TLDR
Work: Finished 5 weeks of the 6-week Building in Public fellowship. Primarily focusing on building ProjectGarden.co and launching LeaderBird.co.
Life: Looking forward to our trip to Ireland.
Productivity: Enjoying my mini “sabbatical” as I continue to build my intentional life. Building the foundation to feel sturdy. Earning the structure. Continuing to refine the goal and how to get there.
Newsletter: Continuing to evolve but dedicated to writing here weekly (despite being late this week) and daily on Twitter.
Sponsors: Fathom Analytics, Week of the Website, LeaderBird.co
Asks: Reply and say hi! What are you currently struggling most with?
I know, I know. I’m a little late with last week’s update. I’ve been a little busy, I swear. With what you ask?
Work
Three things filling my days this past month:
I’m now in the final week of the Build In Public Fellowship. I’m sad it’s coming to an end. KP has built something truly special and gathered a phenomenally talented group of people into one place. I’m honored to have been a part of it. It’s been fun seeing so many different people all trying to interpret and integrate the lessons into their own lives and journeys.
ProjectGarden.co - a project that I’ve wanted to build for a couple of months now. It’s big and grandiose but I’m trying to build it incrementally. I launched the initial version and I’ve been using it almost daily for my own projects and ideas. Will pick it up again shortly. You can follow along in its own newsletter:
LeaderBird.co - a project that came out of the Build In Public Fellowship. It helps you track your Twitter activity to ensure you are posting every day and adds some fun gamification and competition with others. It started as a fun little project I threw together in a couple of hours and became a full-fledged SaaS with paying customers. The Journey: https://twitter.com/zackgilbert/status/1645527632371412992?s=20
Life
By the time you read this, we are probably on our way to Ireland. I’m excited to spend some time traveling with my family. As stressful as it can be, I find it also always revitalizes me. Especially after the month we’ve had. I don’t recommend getting an ant infestation right before leaving the country. But Orkin was pretty responsive, so I’m thankful for that.
Productivity
I’m more than halfway through my sabbatical. It’s gone too fast. But I’m happy with what I’ve produced during my time. Feels in line with where I want my life to go. I love building and working on ProjectGarden.co and LeaderBird.co are exactly the kinds of projects I hope to be able to work on more. The trick is to figure out how to get projects like these to supplement my income.
To be honest, I haven’t extended my Life OS tools too much. I’ve mostly just been existing with it. But the good news is that I’m still pretty consistently using it, despite some of its burdens. This past month has reminded me why it’s important to get your systems in place during quiet times so that when things get stressful, the systems are already in place and easy to continue. The best systems/tools/processes/whatever are the ones you actually use. I still have hopes to finish the article about how I’m using Notion but hope to have some of my upcoming improvements to share also.
Grateful for all the work during the Build In Public Fellowship though, as it’s been helpful for me to take time to process and refine some of the goals I’m working toward. For example, I’ve been paying more attention to the things that energize me (so I can do more of it) and the things that drain me (so I can do less of those). I’ve been absolutely loving working on these small projects and would love to figure out how to be able to spend more time doing similar projects in the future.
Newsletter
A big piece of the Build In Public Fellowship (sorry, it’s almost over… I’ll move on once I’m done digesting) is about being prolific about your journey. The hows, the whys, and the whats. A big chunk is just about getting the reps in. Working those muscles. That’s largely where LeaderBird.co stemmed from.
That’s why it’s important for me to do these updates regularly. I’m hoping to have some sort of long-form post here (this update included) every week and then daily updates on Twitter. It’s easy to let it slide with all the challenges life has to offer, but I hope to keep to that cadence. I’ve already done the hardest part, which is starting. I just need to keep the momentum and don’t break the streak.
It’s unclear what the update might be for the end of this week, as I hope to be enjoying the time with my family and not working at all. Maybe the constraints of the flight means I’ll finally finish the “How I do Notion” or “My Digital Hygiene” posts I have in the works.
(Unofficial) Sponsors:
Fathom Analytics - an amazing privacy-focused analytics tool from my friend and former cofounder, Paul Jarvis.
Week of the Website - my brilliant and beautiful wife’s company, which helps creatives build a beautiful and easy-to-maintain website in just one week (or more if you’re doing something really fancy).
LeaderBird.co - a Twitter leaderboard and streak tracker so you can compete against others or your past self. Week over week. Your struggle for Twitter consistency ends today.
Asks
I appreciate that you’ve read this far. Life feels harder these days, so I’m grateful that you’re interested in connecting in some way. I’d love to know what your biggest struggle is these days. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do. Even if it’s just being a willing ear. I’d absolutely love it if you’d reply and let me know and/or say hi!
Slán!
Have fun in Ireland