A Nomadic Work Setup, Modular Notes for Cultivating and Connecting Ideas, and More

December 17, 2021

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The Nomadic Work Setup of Chris Gonzales »

We named her Rhoda Vanderbuilt — you know, because ROAD-a, and she was BUILT on a VAN chassis…you know what, forget I brought it up.

Anyway, you may know me from various things I’ve written around here or for the neat stuff I post about daily over on Tools & Toys. I kinda hang around in the background most of the time, quietly doing my thing — not in the “creepy lurker” sense, I hope 🥴 — and occasionally jumping in to help the rest of the Blanc Media team with projects.

The biggest difference between me and the others is that I do this job almost entirely on the road.

Cultivating and Connecting Using Modular Notes and Personal Memos »

The act of creating is a tricky thing. It requires intense focus, connective thinking, and an appropriate risk appetite to put your creation into the wild.

Advising is a little different, though there are a lot of connections to the act of creating. Advising requires intense empathy — a willingness to understand the client’s situation. Advising requires creativity in its own regard — unique problems require unique solutions. Finally, depending on the profession, a great deal of advising comes from past experience and precedent. The more often you’ve encountered the problem in the past, the more likely you’ll rely on the past for a solution.

Given that context, my continued adaptation of Mike Schmitz’s Creativity Flywheel has taken a few lefts and rights. My needs are different than Mike’s and so I have a different workflow. Different strokes for different folks, after all.

How to Change the macOS Menu Bar Clock from Digital to Analog »

There’s a state of mind called Flow where you are completely immersed in the activity you are doing. Everything else seems to fade away except the work you’re engaged in. The words seem to write themselves, complex problems become simple to solve, and you are completely uninhibited in doing your best creative work.

This is where the magic happens.

But it’s harder (for me, at least) to get there when you have a digital clock staring you in the face all day in the menu bar as a Mac user. Watching the minutes count down is a potential distraction whenever you’re not in Full Screen Mode.

Is your productivity busted?

If you feel like you could use a tuneup for how you manage your tasks and your time, get access to our Productivity Workshop.

Shawn Blanc (founder of The Sweet Setup) covers:

1. The four most common symptoms of a busted productivity workflow
2. What you can do to overcome them
3. How to improve your approach to managing and organizing your tasks.

You’ll also get the downloadable templates and cheatsheets.

GET ACCESS

SMART Goals and Time Blocking: How I Stuck to My New Years Resolutions in 2021 »

I wasn’t a New Years resolution guy, and I wasn’t alone — Strava’s study on 2019 activities suggests 80% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned by the second week of February.

For a long while, I was of the attitude that it was smarter never to start a New Year’s resolution if I was just going to abandon it by early February.

2021 was different, though. Somewhere along the line, I wanted to prove to myself that I could be the one-in-five people who stick it out with their New Year’s resolutions. I began the year with two resolutions:

Develop and maintain a fitness routine
Develop and maintain a reading habit

It’s December 4th, 2021 and I am still going strong on my 2021 New Year’s resolutions. I’d venture to say they’re no longer resolutions — they’re habits.

How did I find success in turning my 2021 New Year’s resolutions into habits? A combination of resolution adjustments, self forgiveness, stricter scheduling, and a few handy apps for good measure.

Here’s how I did it.

Is your productivity busted?

Interesting Links From Our Friends and Around the Web »