A few gems in this podcast interview of Chris Bailey on the Ezra Klein Show
Productivity is accomplishing what you set out to do.
Maybe simple, but I keep back to it. It clarifies the misconception that being always busy must mean you’re productive.
It also drives into another point towards the end of the episode:
SnippetThe best benchmark the we can use to measure productivity is by measuring it against the intentions that we set at the start of the day.
It’s a useful leadership tool. Today our CEO told me:
Let’s define a principle: if you’re removing work from someone by standardizing a process, I’m going to be on board.
This is actionable, versatile and clear. It helped me with the specific question I had, but also provided guidance for future ones I don’t know I have yet.
Daily Post WorkI have too many keyboards. There are at least 4 good ones on my gadgets drawer. They all share a story about being needed to better type on an iPad — or even a Mac.
The feeling of typing on a physical keyboard is something I truly enjoy. A post typed on a real keyboard will probably fulfill me more than touch typing the same post with my thumbs on an iPhone.
However, most of the recent posts have been typed on a glass screen. It’s the keyboard that’s available when I can write. And writing is not about the clicks or the taps, it’s about moving the cursor to the right.
Daily PostRobie is 1040 days old today and I’m beyond fascinated by the level of interaction he’s reaching.
Over the past couple of weeks, he seems to have developed into an opinionated and articulated being — and I can’t get enough.
We are starting to have actual conversations, where I can see original ideas coming to him and interests not copied from Ana or myself.
Experiencing this is among the most fulfilling things in my life, and I can only grin thinking about the next 1040 days.
Personal Daily PostHow much would Steve Jobs or Paul Allen have paid to have my good health? For how much would I have accepted their health in exchange?
Every time I worry about money, these questions bubble up at some point to give me perspective. Many of us are filthy rich by this measure — and I can’t be thankful enough for it.
The shopping cart emoji on a stores folder evokes a pleasing sensation — while using the credit card emoji does give me pause.
Renaming my folders with emojis is a fun test. But using symbols that not necessarily represent what’s inside them, rather than trying to influence my behavior with emojis that are attractive or disagreeable — is my real experiment.
Leaving your next day clothes ready the evening before is probably the best productivity advise I learned at Procter & Gamble. I did so by accident — my boss casually mentioned some of the learnings from a manager’s training she attended.
Almost 15 years later, a simple lunch comment has stayed with and affected most of my work life.
Some days there’s not enough time for all the things you plan to do, but make sure you push back by doing the things you want to do.
Time can bend. The strict calendar rectangles hide moments in between.
And the feeling of fighting time and winning once in a while makes it worth trying.
That’s probably the last thing someone says before telling you something that does make your blood pressure go up.
It might be uncomfortable but sometimes it’s necessary to transmit the importance of a result.
When you hear no pressure, don’t focus on the perfect outcome — that could be paralyzing. Make sure you can continually update those who decide the expected outcome given any changing conditions.
Traveling without roaming is among my top 10 first world worst problems. But being offline for the last 24 was a gift. I was present in time and space with those around me, and I channeled my impulses to check the data-less iPhone to interact more with them.
Enjoying the airport WiFi like a good meal after a fast, but the was something during the break that I want to explore more.
Not all good lessons come from dead greek philosophers. Here’s three things childhood friends said that have stuck with me over the years.
On being a good teacher:
Don’t ask did you understand?, ask did I explain myself?.
On a good marriage:
Never keep score. That’s not how the game is played.
On good parenting:
It’s a destination, so don’t try to get there in a straight line. There’ll be lots of course corrections.
When you design in the beautiful world of diagrams, everything is known. A task can either be this or that. Committees or Approval Boards decide if something moves on to the next stage. Assessment agents decide the type of request and sends it on its way.
But what if you don’t know?. A new process can’t have every sort of input typified. This leads to a pause in the process because its actors want to be sure and request more information. Now the beautiful flowchart is like a park without efficient walkways: the grass shows dirt paths were people are taking shortcuts.
Give uncertain items a way out of decision points in your flowchart, because corner cases love to create bottlenecks
Some days will be bad. Friction and uncertainty are implied when trying to create something, and that means not all plans will work out.
But the default day can be designed to lean towards good. Break projects into smaller pieces, make a lunch walk a habit, sneak some reading into the day. Find what gives you a boost and design your day so that it incorporates these nuggets.
Nobody owes you a good day, but if we’re spending it sitting in front of a screen with air conditioning and a water fountain close by — we still have it better than almost everyone in the history of humanity.
