A Work In Progress

Programming Note for Next Week: WE ARE ON A BREAK

What if something that you have spent years building, modifying, and perfecting, just broke on you?

For reasons I can't figure out, my long beloved workflow just broke this week. The reason is probably due to the beta gods messing up iCloud, but my workflow is now... broken. Things aren't syncing, and it's making me crazy.

The whole mess got me thinking about "truths" or processes or skills you spend years building on, and then suddenly, it shits the bed. This unforeseen breakage may be a forced chance to start over—a new page. I'm trying to shift the lens to - do I need those hundreds of articles I've stored for years?

Maybe it's really all just a work in progress.

I've been somewhat in a glut this month - not one thing in particular got me there, just the accumulation of a bunch of little things. And it's gotten me into a wacky headspace, if I'm honest. I haven't been feeling the best health-wise - maybe it's age (or perception of age), fear of new heart issues (labs generally are ok), or sadness as we shift into the fall.

What I liked about this clip from Simon Sinek was recognizing how important it is to show vulnerability and talk to the people in your life about these things.

What if we viewed life in the same model as my broken workflow - maybe I am also a work in progress. Things aren't fixed - life/career/leadership/friends are all in various stages of being works in progress.

'Being a work in progress is a wonderful thing. It means you are never "finished," which means that you always have the chance to improve yourself and become something and someone better than who you are already. It allows you to be comfortable with making mistakes and accept yourself for who you are." - Odyssey Online

Navigating life these days seems to lens towards the concept of a good life is full of craftsmanship - you are never truly "at an end state"; instead, you make meaningful progression towards a goal.

A continuous work in progress that is designed for you to become the best version of yourself.

I came across Om Malik's blog, which had a great 'birthday wish' for himself:

My idea of a great birthday is a small dinner with a handful of friends and asking them what is the one thing they wished I focused on during the next 12 months in.

I am taking some of the lessons learned in the past twelve months for the upcoming year and will use them as guardrails for the next phase of my work and life.

That sounds like an excellent place to start.

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Mind Changers

It's not often that I put a plug in, but my friend Chris created a website for runners that seems like it'd be helpful for anyone who reads this who either is or wants to become a runner. I followed his guidance when I returned to running after my first heart attack, and I loved the approach - it got me back into the game. He knows his stuff, so I wanted to share a new site that recently launched, RunWell.

The premise is straightforward: become your running coach. Chris has helped 1000s of athletes run with greater confidence, prevent pain, and provides "actionable instructions to run your best."

If you are interested, he's provided a code for 10% off of lifetime access: runwelltogether.

Thoughts of the week

Latest obsession

I'll often throw on some music to help me get into a deeper state of thinking, but lately, I've been playing with adaptive music. This week I'd like to share Endel, a music app that creates 'personalized soundscapes to help you focus, relax, and sleep.'

The concept is pretty cool - it creates soundscapes that are based on your circadian rhythms to put you into a deeper focus state:

Although the 'soundscapes' most closely resemble ambient music, it's not music in the literal sense. It's more of an ever-changing sonic bubble that encapsulates you and drowns out the outside world. Without the restraints of musical structure, it freely adapts to several personal inputs in real-time, including weather, time, heart rate, and motion.

Endel cyclically nudges you towards a more relaxed state even when you might want to be maximally focused. In short, Endel is designed to actively discourage people from trying to concentrate for hours on end without taking time to recover in between. Their larger mission is to help people live in line with their natural cycles rather than fighting them.

If you want to read more about the science behind it all, check out this article.

This weeks "Deep Links"

Here are a few of the articles and videos that resonated with me over the last week:

• It was another 'oh man, I feel old' moment when I read the retrospective, "Wired.com: 20 years later". I remember picking up the first issue of this wacky new computer magazine back in 1993 at Waldenbooks (remember them?) and now the website has hit its 20th anniversary - More
• My son has been 'craving' hash browns (teenagers....), but we have been entirely unable to find them in any store. I didn't know this until I googled why there's a shortage: "A 'spudpocalypse' could threaten Mass. french fries and hash browns" - More
• While I've been enjoying the stuff coming out of OpenAI and generative AI, some boundaries are questionable and potentially dangerous. Check out this 'PR stunt": Fake Joe Rogan interviews fake Steve Jobs in an AI-powered podcast" - More
• All good things must end: "The Oat Milk Backlash Has Begun." I've been enjoying cappuccinos with Oat Milk, but read more about supply chain issues coupled with ethical concerns surrounding one the biggest Oat Milk makers - More
• "An end to doomerism" is my pick one the week, looking at optimists and pessimists, where each needs the other to push us all forward. 'Effective optimists need criticism' and in order 'to drive progress, we need to become impatient optimists.' - More
• I liked this post from Ian Sanders, "'Can we lose the table?'". I've always felt 'space is more conducive to free thinking and open-mindedness,' but I didn't think about hierarchy until I read this one - More
• "Apple Watch Ultra's Bigger Battery and Screen Make It Worth the Price" is only one of many reasons to get the new Ultra. I've been wearing it for a few weeks, and not only does it continue to be my center of health tracking, it's pretty much now replaced my long-standing Garmin. While I'm still on my last generation band, I don't notice its larger size and have been loving the screen - More
• "What makes ideas stick?" talks about the six principles of 'creating sticky ideas: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Stories. - More
• "The sorry state of the web" was a somber read on the social web now filled with marketing, bots, and propaganda, and the publisher web wrestling with content ownership is just miserable, that 'the global library is burning' - More
• Read more on the 'shopping cart theory,' a fascinating look at 'individual's moral character can be determined by whether they choose to return a shopping cart to its designated spot or not.' - More

Fin

As we head into Halloween, one of the more interesting Twitter feeds I follow, Horror4Kids, posted this fun look at Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug from the film The Hobbit:

Be well. 🎃✌🏻