Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending August 23, 2013
• Reflecting on a month of experimenting with Proper Retirement
• Emacs: How I organize my Org files
• Making bulk cooking easier
• Sketchnote Lessons: Speech bubbles and thought clouds
• Helping someone get started with Emacs and Org Mode through Org2Blog and LaTeX; troubleshooting steps

Quick notes from this week

• Emacs
  • C-x 8 <RET> (insert-char) lets you insert Unicode characters by name. Here’s the snowman ☃
  • C-x z (repeat) repeats an Emacs command each time you press z. Might replace some of my simpler keyboard macros…
  • You can use Lisp expressions when replacing regexps – \,(...) will take \& and \N, and also \# (number of already-completed replacements)
  • You can use C-u F3 (kmacro-start-macro-or-insert-counter) to insert a counter without incrementing it. (Thanks, Fuco!)
  • C-m is the same as RET
• Other notes
  • Linux: Building a package from source on Ubuntu or other Debian-based systems? Use apt-get build-dep to install its dependencies.
  • Made potstickers from scratch(ish) this week!
• Things I’ve clipped from around the Web
  • A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (2009) – hat-tip to HN for the link
  • Latin LOLcats: Alta a longe cognoscuntur
  • Defining custom task workflows with Emacs Org-mode (also mentions kanban)
  • Configuring Emacs Org-mode to manage project tasks – org-capture and other tips
  • Simple Dollar: The Problem versus the Path Forward – I learned the importance of future-focus from Thank You for Arguing. This post makes a similar point in a different way.
  • Generosity Pays: Results from Launching a “Pay What You Want” eBook – I really like the Pay What You Want model, and it’s great to read other people’s experiences with it.
  • How Athletes Get Great – a reminder that the much-cited 10,000 hours to expertise is an average, so people can take much less time or much longer
  • Life feeds words – Writer’s block? Go out there and live more.
  • Building a blogging career one step at a time – outlines a reasonable path for people who want to build their blogging skills
  • Hard working blogging tactics that won’t scale: applying growth hacking principles to your blog – when you have a small site, you can do things that larger sites can’t do, like e-mailing every commenter or holding a Google Hangout
• Book recommendations
  • Show me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten – Illustrates each idea with several variations so that you can see how design choices can make tables and charts more effective or less effective.
  • Early Retirement Extreme: Not a personal finance book as much as it’s a philosophy book. Good stuff, influenced me a lot when it came to planning my experiment. This is my third time through the book and I just noticed the author uses Emacs too… =)
  • Positivity: Interesting research into positivity, resilience, etc. Useful guide questions to help you reflect on what gives you joy, serenity, and so on.
  • How to Retire the Cheapskate Way: Practical tips and interesting anecdotes.
  • The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking: Small, visual, idea-packed book. Nifty.
• Movie recommendations
  • The Magic of Belle Isle: W- picked this one. Nice find. Yay for writers. =)
  • Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: =)
  • 12 Monkeys: Going through my classic sci-fi backlog…

Focus areas and time review

• Business (9.9h – 5%)
  • Earn (3.3h – 33% of Business)
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
  • Build (4.9h – 50% of Business)
    • Quantified Awesome (0.0h)
    • Drawing (2.1h)
      • [X] Sketchnote a book
      • [X] Draw Emacs guide – keyboard shortcuts
    • Paperwork (0.0h)
      • [ ] File payroll return
      • [ ] Sketchnote a book
  • Connect (1.6h – 16% of Business)
    • [X] Post QS Toronto notes
    • [ ] Process and upload another QS Toronto video
• Relationships (5.1h – 3%)
• Discretionary – Productive (25.3h – 15%)
  • Research
    • [X] Ask D.G.
    • [X] Check CMT
    • [X] Check SGM
    • [X] Try to reschedule appointment
    • [ ] Call MA
    • [ ] Follow up with CMT
  • Writing (9.7h)
    • [X] Think about blog goals
  • [ ] Go through Latin Made Simple chapter 1
  • [ ] Scan receipts
• Discretionary – Play (8.3h – 4%)
• Personal routines (23.3h – 13%)
• Unpaid work (15.3h – 9%)
• Sleep (81.6h – 48% – average of 11.7 per day)