Chris J Wilson

I’m starting to think about making a new sketchnote course so if that’s something you might be interested in, I have a feedback survey that I’d love for you to “kick the tires” of (make sure it works and is a logical flow etc). I want to answer the three questions

P.s. I already have three free sketchnoting courses that you’re welcome to try.

I had a quick play with my work mouse (an HP of some sort) on my iPad yesterday.

• 10-second impression: “This is cool and feels right! I love these little touches like how the cursor changes.”
• 10-minute impression: “Urgh, this is wrong. The scrolling is janky. I can’t slide elements, how on earth do I get to the homepage without using a keyboard. Why can’t I swipe this element! After that, I disconnected my mouse. Part of me expects this to get better as more apps support trackpads and mice plus I suspect a trackpad would be a more intuitive experience.

Still, I wonder what my 10-day impression will be?

I had a few real moments of revelation over the weekend.

1. Work needs to fit my life, not my life fit my work:

I really like my job, but I have been arranging my life to fit my job. In my case, this was wrong. While some people’s work is extremely valuable and is making a difference in the world, the truth is mine isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I think my company is fine and a net positive, but we’re not curing cancer and even if we were, throwing away all other aspects of my life for a company with no guarentee that they’ll keep me around tomorrow let alone when I’m old and grey is plain stupid. When I addon that I may have ended up in hosptial due in no small part to work related stress, I have to make some changes here.

2. I can use different task systems for work and home

This is connected to the last point. As a teacher, I used to take home work all the time, so having a system that combined both my professional and personal tasks made sense. Now, I don’t take home my work so I don’t have keep track of both at the same time, I can basically apply a filtered view by opening a different app. This will then allow me to use the task management app I want for my personal life (no doubt mac/iOS focused. Not sure what yet) and a horrible windows friendly one for work (probably Todoist).

A mindset shift

As you can see, the second idea was prompted by the first. In someways I feel this has been a slow change that really should have occured when I switched career but then again, perhaps it should have been the case when I was a teacher as well.

Things I’m currently reconsidering

• my blog hosting platform (I’ve been playing with Ghost but I can see a cool WordPress plugin for book reviews. I’m thinking of keeping MB as a separate blog, but maybe I shouldn’t)
• my task management app (todoist works everywhere but it always feels like too much hard work everywhere!)
• My RSS app (Unread is cool, but maybe I should just use inoreader…or prehaps reeder 4. And what about the service underneith?) All this instead of blogging, getting things done and reading enriching articles. At the same time, It’s okay to review what we’re doing sometimes and make sure we’re still doing things the right way and with the right tools. Still, I wish I had a better idea rather than just confusion.

One of the dangers elements of the Internet is that “Keeping up with Joneses” can be multipled manifold. I connect with some folks who are very well off and an average income for their country may have far more than I do.

Sometimes when I hear people talk about their five iPads, Macbook, iMac Pro and more accessories It can skew my sense of what I should be able to afford. But I need to run my own race.

Even if there weren’t other areas where I wanted to spend my money, I couldn’t afford to buy all the latest technology. I need to focus on my own values and priorities so that I don’t spend money badly nor feel jealous of those who can afford certain items that I’d like.

I wish I could say I do this well, but if I did, I wouldn’t be writing this.

Starting some new studies¹. Now what tool should I use to save notes and research 🤔. Needs to work on iPad and probably Windows? Don’t think I’ll have access to a mac. I still have DevonThink 2 set up (which is pretty great) but maybe I should just use the old reliable Evernote. Notion seems very cool but it doesn’t have the easy web clipping of the other two. Anything I’m missing?

I used to find it really strange how often I’d see someone taking a course and they’d want help making their own course better (two examples I’ve seen, copywriter needs to improve the landing page of their copywriting course. Handletterer needs to improve thier lettering for their lettering course). Now, I still find it strange but I also think it’s a very smart decision. If you are a coach, you should be constantly improving to make sure you are providing the best advice possible. I do think there is a lower limit there (don’t teach what you are brand new to. And when you do start teaching, perhaps focus on the easiest aspects.) but it’s not completely unreasonable.

To give people (and myself) something to do during self-isolation/social distancing or whatever, I published my premium 30 days of sketchnoting course. 🥳

It’s 30 days of sketchnoting activites to build your sketchnoting skills (it works if you’ve never sketchnoted before, or if you have experience but want to expand your skillset).

It might be a bit rough around the edges so if you use the code MARCH20, you get 75% off (and I’m going to take it down after a week and correct any issues).

If $7 is too much for you, I have a couple of free sketchnote courses (but they don’t have videos).

I’m hoping to use the money from this course to pay for the hosting, add an email drip system and perhaps even get some new gear to make better videos for the next course (and add videos to the free courses).

P.s. If you know someone who is interested in sketchnoting, I’d love it if you shared these courses with them. Thank you.

I got to take part in some interviews today. I asked what aspect of their work they enjoyed the most and which they liked the least. For the first part, the candidate basically answers everything. I asked about what they liked the least and they answered a different question. I asked my question again and the candidate again avoided answering. I wonder if the candidate thought I was asking a “what’s your greatest weakness” type question when I really wasn’t. Avoiding my question, especially after I asked again, annoyed me.