The Weekly Review: Vol VII Issue 8
Hello friends,
How are you doing out there? Are you beginning to find hope that we’re looking at upcoming changes in our COVID-19 life? We have it pretty good up here in northern Canada. Our case numbers are low, deaths even lower. Some provinces have already released their plans to start allowing things to open back up. That’s great news.
However, for parents trying to cope with work and the educational needs of their children, schools sadly do not look to be opening before September. Let’s continue to look for ways to help out families in this kind of situation.
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Do Journal from Baron Fig
When it comes to my pen & paper tools, I came to appreciate a blank canvas over the years. My preference is for a nice grid paper that lets me sketch out a layout that works for me. I’ve shared a few of these over the years.
So when it comes time to get a new notebook, the Confidant from Baron Fig is usually my choice. I love the build quality and overall design of these notebooks. However, I have a slew of lesser quality notebooks, and I was determined at the start of the year to make use of them. I lasted one quarter.
I simply wasn’t using my notebook often, primarily due to the paper. If it doesn’t feel good to write on it, I tend not to use it. So when the team at Baron Fig announce the Do Journal, it caught my attention because I wasn’t enjoying what I was using.
Something different
Now, while I love the mainstay items from Baron Fig, they put out a lot of stuff that doesn’t interest. Quirky designs, notebooks with blank pages, fat tipped pens, dream journals — those don’t appeal to me. And while I have preferred blank notebooks, the design of the Do Journal looked so good I had to give it a try.
What stood out right away is the design. But that’s true for a lot of their options that don’t appear to me — all their themed notebooks look good. The typography is great, and the layout is aesthetically pleasing. But that would not be enough on its own.
What works for me — or at least I think it will — is the structure of this journal already matches what my notebook usage. I have annual high-level goals. I break those down into smaller chunks each quarter, then I pick and choose various pieces to focus on each given week.
Drawbacks
What’s not great about this notebook? For one, it only covers one quarter at a time. Each book has one quarterly page, 14 weekly pages, and 70 daily pages. There are some other items, including a section blank pages (just like their annual planner notebook), but the time-based pages are the crux of this design. 14 weeks covers a quarter, but 70 days does not.
The obvious answer is that the spread is focused on weekdays (14 x 5 = 70). But I would prefer to have one daily spread for Saturdays and Sundays.
Apart from that, it’s a great notebook. Not as heavy-handed as something like the Full Focus Planner, it gives you a light structure to follow. I’m going to give it a try for a quarter and see how it feels.
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Items of Note
This notes app is a game changer
I’ve shared a lot of links for Roam Research, but this overview from Thomas Frank might the most approachable for someone brand new to the idea. It’s 14 minutes, but he covers a lot of what makes Roam so good in a clean, succinct way. Some of the other resources I’ve looked at seem to assume a certain level of familiarity that can make it harder to get started.
This video is a great way to understand what Roam can do and get using it immediately.
Back to the topic of personal websites, this is a lovely one I came across recently. Home of Julian Lehr, it’s so nicely designed, and he provides a lot of great content, including nice visuals. Check out the charts on his recent quarantine report:
This is the kind of site that makes me love the web. Someone takes the time to create this personal space and share it with the rest of us.
Switching gears here, I enjoyed this interview on the Crossway blog. They talk to Dane Ortlund, author of Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers.
The post resonated with me because I’m the kind of person who needs constant reminders of God’s love and affection for his children. I’m the kind of Christian who finds it far too easy to envision God as a stern heavenly father who is constantly correcting his flock (guess what my parenting style is like as well), rather than the sacrificial provider and nurturer that he truly is.
Ortlund does a great job of reminding us that the love of God is so much higher than what we picture on our own. More so, the conversation discusses how Christ likes us as well as loves us.
I have trouble believing both that he loves me and likes me. But I think you're right, Matt, that we do tend to not think, talk, preach, write much—or as much—about his liking us. By “liking us” I don't mean kind of indiscriminate approval of everything we do, but love communicates that he is bound to us, he's committed to us even to the point of having laid down his life for us. Liking us communicates desire, longing, affection, a desire to be in the presence of. And that's what is really hard to retain a strong sense of as we go through life and do what you just said: you go through life piling up sins and is he still attracted to me? Does he still want to be with me? And so I do think very much that we need to understand he wants us. He actually has a desire for us as sinners. He's drawn to his people. He's the friend of sinners and all the pathos that includes.
What a great reminder. This article was a blessing to me!
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Quote of the week
The platform’s commercial success is built on its eerily effective ability to filter through the avalanche of content generated by its 330 million users to find those gems that prove irresistible. It accomplishes this in a manner that’s largely agnostic to what the tweets actually say. The service’s timeline algorithm takes into account your relationship to the tweet’s author—not just whether you follow them, but also how often you like or retweet them—as well as the engagement the particular tweet has been generating from others. It combines these metrics to find tweets that fall into that perfect intersection of your affinities and sticky communication. In normal times, this algorithm serves to make Twitter almost destructively addictive. During the pandemic, however, when our affinities have turned toward a desperate craving for useful information, the dynamics of this algorithm now serve a crucial purpose: helping to surface otherwise hard to find niche experts.
Cal Newport, 'Expert Twitter' Only Goes So Far. Bring Back Blogs
Cal does a good job of describing the benefits Twitter has provided these past two months. It was the source I went to first for everything related to COVID-19 — I could then re-read the same content a day or two later on my more traditional news sources.
I'm not going to downplay how the platform still does me more harm than good. But this additional benefit, when combined with the professional benefit it provides, sure puts Twitter in a better light these days. For now.
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Currently
Watching: The Mandalorian. We finally gave Disney+ a try as the isolation period marches on. I sure loved Star Wars as a child, but my adult self is not much of a fan. And while I heard so much praise for the show towards the end of last year, the fact that it was coming from the same people who spend a lot of time and energy debating the order of Star Wars movies from best to worst didn't get my hopes up too high. Four episodes in, and I'd say it's … pretty good. Above average, but not award-winning.
And the biggest beef I have with it having to go back to hear the dialogue because my kids can't stop saying, “Awwwww” every time baby Yoda is in a scene.
Listening: Ghosts V and VI from Nine Inch Nails. Continuing the focus on instrumental music, these albums from Trent Reznor are great. They’re not for everyone, as you wouldn’t quite call this cheery electronic instrumental music. But if you’re like me and love flats and tension and a certain amount of dissonance, you’ll like these.
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Here’s to a great week or two ahead. Maybe even a stop at a few of your old haunts. As spring marches on, I’m feeling optimistic and hope you’re feeling the same!