The Weekly Review: Vol VII Issue 6
Hello out there!
I hope this email finds you well stocked, and well rested. The last two weeks have been odd, to say the least. I mean, for me, the day-to-day rhythm feels pretty close to normal. Staying at home for days in a row is something I’m used to. But in every other sense, things have changed.
Rather than been annoyed or frustrated, I’ve tried to approach this entire situation as an opportunity to rest. That can be hard when you have young kids at home, but I am finding not having to drive people to various events fives nights a week has been peaceful. We’ve developed a daily routine that gets everyone outside (and we’re blessed to have an acre of space to run around on), helping with chores, being creative, as well as entertain themselves on various screens.
How much screen time?
On that topic, I have seen a lot of parents expressing concern about screens and trying to find a routine that encourages other activities. Which is good. But also, let’s not place too much pressure on ourselves — this is not a time to be adding stress.
There is a healthy balance to be found and it can involve more than 60–90 minutes of screen time. For our home, that can be as much as 3 hours per day in addition to whatever family viewing we do together in the evening. If our children are going to be awake and at home with us for 14 hours each day, there is plenty of time left for work, learning, and creative activities.
One other aspect affecting how I feel about screens is the social impact. If your children are older, there’s a good chance that gaming is a way for them to connect with their friends. Something they’re doing much less in person because of social distancing. So if our 14 year old son chooses to do his screen time from 8:30–11:30 pm playing Fortnite, talking to his friends all the while, I’m happy he has the ability to do so.
Oh yeah, school too…
Thankfully, this major shift in life came just as we were heading into spring break. But I feel for any parents who are trying to juggle work and home life, while simultaneously feeling the pressure of taking on their children’s education.
Give yourself some slack in all of these areas.
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How streaming music has changed me
Last issue, I discussed how our movie viewing habits have changed over the last decade. What got me thinking about this in the first place was streaming music.
I was listening to a Radiohead song one day and could not recall what album the song was on. Or what the song title was. That struck me as odd — I can remember the first 5 or so Radiohead albums and tell you the song names for the most part. But everything after In Rainbows… I recognize all the songs, but can’t tell you the name or which album each is from.
When I bought a CD or cassette tape in my younger years, I would get to know the songs very well. The order they came in, their names, how the song list looked on the album art. But since moving from physical artifacts to a collection of square images I scroll past, this level of intimacy has been lost to me.
In some cases, this extends to artists as well. Put on any song from Tame Impala, Temples and another band I can’t even remember the name for (but exits in my library) and I can’t tell which group it is, let alone the album or song.
It may sound a little get-off-my-lawn, but I kind of miss when I had more familiarity with my music.
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Items of note
I continue to hear a lot of positive feedback about Roam Research. And although I’m hesitant to embrace new web apps that are VC funded, the number of people saying good things about this one has me intrigued (but it would have to be a life-changing tool to get me to invest my time and energy in a funded team that is not charging for their product).
Here are a few related items:
- Roam: Why I Love It and How I Use It by Nat Eliason
- How to Take Smart Notes: A Step-by-Step Guide also by Nat
- What’s to great about Roam Research also by Nat (video)
- How to Take Smart Notes | Zettelkasten Method in Roam Research by Shu Omi (video)
Nat covers a few points that are worth highlighting:
Each note has relationships to other notes, but no note lives inside another note or notebook. All of the information is fluid in the sense that you flow between notes based on their relationships, not because they’re all in the same folder or hierarchy.
And:
This also highlights a big difference between Roam and other note taking tools: tags are both everything and nothing. Every page is a tag, and every tag is a page. Whether you do a [Page Link] or a #Hashtag Link is purely a stylistic choice. I use [Page Links] when it’s inline, and #Hashtag Links when they’re out of context, but you can use them however you want. By structuring information in this way, Roam makes it super easy to move laterally across your information, while retaining vertical references. The book Emergency by Neil Strauss can live in my Book Notes page, my Prepping page, and my Neil Strauss page, without having to be moved.
Related to Roam, Cal Newport, who’s been using all his extra time to write more on his blog (and not about the virus-that-shall-not-be-named), shared a little about time blocking. He shares the example of a professor who uses time blocking, but in text files rather than on paper.
As detailed in a post he wrote about his method, Huang uses a plain text file to make his time block plan for the day. (Though I use a paper notebook for my time blocks, I too appreciate the versatility of plain text files.) … What makes Huang’s system particularly interesting is that he then annotates his time block schedule with notes about what actually happened during each block
This reminds me a lot of discussions around tracking yourself with a log file. I essentially do the tracking piece in Day One, but the time blocking piece on paper (using some very nice cards from a prototype in development by a certain online retailer). The two go in hand very nicely.
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Tweet of the week
Long-time readers may recall that I early volumes of this newsletter included a tweet of the week. Somewhere along the line my Twitter usage decreased enough that I couldn’t find enough good tweets to share. Conversely, my reading of books picked up and I eventually switched to a quote of the week.
A funny thing happened over the course of the last several weeks. Although I made a conscious decision to be more up on the news, and found that the CBC app was giving me a good summary of events, once COVID-19 became the one thing that everyone was writing or talking about, Twitter became the best source of information.
Although it too has its hot takes, misinformation, and overreaction, once I spent enough time culling my feed, it was far more helpful than harmful. I soon found that the general opinions expressed there would be repeated 2–3 days later in the more mainstream news.
I’ve complained a lot about Twitter over the last decade. But I have to give the service credit — it’s pretty great for scenarios like this. As long as you’re willing to put in a little time to fact check, disable RTs for some folks (or simply mute or unfollow them), and ignore hyperbole.
At any rate, I thought it fitting to include a tweet instead of a book quote in this week’s issue. Next week? We’ll see.
Do your loved ones have anxiety? Be extra patient with us in the coming weeks. We’re trying to remain calm, but our brains just aren’t quite wired that way. 💛
@KateBour, with an important reminder that those who struggle with mental health are going to be more impacted by these measures than most. We’ve been mindful of how both people with general anxiety and people with OCD will be impacted by this entire situation.
If you find yourself washing your hands a lot and sanitizing your groceries, please remember that these little changes can be immensely unsettling for these people. What is now normal and acceptable behaviour? For someone battling OCD, that line can be hard to see at the best of times. Let’s do everything in our power to have that patience Kate refers to in the tweet above.
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Currently
Listening: The new Pearl Jam tracks that have been pre-released for Gigaton, and finally giving Now, Not Yet from half•alive the attention it deserves.
Reading: I started book one of The Last King of Osten Ard by Tad Williams. It’s been a long time since I read the original trilogy, so I’m curious to see how much I can recall of the story.
Watching: We just started The Letter For the King this week, a new series by Netflix. A couple episodes in and our entire family enjoyed it.
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Well folks, that’s it for this issue. Now that we’ve all had around 2–3 weeks of an altered daily experience, how’re you all feeling? Hit reply and share your feelings, your ideas for coping, and any inspiration you’re getting from your community (local or online).