Commonplace book
An ongoing collection of quotes and notes that were originally jotted down from a weekly notion journal. Intending to be an extension of my brain.
2024
Spent some time thinking about running meetings…
- This book, Death by meetings, is recommended:
- "If you want your meetings to be more effective, and ultimate contribute to the bottom line of your business, then introduce healthy conflict within a light weight structure. Let the attendees emotion be the driving energy behind good decisions and business success.”
- “I usually practice out loud on and off for a day or two before hand. Once I’m in the meeting I will be freer to speak because as I interact, it will just flow, and I will be able to a adjust as I go, because I’ve heard how it comes across in my practice times.”
- “Once you have spoken at meetings, leading a conversation actually becomes easy, and in fact, too easy.”
- Reddit tips: https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/s/vy8TQriVM6
Came across someone sayinng, “Anxiety is excitement.”"
Apparently, in our body there is no physiological difference between anxiety and excitement. 🤔
We find what we seek”
On an Eric Sloane kick. Someone made a font based on his work and it’s pretty good.
You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” Angela Davis.
Through practices of reckless generosity and inter-generational table fellowship, the Farm sparks a lively conversation about how we might feed one another without buying and selling food.” Adam Wilson
We need more calm companies. See also, it doesn’t have to be crazy at work and it’s okay to reject the growth-at-all-costs pursuit and stay small.
Wall pass-through firewood door is a thing, albeit small.
🛷 happy to discover new sled method of wood hauling
Reynolds Woodcock’s extreme need for control in Phantom Thread:
“I cannot begin my day with a confrontation, please. I’m delivering the dress today, and I can’t take up space with confrontation. I simply don’t have time for confrontations.”
“The tea is leaving, but the interruption is staying right here with me.”
The best design is one that solves a problem without calling attention to itself." Dieter Rams, influential industrial designer
The closer the end-users' needs are analyzed and answered, the more successful the adoption or purchase of a solution." Olivier Delarue, entrepreneur, philanthropist
Categories are both powerful and fundamentally arbitrary, which is a dangerous combination." Sarah Barrett, Information architect at Microsoft Learn (of all places!) This was a fitting quote because I found it when preparing for a workshop around Red Hat Learn.
2023
I’m a few months into working on Red Hat Docs. I appreciated Hashicorp’s internal practices made public.
Or as they put it, “A website dedicated to making our implicit practices explicit.”
Their PRD template
How to write for the way your coworkers actually read. Loved this article. Basically, “front-load the important stuff.”
Let me tell you how I’m doing this. [describing kanye and other questionable figures in a way that ignores the cultural bias] I’m find the part of me that loves them. If you do that, then you can see so much more.” Charles Eisenstein on a podcast
Watched glass onion movie:
Nice story of the disruptor-elite class and their shackles to their world that are only breakable when they personally witness the systems falling apart.
Most poignant part: when the black woman started breaking the glass sculptures, everyone was OK with it. some even cheered her on. most elite were fine with it. then the lower elite class started breaking them and had fun and the leader didn’t care. then the woman took it further and the lowers stopped, aghast. the breaking point was the mona lisa. not sure what it signified, but it was the last sacred thing to these people.
The Ask: How to ask for help from others and increase your chances of getting it.
From the, “The School of Design is a community for design-focused entrepreneurs who are designing and building the businesses of tomorrow.” Not sure if this is being updated, but it’s a grand idea.
Saying that you were a piece of shit was a tactic, pattern, and strategy that worked in the past. It removed yourself from situations and protected you. You internalize not speaking up.” “Now you have something to say. or make fun of it: now I’m a piece of shit with something to say.” Mel Robbins
I do the hard things. Then I do them again. Alas, most people simply will not do the hard things. And yet a muscle grows by breaking. A seed by cracking open. A child by growing pains. Humans need hard..." Codie Sanchez
The local historical society identified the 15 spots where schoolhouses once stood or are still standing. Seems like a lot for our tiny town.
