sort.

Lastly, Slack is our announcement medium for outages or similar events, though I usually get the information via Email or Teams first. It’s a good place to check to be aware if something should be made into a website announcement, a mass email, alerts, etc.

With checklists, the longer they are, in a way, the better they justify their use case. The best examples I remember are my checklists for setting up computers manually. Some of those include information that is still relevant today. At the same time though, if a checklist starts to feel tedious and I check certain items off automatically or delete them because they are not applicable, it needs to be adjusted/shortened.

Let’s talk about what checklists are not.

Checklists are not what’s going to make my day a productive one. They are a part of of my toolset, so I have to use them first. Besides, I can’t just make up stuff to use checklists for and hope to feel “productive.”

To reinforce my idea above, Checklists are not a workflow or a knowledge article. Explanations and visual aids do not belong in checklists; they belong in notes associated (and linked) to the list. Why? Because instructions make the checklist long and bloated. It’s also not a good place to find the needed information in the future. Finally, checklists are personal and should be adjusted as such, but information should be basic and accessible to others.

Because checklists are often closely associated with information and remind me of the “whys” of a certain thing, putting them at the head of an information article or a note makes sense, as long as a header or a subtitle separates them.

Footnotes

¹ : This means checklists are used for known procedures. Don’t use checklists for new tasks and projects which require more exploration. The brainstorming at the start of a new project is not a checklist. However, familiar components inside a new project (for example, a packing list as part of a trip which in itself is a project) can be checklists.

² : Checklists sum up information and may follow procedures. If explanations are needed, these should be in the notes below the list. It’s OK to have a whole workflow explained as long as the steps are clear and short in the checklist itself.

So I gave up on Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake 📚 a few weeks back. I found that the more I read, the more I forced myself to keep it up. It’s an OK book, well written, but there isn’t much content, and it seems like the author is repeating the same points over and over. Still, I learned fascinating things about mushrooms (for one, they’re not really plants; for another, they are the most likely to cause a zombie apocalypse), and I have way more respect for them now.

I guess it’s my turn to test Scribe from @amit. I’m especially interested in it because I tend to use the micro.blog web interface often. My tool of choice when writing long-form is Emacs. This post is in Scribe, and I closed the tab by mistake. Good test because when I re-opened Scribe, what I wrote was right there. It’s very clean, and I like the font of choice. It doesn’t look like it works with Grammarly (which I use in my browser), but that might be because of my own configuration on this Mac.

Another good design call is Markdown formatting when highlighting text. Some options are missing (like strikethrough, which I’m trying out above, and links), but most writing functions are there.

Somewhat better now… Added a bunch of my old posts with photos to the photos category, so they now show on the photos page. Photos, just to say the word one more time.

Meh. A second morning of poor sleep. The humid grey depressing weather outside doesn’t help much. I need the energy to work on several projects, but I’m all out. A stamina potion would be nice.

This weekend, I wiped my Windows partition and managed to delete my local Linux backup & games with it. Reinstalled Windows. Windows was happy to kill Grub. Fixed Grub. Found out I can’t boot into my Linux Mint partition. On the other hand, Windows can now finally handle VMware, so I’m setting up a virtual Linux machine for my Linux needs. Windows runs smoothly like it hasn’t for more than a year, making it a good gaming experience.

A new S3 Video..! About time.

In this video:

1. Arc browser
2. My new Photos page, why, and what it shows
3. How to talk to people - a podcast
4. Using the iPhone (or just using a "normal" smartphone again)
5. How much should we blog? (inspired by Jack's blog)
6. A couple of updates

Today we ran out of almond milk, so I tried flax milk. Bleeeh 🤢. Not a fan. I will need to make myself a regular latte later. Almond and sometimes oat milk with 0g sugar please, That’s how I roll.