A weekly selection of what I was reading, drawing, writing, and doing.

Book excerpt I enjoyed:

“The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.”” (Frank Herbert, Dune)

The power of the running club:

Running clubs are cool and Prolyfyck is proof.

In the past year, Prolyfyck (pronounced pro-lif-ic)—which is named after a lyric in Nipsey Hussle’s song ‘Victory Lap,’ “I’m prolific, so gifted / I’m the type that’s gon’ go get it”—has grown to a core group of more than two dozen runners, though the number of runners can exceed 60 or 70 at times. The group meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6 a.m., meeting outside of the Jefferson School, a segregated high school for Black students in the 1920s, and runs a route through Charlottesville’s predominantly Black neighborhoods.

💁🏼‍♂️ HT to Ben for sharing this

How This Running Group Is Cultivating a Diverse, Inclusive, and Motivational Community: https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a35524696/prolyfyck-run-crew-charlottesville-virginia/

Air is a fluid:

Scientists interested in transmission of respiratory diseases long believed droplets from an exhaled breath would not travel far, based on looking at the droplets’ path in isolation. Newer methods have modeled the flow of the droplets within a cloud of gas and suggest smaller droplets can spread much farther than once thought.

To understand airborne transmission of disease, follow the flow: https://knowablemagazine.org/article/physical-world/2021/understand-airborne-transmission-disease

Tips for better email:

A lot of these can be extrapolated to other forms of communication as well, like Slack or WhatsApp.

36. If you have to write a long email, make it skimmable —bulletpoints are your best friend.

37. Write a line. Skip a line. Write a line. Skip a line.

38. No one ever says “I wish the paragraphs in that email were longer.”

39. Every email should tell the recipient what you want them to do after they read it.

40 One-Sentence Email Tips: https://joshspector.com/one-sentence-email-tips

The best productivity hacks of all time:

What I wrote and drew about this week:

What I did, was reminded of, or was thankful for last week:

• No big hikes this week like last week, but I did get out to lunch with my wife on Friday to a spot that we had been trying to go for a year and a half: Soul Food Kitchen. All vegan spot and it was super good (special shout to the chili jam and polenta fries)
• Kept progressing at my home DIY skills, the latest projects being fixing our fence gate that decided to just fall off (poor installation), and finally finishing a re-paint of our shed in the back garden.

Last but not least, check out what I’m up to now.