New Addition: Learning in Public with Roam Book Club 4, Writual Writing Group, and Complice
Hi Friends!
Welcome to the third issue of my newsletter.
This week I'll be sharing some of the wonderful communities and platforms that have become a part of my life since the start of 2021:
- Roam Book Club 4
- Writual Writing Group
- Complice's Goal-crafting Intensive
Roam Book Club 4
Roam Book Club is an attempt at collaborative learning (and self-discovery) in a shared "tool for thought" called Roam Research. It's a large-scale sense-making journey with several hundred other intellectually curious folks around the globe.
My friend Beau Haan is leading our group through a book called How to Take Smart Notes. The book promises to help the reader adopt "a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains.”
I will talk about it at more length soon, but Roam Research has become an indispensable writing/thinking tool for me — a second brain if you will. It's basically where I capture everything that goes on in this crazy brain of mine.
From Roam's homepage:
We believe that writing is a tool for thinking. If we can build a tool for helping people write and organize their ideas more effectively, we can help them have better thoughts and solve otherwise intractable problems.
If you're interested in joining the book club, you can sign up here. You can also follow Roam Book Club on Twitter.
If you're curious to learn more about Roam, check out these videos:
- The Simple Guide to Roam Research by Shu Omi
- This Note-Taking App is a Game Changer - Roam Research by Thomas Frank
Writual
Writual is writing group that was formed during the Write of Passage Cohort 6 in March 2021. What started as a small group of accountability partners has turned into a tight-knit crew that meets almost every morning to write together in silence, give each other feedback, and provide much needed human connection in time when a lot of us are struggling with social isolation (due to COVID).
Right now our group is focused on developing consistent (daily) writing habits, and sharing our ideas/writing with world through atomic essays on our blogs and Twitter profiles.
You can check out our group's #Writual posts on Twitter, or follow our Twitter list.
Complice: Goal-Crafting
Yesterday I participated in a five-hour Goal-Crafting Intensive put on by a company called Complice.
The Goal Crafting Intensive is an online workshop that picks up where resolutions fall short. It's designed to provide you with the structure, focus and support you need to develop powerful goals that will help you have the most productive year of your life.
Complice provides a new approach to goal achievement in the form of both a philosophy and a software system. This specific event focused on the process of identifying, moving towards and realizing worthwhile goals. The curriculum was broken up into four parts: Goal Setting, Planning, Execution, and Reflection.
Ahead of the event, I was tasked with creating an exhaustive "dream list", as well as doing a "time audit" of how I usually spend my days/weeks (to see how much alignment there is between my actions and my high-level goals).
I took my time yesterday and got the Goal Setting module done, but still need to spend a few more hours over the next few weeks finishing the remaining modules.
Here are a few of the goals I came up with:
- Creating tools and systems for learning, reflection, personal development, productivity, and knowledge sharing
- Starting my own business (consulting, coaching)
- Helping disadvantaged people use technology (and systems thinking) to learn, grow
- (Continue to) improve my mental and physical health
- Harness my artistic expression through particular creative mediums, in a way that illuminates / portrays / inspires makes accessible to people an image and possibility around individual and societal flourishing
- Continue exploring being a writer and "creator"
- Building and nurturing communities (of like-minded intellectually curious people who are also interested in human development)
And here are the values I came up with:
- Authenticity
- Curiosity
- Growth
- Humor
- Compassion
- Kindness
- Balance
- Contribution
I'm hoping to have shareable drafts soon of the Idea Curation and Changing World essays that I teased in last weeks newsletter, so stay tuned!
Until next time,
Justin