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.