Chris J Wilson

I’ve been skipping my reps.

No, not weightlifting or machines at the gym, hand lettering and calligraphy. A couple of years back I discovered calligraphy was a fantastic way to deal with the stress and overthinking I was struggling with. The intense focus it required help me block out the world and just engage with a task.

At a point in my life when I was really struggling with purpose, calligraphy helped me just create. It also had the benefit of making my sketchnotes a smidge more beautiful.

Well after half a year or so life started getting in the way and I stopped doing my regular practice.

Fast-forward to today and I rarely do a calligraphy practice or try to copy a hand lettering design (they are not the same thing by the way). Instead I tend to jump in to trying to make my own original design or sketchnote. While there’s nothing wrong with either activity, I haven’t improved and have possibly even gone backwards a bit.

It’s like a football player who doesn’t spend time doing their drills but just plays practice games. Sure, they’ll get better at some aspects but they would improve more with some drills too.

So I’ve found some old hand lettering designs and I’m going to do some practice again.

I took a screenshot to show some changed that haven’t been made. I was going to edit in preview but then saw an iPad icon…WAIT! I can draw! So I highlighted and wrote on my iPad what needed changing. Then sent from my Mac in our chat app. Apple certainly has issues and is pricy but examples like this are the combination of hardware and software working so well together that Apple loves to boast about. I’m definitely going to use this feature a lot more!

As I was thinking about how to manage publishing obsidian notes to my digital garden, I was saying I wanted a “simpler” solution. That was partially true. Really, I wanted a simpler solution for me, the user, even if it meant a more complicated backend. The danger is that complicated workflows are easier to break.

This is true of other areas of life too. We try to make things “simpler” for ourselves but under the surface there is a sea of (hopefully) hidden complexity.

The danger, is those dependencies will fail and our system comes crashing down or grinds to a halt like a shipping cannel clogged by a boat. Simple solutions may end up needing more maintenance than the “complicated” option.

So perhaps a simple drag and drop isn’t the worst thing in the world after all.

There are some business books where you get all the value from the one paragraph summary or even just the title. I suspect Cal Newports latest might be another example. I’ve heard him on a couple of podcasts discussing it and I can buy into his basic idea.

• Avoid open loop communications tools that anyone can contact you at any time for anything.
• Promote context specific tools which you work on asynchronously.

It’s basically trying to avoid the “So when shall we have a meeting” chain of messages where it takes four messages to get the ball moving and instead use something like calendly which helps close discussions faster.

My team has made this shift in a couple of areas (moving away from our real-time chat and too google docs/trello/figma). We still occasionally ping each other over real deadlines, but it just makes more sense to not get inundated with pings all the time.

Of course, there are some topics where the lesson is clear from the title, but that doesn’t make it easy. Ego is the enemy for example. Sometimes the value of the book is not the information, but the repeated exposure to the message.

It’s a very Christian idea I’ll admit. That we can get the idea instantly and see a transformation (justification) but still regress and require a ongoing change to truly inhibit an idea (sanctification). Perhaps my own faith background and its emphasis on reading the scripture explains my openness to such books.

Well, I didn’t expect that ending when I sat down to write.

I’m really happy with not trying to force my iPad to be my main computer but just use it for what I like doing on it (reading, drawing, some web browsing, Listening to audiobooks while cooking, facetime calls with family back home) and use my Macbook Air for what I like doing on that (writing, editing videos, day job… which is writing, trello, managing and spreadsheets…oh so many spreadsheets.)

If Apple updates iPadOS to make the iPad better for day job work, I might reconsider but I’m not sure why I would now.

I like having a causal device and work devices or having a book/notes open on my iPad with a writing space on my Macbook.

When I was an “iPad only*" person I valued the iPad’s prompting of monotasking. While that hasn’t changed, I’ve since found that the MacBook can be equally low-distracting as it can be seen as a work device (when set up with fewer notifications, not installing certain apps, limits on internet access etc).

In fact, freeing the iPad to be an iPad has allowed me to also make it less distracting. Now I don’t have to use it for work, I can block the internet, uninstall anything that gives a notification related to work, and make it a better consumption and creation device.

If Apple adds more pro apps to the iPad or improves support for multitasking, external windows, split audio etc then fine. I’m sure some blogger will write about how the iPad truly can be anyone’s only computer just as they have for the last X years. (While the verge will also point out how it can’t be your only computer because it doesn’t work well with their CMS).

But whatever happens, I doubt it will affect my workflow much.

(There is a chance that future Chris is really mad at how stupid past Chris is writing this… I guess we’ll see!)

*terms and conditions apply. Definitions of iPad only may vary and usually don’t include day jobs.