When designing a process that needs an approval scheme, look for the number of times attention is required — you may not have to break down and classify all possible requests.
If an approver has to check once a week a report that includes 30 requests and can pick out any that seems strange, the volume of requests is not 30, it’s 1.
The natural tendency is that you’ll try to create filters so that only major items are escalated. But it’s possible that you’re wasting more aggregate time than a simple straight to the top process would take.
This insight isn’t mine. I was defining an unnecessarily complex process for work and went for a sanity check with my boss. Glad I did.
Not going to sleep when I’m tired is among the most stupid things I do. When my day self keeps clicking around instead of diving into a task — I know I’m being dumb, but it’s a likable idiot.
But after the kids are asleep and the eyelids are heavy, to allow the moment to pass because there’s a YouTube review I have to watch?
If I’m not going to be more productive everyday, at least I should be more lazy. Otherwise my time here is really being wasted.
When having a political or controversial discussion — and you sincerely want to evolve the points of view — there’s value in sharing your bias up front.
If both parts want to have a dance of ideas, it will give context and allow everybody to more wisely choose their contributions. Otherwise, the deadlock can be achieved even before the shouting match begins, and everyone saved some time.
A few episodes into The Dragon Prince and falling in love with it as I did with The Last Airbender a few years ago. Both the world and its characters have something that makes them real.
Being realistic does not make it relatable. Great fantasy can be more faithful to reality.
We ordered a pizza today from our favorite local Italian place vía Uber Eats. It was early, but it started raining pretty hard. Our pizza was picked up by Yenari (she/her) on a bicycle and delivery was estimated in 10 minutes. It’s seemed pretty accurate compared to past orders.
It’s still raining Costa Rica rainforest style. I worry a bit, the route to the restaurant is simple, but it’s a long hill. 5 minutes later: We’re sorry, your order has been cancelled.
Inconvenient, yes — hungry kids make millennials look like monks — but… what happened to Yenari? Is she alright? Did she fall or decide it wasn’t worth the $3?
It’s an open secret that the gig economy is a stepping stone to the self-driving pizza box revolution. But in the meantime, I’d be ok with more context about people who will arrive at my door with food my family will eat.
I’ve bragged about my backups before, which is why I was horrified yesterday to find out my personal MacBook — the one I got just to keep a local copy of all photos at full resolution and back them up at a different place than iCloud — had not done a backup since November 2017.
So do yourself a favor and check your backup software this weekend:
Over the past year, coffee has been my fixation. I’ve consumed hours of videos, bought books, perused blogs and browsed products. As a result, personalized recommendation engines have gone nuts and suddenly YouTube, Google News, and Amazon only display coffee stuff. A vicious cycle develops.
At this point, I become pure theory. I know proportions, methods, and origins. But I haven’t really tried any of it.
This isn’t bad, it’s just important I recognize the stage. It’s now time to get down and dirty. Mess up trying and experiment. It’s time to practice.
This will take a while, but slowly the fog of knowing is lifted and learning begins. With it, your tastes and preferences become real. And when you’re about to get bored… an opinion forms.
Now it’s time to go back to studying.
Perusing through my journal I found this from 2016:
You really can’t appreciate being grateful, until you have children.
I was probably a bit sleep deprived then, but it surprises me how much that feeling has grown.
Not saying that before I didn’t know what being grateful was, or that I understand it better now. Just that the word and its meaning have changed exponentially for me in the past two years.
Makes me wonder what other words I can take a snapshot today, and enjoy the change in a few years.
Measure twice and cut once sounds great, but it usually runs against the more realistic perfect is the enemy of good. However, you should never jump to the other extreme not measuring — or what is almost the same: trusting the measurements provided by others.
I was reminded of this by the new Screen Time in iOS 12. As an impatient fanboi, I enabled a daily 1 hour allowance on my Social Network group apps as soon as I upgraded my iPhone. I started hitting the limit on Tweetbot, Amaroq and Instagram right away, but I trusted it was measuring the right thing.
The fail became evident today when in a middle of a work call, Skype reached the Social Network limit.
I lost 1 week of behavior data which I could have used to apply representative limits per apps. A borderline banal problem in the real world, but an actual lesson to self when looking at fast implementations of any software/system.
Growing up, I remember my dad usually having some sort of home improvement project over the weekend: fixing the ice machine, clogged shower head, or even replacing some plumbing.
Since I’m a old millennial that always rents, my projects at most involves hanging a shelf. But, on the digital world, I’ve also be slacking on my home front.
