- Christian B. B. Houmann's Newsletter
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- Minimize time getting into position, just go
Minimize time getting into position, just go
Minimize time getting into position, just go
Hey there.
I hope you've had a great week.
What I've made for you
Blog post—My developer workflow using WSL, tmux, and VSCodeThe tools and workflows I use for software development on Windows.
Book notes—The Go-Giver by Bob BurgEnjoyable read. The style is similar to The Phoenix Project & The Unicorn Project. Lift up and create value for others without expecting anything in return.
Minimize time getting into position, just go
Licklider grew frustrated with the long hours that he, as a scientist, spent 'getting into position to think.' Like Engelbard, Licklider imagined that computers might evolve into machines to help scientists — if only there were a batter way to link scientists with computers than punchcards and printouts.
—Howard Rheingold, Mind Amplifiers
I heard this quote in a talk, "Stop Writing Dead Programs" by Jack Rusher (Strange Loop 2022), and couldn't stop thinking about "getting into a position to think."
Isn't that so much of what us knowledge workers spend time on?Getting to the work, rather than actually doing it?
It's time spent on the inessential:
Time spent setting up tools, reorganizing our notes
Chasing a new tag system
Building another dashboard
Designing a productivity system that will "work for real this time"
Our tools should never become the way.They should help pave the way.
PodNotes
This week, I shipped a feature which lets you organize your podcast notes by podcast.
You can now save notes like podcasts//.md, so any note you create is automatically organized in the corresponding folder.
A question for you
How can we reduce friction, so distractions get out of the way of doing the work?
A little context.I've shared a lot of workflows, setups, and made software that aim at reducing tedious work, while maximizing the work: thinking & creating.
They enable those things at the cost of some complexity.What if we could reduce that... across the board?
No-code mixed with a guiding hand, as if you had someone to help guide the way.Maybe an obsidian.guide?
Quote
It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
— Henry David Thoreau
