Links of Interest, January 2023
But first, a few silly & not-so-silly updates.
I have made a critical change in how I manage my stuff between my work desk and my couch. I bought an inexpensive but nice-looking bag. An upgraded tote bag, if you will. Right now it has my pen case (which holds 6 fountain pens and 4 highlighters and that's pushing it), my personal planner, my medical/health planner (more on that in a minute), my commonplace book, and a book I might want to take a break with if I feel the need to do so. It's been a surprisingly effective strategy at corralling my stuff and it makes me feel slightly more organized.
I decided to keep a planner for all my medical stuff this year and it's sort of turned into a time-block of how I spend my weekdays, with what I generally eat, what appointments I have, the hours I work, the hours I spend napping. Google ate my online medical calendar last December and while I reconstructed it, I trust it not.
I'm using a cute little B6 sized planner I picked up from Wonderland222 based on a post from Analog Office that I found interesting. Obviously, I do use a productivity application, but it helps to be able to look at the whole picture and not just each day as an isolated event, unbound from space and time.
Also, I just bought a bunch of really fun fountain pen inks from Kiwi Inks. My friend Beth T. less told me about them and more waved a bunch of bottles under my face with the repeated comment, "Isn't that cool?" and yes--they are cool. Check out their TreColori ink if you're really looking for something to pop.
So after a bunch of links, what's wrong with a few more?
- On Jacinda Ardern and the Power of Not Letting Ambition Ruin Your Life I cannot admire Ardern enough for recognizing she didn't have enough left in her and deciding to step away. I wish I'd been able to do that with my career.
- The incredible story of finding my brother in my 60's This is really an incredible story. I sometimes wonder if I have a mystery half-sibling out there--my mother was "sent to live with an aunt" for several months in what would have been her late teens and this was the early 1960's, so who knows what happened--all the relevant parties are dead at this point and I'm not sure I trust my genetic data to for-profit companies.
- Debbie Millman on the Personal Brand Paradox "When a person aspires to be a brand, they forfeit everything that is truly glorious about being human."
- Linking this because I believe this essay is where Cory Doctorow coined the truly amazing and accurate word, "enshittening": Social Quitting Since quitting Twitter, my life has become a million percent better. I sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time on Mastodon, but that's because there are so many interesting people to read--and no algorithm enshittening my feed.