Some improvements I’m thinking of:
As I write, many more come to mind. But the actual list is not that important, it’s knowing that there’s an improvement project that needs to happen — rather than refreshing tweetbot yet again.
Date 2018-09-22 23:00
I’m beta testing Blot’s new Git client — rather than the original Dropbox system — and I’m giddy of how cool it is to post now.
I see some advantages and some pain points. It’s fully reversible, so I’ll play with it a few weeks and decide.
In case anyone’s wondering, I ordered an iPhone XS 256GB Space Gray with the new AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss warranty.
I’m very excited — since I’m upgrading from an iPhone 7, it’ll be a major jump. The wait wasn’t as painful as expected, and I’m happy to be back on a S upgrade cycle 1. I had no doubt I’d upgrade this year so my finger was already on the mouse button to buy the XS even before it was announced. Still, the bang for the buck’ness of iPhone XR did give me a little pause.
Since I’d already convinced myself that I wanted an OLED screen, the impasse lasted very little. But there’s no doubt it’s a great year to be getting an iPhone.
The new AppleCare+ is another very nice — and as usual with Apple, expensive — service. I haven’t broken my iPhone screen more than twice in the last 9 years, but ever since I first signed up to the first iPhone Upgrade Program I’d worried about losing my iPhone and be left the payments. The simplicity of the program won me over:
Many traditional plans offered through carriers and other insurance providers often require customers to file and get a police report. Apple’s requirement is that the Find My iPhone app is switched on at the time the phone is lost or stolen.
Also different this year I didn’t get the iPhone Upgrade Program. Since I no longer have a major carrier mobile line (switched to Google Fi) I didn’t want to wait until it was available for sim-free phones. I did buy it with PayPal Credit, which claims to give me 6 months interest free payment — we’ll see how that works out.
So how do I like it now that it was delivered? No clue. I’m in Costa Rica, so I have to wait a few weeks before I visit Miami and pick it up… but the picture of the box sure looks nice.
My iPhone models until now: Original -> 3GS -> 4S -> 5S -> 6 -> 6S -> 7.↩︎
From the site:
A snappy UI, three-way merge tool, side-by-side diffs, syntax highlighting, and more.
Sublime Text is always open on my Mac — I use it for everything from complex text manipulation to a simple pad for content. We also use Git everyday, but I only need to observe the process. Still, I haven’t found a Git client that clicks with me.
I’ll be testing this out on the next few weeks.
snippetsFrom the site:
A snappy UI, three-way merge tool, side-by-side diffs, syntax highlighting, and more.
Sublime Text is always open on my Mac — I use it for everything from complex text manipulation to a simple pad for content. We also use Git everyday, but I only need to observe the process. Still, I haven’t found a Git client that clicks with me.
I’ll be testing this out on the next few weeks.
snippetsGoogle says that there are still a few features due to make the migration from Inbox, specifically the “bundles” that group similar emails together into a single block, like those related to a single trip. That’s coming to Gmail, but there’s no word yet on the timeline for it.
Crap. Inbox is my default email client on the iPhone, and my cleanup-mode email app on the desktop (maybe 30%). Since I’m still on the iPhone 7, I didn’t notice the lack of iPhone X update — so this caught me off-guard.
Guess I’ll follow along to Gmail, but for now lack of bundles and overall flow doesn’t make it a sub-par alternative for me.
snippetsBettina’s nocturnal fun times and some recent trips have allowed to watch a few shows and movies:
It’s amazing how something can have such an impact without ever needing to shout the message or repeat everything in slow-motion. The documentary clarified my vague understanding of the Vietnam War in both timeline and events.
By itself, the story can be emotional. But when I started to see (or imagine) similarities with Venezuela, I couldn’t help ending a few of the episodes holding back tears.
I’m blessed with such a bad memory that very little of Neil Gaiman’s TK amazing book ruined the episodes. Regardless, I believe the show is loosely based on it — which usually is bad news, but on this case. While the episodes take a different road from the book, the universe feels very faithful. The anglo magic-realism is authentic, and the characters are familiar.
I’m not crazy that the first season is a huge setup for what’s to come. But it did leave me ready for season two.
As dumb as you expect for a movie of the TV show. But very passable fun.
Dumber than you expect for the TV show. But I did laugh a few times.
Sadly the best bits are on the trailer. Fun to watch overall, but I was bored a few times. Surely I’ll enjoy it more if Robie is every into Batman Lego.
Finally saw the live action Ghost in the Shell movie over the weekend. Expectations were low, so I came out enjoying it. The story, setting and most characters felt coherent with the anime — which I enjoy a lot.
