Tag: tools

What I learned last week (#15)

Learned last week: Embracing the shadow, two great interview questions, Wikipedia is pretty amazing, and more.

  • The paradox that you can’t be happy without embracing unhappiness: Per prior posts, I’m very interested in exploring ideas of yin and yang, and Social Peacocking and the Shadow by Caterina Fake offers a great perspective and links to other good reads on the topic (case-in-point is The Shadow by Hans Christian Andersen)

The more a person acknowledges his shadow, and brings it into consciousness, the healthier and more whole the person will be. But if driven underground and sent into hiding, The Shadow will take on a life of its own, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  • Two of the best interview questions I’ve heard: Graham Duncan approaches hiring by finding and matching people with opportunities. He’s not “finding talent” (because everyone has talents) but rather matching people with the right “positive feedback loops”, and he’s not trying to “catch” someone’s weakness, because we all have many.
    These two interview questions are from Tim Ferriss’s excellent interview of Graham Duncan (and there is a lot more).
    1. If you were to hire somebody for this position, what criteria would you use?
    2. If I were to hire a partner to work with you on this, what qualities would be good for them to have?
  • Wikipedia is pretty amazing: Wikipedia and the Wisdom of Polarized Crowds by Brian Gallagher reveals a bunch of important insights from research on Wikipedia: Bringing together polarizing viewpoints is essential to making better things. Bias is essential, not inherently evil as it’s been portrayed lately. It is possible to create a platform and a distributed culture of creators that have vastly different ideologies, yet work together and are able to reach consensus.
  • A serendipitous story of a modern day heist of Star Wars toys: The Great Star Wars Heist from the excellent longreads.com is a really fun read. One of my co-workers was telling me backstory on how the original Star Wars toys came out and the deal George Lucas struck to make it happen, and then this magically popped up on my feed. #serendipity  
  • What I was doing this week in 2016: I went back to my journal to see what I was up to at this time in 2016. Three years ago we had just bought our current home (that we’re now hoping to sell next month), I was pretty crazy with my weekly bullet journal-inspire spreads, and we were in the midst of doing Core Caregiver Training (CCT) to be foster parents.

What I learned last week (#14)

Learning from last week: breaking the chains of discouragement, re-buying my most-used piece of gear, and a ‘now’ page.

  • A useful metaphor for handing adversity and keeping a positive outlook: Unfortunate things are caused by a chain of unfortunate decisions, and it can be discouraging to view a situation through this lens. Alternatively, one can also look at it from the perspective that by making one right decision, or doing something good, the chain can be broken and a whole new chain can begin. There’s always an opportunity to course-correct. 
  • A need to re-buy one of my most essential pieces of gear: Icebreaker 200 Oasis Leggings are one of my most-used pieces of clothing. Perfect for fall/winter/spring outside activities. I live in them during the weekend and I recently had to get rid of a couple of pairs that were literally disintegrating.
  • What a ‘now’ page is: A friend sent me Derek Siver’s now page and, aside from the content of his status being very relevant to ours (he’s relocated to another country), I love the concept of a “Now” page (see others at https://nownownow.com/) and have set one up here.
  • Useful encouragement to get on with it: “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way. – from the 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

What I Learned Last Week (#4)

A weekly list of things I learned, discovered, or was reminded of in the past week.

  • A reminder about how little time we have with those we love: I thought about the article The Tail End from Wait But Why as I was pondering the new year coming up, our planned move and how we may not see some people for a long time because of it. Also, if you want to do some existential pondering, check out The Fermi Paradox.
  • Different models for understanding who we are and who other people are: Enneagram and the Big Five (aka OCEAN) personality trait models. I think both of these seem like interesting ideas to explore. I use the word “ideas” purposefully, as any framework or model will have it’s flaws, but taking time to reflect on what makes you and others operate the way you do from different perspectives is a good use of time. For more info on Big Five, I’m going to check out Making Sense of People by Sam Barondes.
  • How personalized medicine is transforming your healthcare: This article from National Geographic really blew me away. We have had a couple friends staying with us over the holidays that are both doctors in the pharmaceutical industry and many of the stories in this article resonated with them. The continuous monitoring of your health and the ability to tap into the body’s immune system to fight disease, versus using drugs, were particularly compelling.
  • Another meditation app: I heard about Waking Up from Sam Harris on recent Tim Ferriss podcast and think I’ll give it a try. I want to experiment with a refresh of my daily practice and his approach sounds interesting.

What I learned last week (#1)

  • I read Personal Kanban and started using Trello recently (thanks Marcus) and it’s really helped me to be more intentional and focused in my work and life. I have a Work Board and a Personal Board and also one for Project Red Lorry that my wife and I can both use. Is it working because it’s something new or because it’s a fundamental shift? Time will tell.
     
  • I need to try using Calm. Apparently it has a timer that will chime at certain intervals during unguided meditation sessions, which is my biggest gripe with unguided meditations on Headspace. Headspace is still my go-to (and apparently the reason Bill Gates is into meditation) but I’m curious to see how this works.
     
  • I finished The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawandeand thought it was an easy, engaging and thought-provoking read. Reflecting on it, one of the things that sticks with me is the chapter on The End of the Master Builder and the example of the “submittal schedule” in construction that serves as a checklist for communication tasks. This schedule checklist serves as framework for getting the experts together and figuring out problems together, agreeing on a path forward and documenting (“submitting”) what they decided. This got me thinking about similar frameworks in technology work and how important it is to be rigorously collaborative and decentralize decision making.
     
  • “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” – Louis L’Amour. This one was timely. My Dad just retired a couple weeks ago (and my Mom a few months before that) and this comes close to expressing how I relate to the idea of retirement