All fluids in the body, including the lymph, are connected to emotions. Emotions are meant to be felt so they can flow.” GNMers(German New Medicine) https://itsanneandsteve.com/journal/energy-causes-of-swollen-lymph-nodes-that-will-surprise-you
How to Disagree with Someone More Powerful than You:
- risk assess NOT saying something
- it’s a chess not a boxing match
- ask permission to disagree
- how to say it
- stay calm
- stay humble,
- stay neutral, no adjectives
Liked these pseudo-psychedelic cartoons and their messages.
If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes. David Graeber
Critically reviewed selection of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators: socialjusticebooks.org
✊🏼
I swear I way more than half believe it when I say
That somewhere love and justice shine
Cynicism falls asleep
Tyranny talks to itself
Sappy slogans all come true
We forget to feed our fear
– Confessions of a Futon-Revolutionist, The Weakerthans
Open source is about inverting power structures and creating access and opportunities for everyone" from github, via Collective action in tech
Loved this idea that a local farmers market offers a cider press. You bring your own apples. Those presses are beasts and make sense to share.
Critique of rationalism
Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception, he perceives more than sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover” William Blake
Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.” Chogyam Trungpa.
Charles Eisenstein’s take: "When you can hold all the pain of the world, all the darkness in your heart, but never let your gaze drop from the Eastern sun, then you can make a proper cup of tea.”
Your mind is the garden, your thoughts are the seeds. The harvest can either be flowers or weeds.” William Wordsworth
what you resist persists.”
Perhaps she had never confronted the voice in her head because it had been easier to listen to it. It had been safer to sustain the belief that she was a bad person. At least then she was in control.” From Evil eye
It was like her body was an ocean, and these feelings would always come and go like the tides. The task was not to let herself be pulled away by one of the currents. The task was to accept that her insides would feel violent and tumultuous at times, and to be okay with that.” From Evil eye
Inspiring process and plant list of this community beaitification project.
My family and I care for a 800 square feet garden in San Francisco’s Mission District. Planning started in 2015 and we finally planted in January 2017. The process involved tearing up concrete, pouring a new sidewalk, hauling in clean soil, and patiently waiting for the wet season to plant. Zach Klein
The Party is pure evil; therefore no act is evil if it is to overthrow the Party. Fervent belief in one’s own righteousness is all it takes for a person, or a nation, to commit atrocious acts.” CE
💙 MVPs = ‘Minimum Lovable Products’ to upstatement.
Treat it like it’s your show. You’re the host. You just have to act like this is your show and you have every reason to be there.” John Mulaney’s advice to Birbigs
Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously, and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be. ‘The unknown person’ inside of them is our hope for the future.” Janusz Korczak, Polish early child’s rights advocate
All conflict Between friends, lovers, Family or states Begins as conflict inside yourself. Freeing yourself from conflict Frees the world of conflict. Wu Hsin
We were told that “everything’s on streaming now”. We thought we’d have access to 120 years of cinema history. Instead, we have access only to the content that can be readily and easily monetised, trapped in garish and unreliable platforms. There’s no guarantee your favourite movie will still be streaming next month. It feels as if the internet’s vast early possibility has shrunk.” the guardian
Lonliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.” Carl Jung
A favorite take away from the Vermont Naturalist program: the layer cake that makes up the ground beneath your feet. “Laid down on its side, the layer cake becomes a timeline of Vermont natural history.”
Hell of a homepage:
Are.na is:
online software for saving and organizing the content that is important to you
a toolkit for assembling new worlds from the scraps of the old
Students, hobbyists and what we call connected knowledge collectors have been the core of our community for 13 years and 129 days.
People describe Are.na as “playlists, but for ideas” or an “Internet memory palace.”
If this speaks to you, try it now:
Pronoia, the belief that the universe is conspiring in your favour – the opposite of paranoia. We can all do with an anchoring belief in the eye of the storm that helps us sail through the chaotic life challenges that come our way.
Clear is kind, unclear is unkind by Brené Brown
I’ve been an admirer of the Arlington, MA design firm GoInvo since I lived nearby. They’re a small team who’s narrowed their focus on one industry: healthcare, and they’re dedicated to open source design. Anywho, they’ve put together a decent list of design resources within their team wiki.
Clinging to what is false causes of suffering. If you are suffering, study what you are clinging to.
Free online Human-centered design (HCD), courtesy of the Queensland Government offers. 6-part series