Best superhero movie I’ve seen. Self-contained, for those that don’t follow the comic universe, yet still very satisfying for those who do. Start Wars learns from this film that not all movies need the same format.
Not at all the romance-comedy with a twist I was expecting — in a good way. Left me thinking back on it for a while, which I always consider the highest level of flattery.
Best Spider-Man since they 2002 movie — actually better. The voice and tone of the actor matches the one in the comic almost perfectly in my head. I’ve watch parts of this afterwards with Robie a few times and we both really enjoy it.
An above average based on a true story about how crazy the war on drugs was during the 80’s, greatly acted by Tom Cruise and with some excellent aircraft advisors. The flying scenes were so good, that they made me really like the movie.
Review TVLast Friday I deactivated my Twitter account in protest for the lack of support of 3rd Party APIs. While I have no illusion that: 1) I’ll activate it again a few weeks and, 2) the protest itself was a mere blip in Twitter’s radar. I wanted my data point to exist.
My love for Twitter goes back a decade. I joined in 2006 and like many, didn’t use it much until the iPhone apps started coming out. I then drank the pulse of the planet Kool-Aid, pushed friends to use DMs as BlackBerry Messenger replacements, asked for jobs saying Twitter was going to be great, and even defended it user base stagnation.
But across all of the above, unofficial apps have always been the window to Twitter — which is specially funny since for a long while, there were no official apps. But I digress.
I’ve given up hope for Twitter to be the pulse of the planet, and accepted it’ll likely end up the hyperventilation of media networks. Still, I wanted to make a point. And over the past few days without a Twitter account, something fascinating has happened:
Although I miss the pull to refresh like crazy, I haven’t missed any news — even with massive devaluations, earthquakes and other breaking events.
At the end of the day, there’s a blog post, or news article that references the most important tweets and summarizes the event. Without the need of me refreshing every 5 seconds and having to read the other 99% of the noise.
Yet I can’t deny not to miss the water fountain discussion. Reading why my favorite app developers are reading, what people I find interesting find interesting. In a perfect world, we all have a blog and it’s easy to see the streams post and micropost and interact. Sadly, while the Micro.blog ship is catching some speed, it’s far from taking off.
That’s where Mastodon comes in. For a great overview just check First Time Tooter, Long Time Tweeter, but long story short, it’s a Twitter-like social network with federated instances that interact with each other. While it has being around for some time — the geek sphere unnoticeable protest on Twitter has been noticeable on Mastodon.
I’ve very surprised how much I’m enjoying my Mastodon use. The tone is friendlier, and at least on the instance I joined — Mastodon.technology the generally chatter is usually interesting. The apps are still lagging, but I’m enjoying Tootdon and Amaroq on iOS, and the Tweetdeck like website works good enough on the Mac.
I’m not sure if Mastodon is going to be big — it’s just not built to beat Twitter. However, I’m ready to call it: Mastodon will be a thing for a long time.
If you wanna check it out (or already are), you can find me at @roberto@mastodon.technology. Toot toot.
Choosing between Walmart/Kobo and Amazon (and Apple for that matter) for a digital ecosystem is about the lesser of two evils. I’ve being moving away from DRM content over the past year for my library — either by buying non-DRM content or removing it. It rarely is cheaper, but it continues to approach Amazon prices lately.
I really want to switch away from Kindle devices for my next eBook reader. The Kobo’s look solid, and support regular ePub’s as far as I know.
For audiobooks, I cancelled my Audible subscription last year and have been winding down my backlog. But for new audiobooks I’ve gone to Downpour, and their non-DRM system works great.
snippetsNot much details, just the rumored confirmation that new entry MacBook’s and Mac Mini are coming. Happy for the MacBook news, because I’d actually have been recommending ChromeBooks for an ever increasing use-cases.
On the Mac Mini side, I’m cautiously optimistic — a powerful cheap Mac always sounds great. But Apple cheap is never what you expect. And when the product arrives, you start to notice that maybe the iMac is not as expensive as you thought, or that an used MacBook Pro might me a better bang for the buck.
Regardless, is great to dream about new affordable Mac’s.
snippetsTake to the skies with Star Wars Resistance. Premieres Sunday, October 7
Yes, oh yes. Robie, Bettina and yours truly will be watching this in October.
snippetsIt has a 3.3-inch screen and a rounded webOS devices look:
Android Police acquired images of a device codenamed “Pepito” — a beef steak sandwich common in Mexico and Venezuela — that features the new “PALM” branding on the back of the phone.
