Content Drop for week ending 1/22/2021
Got a bit swamped with work and life over the last few weeks and lost the thread on posting these regularly. Trying to make a more of a habit out of this as the secondary purpose of these posts is to document stuff I’ve been learning because if I’m not learning I’m not growing.
Anyway, here are a few of the things that I’ve read/watched this week that I’ve found interesting and think that others might find useful. As always, this concept has been adopted from the weekly InfoSec blog posts that Bill Sempf does.
There’s a longer blog post and more reading to do on this topic but I’ve really fallen in love with the Cynefin diagram recently and how Jon Smart is using it to describe the various stages of development. I still need to sort out the difference between the agile/lean sections at the top but I love the flow of the diagram and I’m starting to think that design thinking is probably what gets you from chaos into the complex/complicated areas.
The older I’ve gotten the more I realize how sleep and eating well is key to productivity. Here’s a good article from HBR on the sleep side of things.
I bought a new M1 Macbook Air at the end of 2020 and so far it’s been an incredible experience. The machine is not only super fast but I can go a week or more on one charge. Here’s a good (and someone technical) explainer on the chip technology behind Apple’s new PCs.
If you’re looking for some easy ways to self-improve I would check out this article from Fast Company. I started leaving my cell phone in the kitchen last year but there are some items here I’m going to try to adapt this year. Specifically, not overscheduling my life, trying to set more boundaries, and connecting with people more.
Speaking of new habits for 2021, I really like the idea of an “untouchable day” where you can get into flow state but I’m struggling to figure out how to do it with the teams and clients I’m currently supporting. Instead of one day I’m going to start blocking off a half day every other week and see if I can eventually expand that into a weekly half day and eventually a full day just for me..
