Weekly Updates #2 - 2023-03-27
Like a mini emotional investor's update but with more random thoughts.
Weekly summary:
This week has largely been about refining and getting past the initial embarrassment of the earliest versions of ProjectGarden (a new tool I’m building to help me collect, organize and grow my projects and idea) and getting to the point where I’m able to start gathering tangible feedback from other people that’s more than just “here’s my idea”. If you want to learn more about that project, you can read the latest update:
Weekly melodies:
Kelsey and I have been really enjoying the new show “Shrinking” on AppleTV starring Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, and Jessica Williams:
Got to see these guys live in concert the other week and it was good to get out of the house and experience a little nostalgia:
Weekly numbers:
5 hours of meetings
~20 hours of focused work on ProjectGarden
18 tweets (not including replies or retweets)
Weekly thoughts:
I’m almost halfway through my mini “sabbatical”. It’s been a lot of fun but a little tough to break myself of the work-work-work mentality that I’ve been used to over the last couple of years. One of the biggest benefits of Sean Johnson’s Building an Intentional Life program was taking the time to slow down and reflect on what I actually want my life to be or not be. I knew it would be a never-ending refinement process, but the last couple of weeks have allowed me some much-needed time to continue evolving those goals and constraints while pushing myself out of my comfort zone and reinforcing whether they continue to make sense for me.
For example, this past week has been really interesting as it relates to the Build In Public Fellowship I’m taking part in. It’s really helping me build the habits of building and shipping in public, while also getting better at communicating what I’m working on (at least I hope). But I found myself very easily getting sucked into all the vanity metrics of likes and engagements. While they can be helpful indicators of if you’re heading in the right direction, it’s important to remember that sites like Twitter and Facebook, and TikTok are engineered to take advantage of your body’s love for dopamine. Letting it become your driving motivation just means you’ll easily get distracted or discouraged when you don’t get it. But going through that process has been a super helpful reminder that I don’t want to get stuck on the content treadmill. I want more time with my family and building things I’m proud of. Not doing things that don’t energize me because it’s what I think I’m supposed to be doing.
Weekly asks:
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