I got to see one of these in person.
snippets[…] freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of mankind by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships.
A NYT article led me to Andrei Sakharov’s Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom essay. To say I’m still digesting is a real understatement. Powerful ideas in writing have the ability to flow in time and still sound fresh to first time readers.
This quote on Natan Sharansky’s article hits my Venezuelan sensitivities dead-on:
snippetsThey want us to believe there’s no chance of success. But whether or not there’s hope for change is not the question. If you want to be a free person, you don’t stand up for human rights because it will work, but because it is right. We must continue living as decent people.
Today, we’re announcing that Pinterest has entered into an agreement to transfer ownership of Instapaper to Instant Paper, Inc., a new company owned and operated by the same people who’ve been working on Instapaper since it was sold to betaworks by Marco Arment in 2013.
Instapaper is probably the most continually installed app on my iPhone. I bought the original iPad daydreaming about using it. My saved for later articles directly represents my interests, intentions and state of mind throughout the years. I’ve gone months without opening it and hours with only it open.
Right now it shares an uncomfortable balance with Safari’s Reading list — but if I want to highlight and take notes, it’s what I use to export the notes in Markdown to Day One.
Instapaper is an App which I have bought, subscribed, abandoned and reinstalled. It’s an App I care about and I’m hopeful this is good news.
snippetsOften I’ll want to see the difference between two releases on GitHub. Typically there is a CHANGELOG that will tell me a between versions but what if I want to see a diff between two versions that aren’t sequential? GitHub offers a way to do this. […]
https://github.com/
<user>/<repo>/compare/<beginning-tag>…<ending-tag>
This tip by Peter Ramsing has changed my life. Proofing my Release Notes now is so much easier.
snippetsApple is considering creating a single subscription offering that would encompass its original TV shows, music service and magazine articles […]
Very compelling. We’re currently a Spotify and Netflix home — and I enjoy both services. But if Apple’s tv offering has an interesting show lineup, enough back catalog fillers like Netflix, and a good combo price for all, I’d consider it.
snippetsApple is considering creating a single subscription offering that would encompass its original TV shows, music service and magazine articles […]
Very compelling. We’re currently a Spotify and Netflix home — and I enjoy both services. But if Apple’s tv offering has an interesting show lineup, enough back catalog fillers like Netflix, and a good combo price for all, I’d consider it.
snippetsOver the years I’ve rarely abandoned fiction books, but the past year has been a shameful display of towel throwing. What made it strange was how some of these sounded just amazing when I decided to pick the up.
I present my current bookshelf of shame:
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson. Great world and disaster story/history, sprinkled with dumb and uninteresting characters.
Artemis by Andy Weir. I kept imagining a fake sitcom laugh after much of the dialogue. Will probably make a fun movie, but as a book I got really bored by page 100.
Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente. I was not in the mood for the restless writing style, no comas, long paragraphs — so many jokes strung together. A new H2G2 it’s not, but I may revisit.
Black Star Renegades by Michael Moreci. Will likely revisit if in a YA novel mood. I wanted to slap the rascal main character too much — maybe I’m getting old.
The Nix by Nathan Hill. Very likely to revisit. Most likely a victim circumstance — read it during the move to Costa Rica, and my mind needed something a bit faster.
Luckily the streak has ended with Stephen King’s The Gunslinger (The Dark #1). Can’t wait to get back to it after publishing this.
Review Books Book Reviews10 years ago I marveled at Turkish democracy. On a vacation there I saw disagreements, but all within a working democracy. The balance that founding father Atatürk seemed to continue work 70 years later.
Watching yesterday’s result on Twitter I was hit with both dejavú and sadness: the enthusiasm of the opposition after a huge rally, the contrast between the abuse of power and the hope of a fair election, the feeling of giant leap backwards for your country. All these are scenes of a movie we’d already seen in Venezuela.
How can we fight against this anti-democratic trend? Of course answer is strong institutions. But maybe institutions need a way to fight back with the same tools as authoritarians and populist?
Here’s where being democratic works against you. Giving institutions weapons to protect themselves when the people fall under the spell sounds great. But how to tell is something is a spell or a fundamental shift that needs to happen?
Autocratic leaders don’t seem to worry about this. They never asume anyone else will be back in power — and if it happens, they’re the first to call out the unfair rules which oppresses them.
to read a good blog is to watch a writer get a little bit better, day after day, at writing the truth.
What an inspiring and aspirational thought.
snippets
5typos.net