Now

This page is inspired by Derek Sivers' Now project.

5th October 2024

I have been exploring something I call "knowledge slicing" quite deeply, which is a poor attempt at throwing language around a process of trying to understand something backwards to its fundamental parts, then forwards again to fill as many gaps in knowledge as possible. I hope to write about it soon because I have tried finding similar approaches elsewhere and failed to find anything useful. It's not quite first principles thinking, it's not quite the Minto Pyramid Principle, it seems to be its own thing that we do subconsciously when forming opinions, understanding problems etc.
Having lots of fun using Obsidian's canvas for visually linking my thinking. It helps me understand the shape and "path" of books a little better and seems to fit my spatial sequence synesthesia-ass brain.

Lots of books in flight at the moment, most recently The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are from Alan Watts, re-reading Alchemy by Rory Sutherland (and utterly destroying my copy with highlights and notes), and Liberation Beyond Imagination from the late Peter Brown.

Huge progress on the secret new company since the last update. On track for a beta launch of our product to our first set of approx 300 users at the end of November this year.

9th August 2024

Still obsessed with my Pocket Operator KO (PO-33). I'm falling into similar creation patterns though as I did with making guitar music where I can only describe it as getting entrenched in similar paths, shapes, and patterns along with the struggle to break out of them. Going to do more learning by watching people hunt and chop samples.

Reading Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. It's been in my library for a long time and I've jumped right into it after finishing A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine. My brain needs a bit of a philosophy detox.

Week one of product development for our new venture. That untethered sense of "where are we going?" is very exciting and terrifying at the same time but we're all bought in to the idea that it'll feel like that for the first couple of weeks. We have approx 2 years of runway to make it work.

Fitness/running has gone by the wayside since my holiday to the US last month. I've ran twice in as many weeks, both stupidly throwing myself into 10Ks where I'm feeling it for days afterwards. Need to strategically build up some smaller runs even if they don't feel as rewarding.
Eating some humble pie and embracing Obsidian as my PKM of choice. I've waited a few weeks to decide on that just to make sure with continued daily usage. Previous frame: Obsidian is an ugly, bloated piece of software doomed to fail, and people probably spend more time tweaking it than actually doing anything with it. Current frame: with discipline, a couple of up-front tweaks makes Obsidian a beautiful, fast piece of software with a thriving community of passionate users that make it impossible to fail.

25th June 2024

I'm spending an obscene amount of time with my Pocket Operator KO (PO-33). Might start sharing some creations but very well aware that early experiments with a new creative tool are often terrible so I may leave it a while.
- I'm obsessed with this thing, to the point where I want to buy the whole collection of Pocket Operators. The Sub and Synth versions are next on my hit list.

Reading A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine, which is perhaps the clearest pointer in Stoic philosophy that I've come across. Ryan Holiday does a great job of making Stoicism accessible, but I feel that Irvine manages to stay closer to the source materials and origins without letting some of the harder to read bits creeping in.

We have acquired customer number 1 for our new company. It feels surreal with that happening so soon in the new journey. It'll be as much of a test for our professional services company, Dawson Andrews, in regards to how it fares with a new product company fighting for our time and attention at the same time.

A company-wide steps challenge is keeping my running on track. I think I topped out around 125km last month, I'm set to pass that over the next couple of days before I break for two weeks for a family holiday where I hope to binge eat quite heavily, then struggle to get back into form on return.
I have started an impromptu collection of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games. What started as a hobby in rebuilding my old original Xbox collection has turned into a gotta-catch-em-all thing with any THPS game going. P.S: If anyone has a copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x on Xbox, let me know :)

21st May 2024

I'm currently reading First Things First by Stephen R. Covey after devouring The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I always feel the need to give two disclaimers about 7 Habits: #1 it's almost a cliché-level book in that I assume everyone has read it cover to cover but me, and #2 if you haven't, yet know about it, it's not the type of book you think it is. The title does it a massive disservice. I can only describe it as an operating manual for life. A truly paradigm-shifting book that has benefitted me more outside the world of work. First Things First is a deeper dive into one of the habits that I'm currently living out.
Sigh, I probably shouldn't admit this as a United season ticket holder, but I'm reading Pep Confidential: the Inside Story of Pep Guardiola's First Season at Bayern Munich by Marti Perarnau. I am reluctantly facinated about how Pep Guardiola manages to define a philosophy that seems to trancend his teams and when key people are moved in and out of positions and games, the philosophy doesn't flinch. I want to figure out how he does that.

I think I'm outgrowing Koala Sampler, but I'm not quite at the stage to move up to a Roland SP404-MK II, so in the meantime I'm going to play around with some of Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators and get creative with my hands away from screens.
- An increase in screen time has been an unfortunate side effect of using Koala Sampler which has made pursuing digital minimalism tricky.

I'm starting a new company with my fellow directors at Dawson Andrews, Andrew Fulton and Shaun Murphy, and I'm navigating that tricky crossroads of trying to fire myself from DA to give the new company a chance of working rather than trying to start it as a side-project, which just won't work. If 7 years of building Dawson Andrews has taught us anything, it's that these things need 100% focus.

I'm back on the running wagon, which is nice. I'm turning 40 next year and starting to think any form of fitness was behind me, but I'm on track for over 100km in May (should finish around 125km) which will eclipse anything I managed during lockdown (my previous big running spree).
- Last time I reached 100km in a month was October 2021 and I bust both knees and injured my right foot in the process, all for a stupid badge on Nike Run Club. This time, I'm at 74.4km, completely pain-free somehow.