Weeknotes – 011
So, 340 grams of Watermelon is around 109 calories. On the other hand, 85 grams of Butter Pound Cake (which I have to say taste so good) is around 337 calories! It's easy to see why snacking on pastries/baked goods makes it so hard to lose weight.
Last week I remembered why I chose to go with pen and paper for my bullet journal — it was to give my eyes a break from staring at screens all day long.
My only issue with this analog approach to journals, is how to digitize the text that I wrote so that they can be searchable in the future. Sure, bullet journals have an index for tracking down specific topics. But let's face it, that doesn't even come close to being able to search text digitally.
I previously tried to get around this by publishing journal entries on this site. As part of writing those posts, the content from my bullet journal would end up in a text (markdown) file when I download a backup of this site. This benefit went away when I decided to stop writing journal entries.
Now, I'm doing a similar thing with these Weeknotes posts. This time around though, my journal entries end up in my Obsidian vault. I still have to manually type them in though. This is the part I'm trying to streamline. But I'm not sure that's even possible. It's either I ditch my analog bullet journal and go straight to digital journal apps, or just continue what I'm doing — write on my bullet journal then migrate (type up) my notes into Obsidian sometime later in the day or week.
If you have some thoughts that are stuck in your head, write them down so that you can get them out of your head. This frees up your brain and allows it to think about or focus on something else. Like you know, what you should be working on instead.
An idea: Instead of creating a “microblog” to house micro/short posts, or creating one as a social media replacement, how about creating one to hold micro thoughts (or atomic notes) on a specific topic? I'm thinking more of a digital garden here versus a Twitter replacement.
I started trying to build a digital garden on Are.na using excerpts from my journal entries. This also solves one of the problems I've had for awhile now — how to take excerpts out of my Weeknotes posts and put them into their own stand alone posts.
I actually think Are.na is better suited for displaying excerpts, than it is for building a digital garden. But we'll see how it goes. The alternative to it would be another Write.as blog. One using the Novel format, which means no published dates on the posts.
For now though, the use of Are.na is free, at least until I hit the 500 block limit. So I'll try it first and see what I can come up with.
It doesn't do back-links like Obsidian does, but it is possible to connect blocks to a channel. I wish they would allow connecting a block to another block, but they don't. So I'll just try to work with what it can do.
Some great reads last week were Brandon's post about “Home” and Scott Nesbitt's take on digital gardens.
Regarding digital gardens. Scott mentions using Write.as to build a digital garden. I have thought of using Write.as as well, but so far have not figured out the best approach to it. I believe that once Write.as allows a custom static homepage, then it will pave the way to being able to use it to create a digital garden. Until then, it will look more or less like another blog.
This is also another reason why I elected to try building a digital garden with Are.na first.
Found this new site, habitica.com. It seems like it could be used to help accomplish some self-improvement goals.
This was a photo that the wife sent me last week. I definitely agree with that!
Content moved to... Basics of Using Git from the Command Line
Last week I managed to solve my first ever React issue. The React developer in our team had the day off, so I tried figuring it out on my own. After getting the location of the source code from a team member, I was able to figure out why the app was taking us to another page. I am not a React expert, but apparently I can understand it enough to figure out the issue. I'm so proud of myself. The work that I've been doing with trying to learn React is not going to waste.
The song “Where I Belong”, which features Simple Plan, State Champs and We The Kings is such a good song!
I found a reason
And suddenly I'm not so alone
I'm finally breathing
Like I never could on my own
Start the countdown, let's get it on
Scream our lungs out to our favorite song
'Cause this is where I belong
(This is where I belong)
Could listening to music possibly reduce the stress levels brought about by work? I think it does. I was getting stressed out at work and then “Uh Oh” by Junior Doctor started playing. I immediately felt this sense of relief come over me. I felt much more calm and settled. So yeah, I think listening to music while working does help lower stress levels.
Just noticed Davin going over a YouTube video on how to build a tower in Minecraft. He then tried to mimic what he saw in the video and build the tower himself in the game. I thought that was pretty amazing for such a young kid. And amazing that a game fosters that kind of learning and creativity.
The hardest part of raising an infant is the countless sleepless nights. You're not going to get any sleep until your infant is asleep.
And for this week's installment of #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay:
Me and Davin were in another room. I was on the PC, while Davin was reading a book. We heard Baby Caleb cry and then my wife called out.
Davin: Dad, Mom is calling you. Good luck!
***
Davin was trying to color Thor in his coloring book.
Me: Davin, Thor’s clothes should be colored dark blue.
Davin: That’s not dark blue, that’s black blue!
I'll end this post with a photo of what dad life looked like last week.
Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #BulletJournal #DigitalGarden #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay #JuniorDoctor #Parenthood #Minecraft #Nutrition #PopRock #PopPunk #SelfImprovement #SimplePlan #StateChamps #WeTheKings