Chris J Wilson

My Daughter doesn’t need this advice. She’s just turned 14 months old and she is the most curious person I know.

Sometimes I don’t like her curiosity and try to stifle it. Like when she picks up a cigarette bud off the ground and moves it towards her mouth. Or when she tries to touch the dark black surface of our induction hob that is still radiating heat.

While those occasions may be very noble efforts, there are other occasions where the intention and outcome are less positive. When I’m tried and just want to sit on the sofa and not check every room in the house. Or when she hears a noise on a walk and wants to go back towards it while I want to rush on to our already late appointment.

Of course, her curiosity is not unusual for a kid: they all are curious. But that also means she’s likely to lose this trait. Especially if her father discourages her.

So this advice is for myself. Stay curious, encourage your daughter’s curiosity. You never know where it might take you.

I’ve been “sketchnoting” for about four years now, but I spent a lot longer wishing I could sketchnote. That’s why I created 7 days to start sketchnoting, so people wouldn’t waste time wishing they could sketchnote, but start immediately.

I can’t remember the first sketchnote I saw, it was probably on twitter back when it wasn’t a cool place. As soon as I saw it I wanted to make something similar but two things help me back

• “I can’t draw”
• how the hell do you organise information so well! So I carried on with my notes plus a could of visual ideas. It wasn’t until I decided that it could really improve my teaching and my students learning that I properly dived into sketchnoting.

Guess what.

It wasn’t as difficult as I had built it up in my head. All it took was a couple of key insights and I broke through the barriers that held me back. I applied those ideas to the way I introduced sketchnotes to students and saw a massive increase in the number of students who started sketchnoting as a result.

So I’m sharing what I learned in the 7 days to start sketchnoting course.

It’s completely free and a self study course. You can start today (and finish every activity today) or take a couple of months to go through it all. But, if you want an assignment a day for a week, then you can get email prompts for just that.

So sign up and get started sketchnoting today.

This year I’ve seen some writers and podcasters whom I like and have followed for a while make some (interesting/bad/not-for-me) decisions. Today I saw one example and thought this person needs more of what Austin Kleon calls “eyerollers”: a person who will tell great people they are being dumb.

One example I’ve seen is people taking themselves too seriously. They’ve reached a level of success and now every new thing they are doing is a HUGE deal.

Another is employing the tactics that everyone else is using (when they achieved their initial success because they didn’t use those same tactics).

Both of these types of people (and myself) could use some eyerollers in their lives. (But hey, if you roll your eye, you’re just a hater).

I think it was Valerie Jardin who twisted the classic saying to

the best camera is the one you take more pictures with.

While this can certainly be “the one you have with you” (including a smart phone) it may also be a big bulky, dedicated camera if it encourages you to take more photos than your phone.

I believe this is a good rule of thumb for most tools. We want tools that make us use them more. With apps for sketchnoting, some people find the powerful procreate encourages them to sketch more. Other people find the most limited paper by wetransfer gives them the creative constraints they need to draw without thinking too much. (And some people use pen and paper).

The exceptions

There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Occasions when I want to do something less often or spend less time on an activity. I like this idea, but don’t often stick to it. Take email for example. I want to spend less time in my app and check it less often. I usually remove it from my phone to help deal with that (and then reinstall when I need to access some emails, and typically forget to uninstall for a month or two). In this situation, I want to use “the best” tool as it’s such a horrible experience. But perhaps that just encourages me to use it more. Maybe if I used an application I liked less, I’d develop better habits.

Curating friction

Basically, this is another attempt to curate friction, but in a different form. I’m still experimenting and attempting to use some worse/default apps/tools for tasks which I want to avoid doing. I’ll report back.

Do you do anything similar?

About a month ago I finally tested out an idea I had been wondering about. I registered a new account on Microblog with the username Ukulele. Today, I paid for the first months hosting.

I had wanted to do it sooner, but there had been a couple of things that held me back (funds in my bank account, not having my ukulele around while I traveled) but now it is live.

Why Ukulele MB

I did something similar in the past on Tumblr (and in fact had a lot of followers there). It was a way for me to share what I was learning and help me see my progress on the instrument. Recently, I’ve been playing the ukulele more again and introducing my 1 year old daughter to the instrument (she’s moved from hitting the strings to kind of sort of plucking them). With my appreciation of Micro.blog, I realised it could be a great new combination. A way to share fun images, and video/audio of me playing. Plus maybe I’ll find some other Ukulele players on MB and share their stuff (with their permission of course).

Follow and get connected with Ukulele MB

I’d like your help. Please let me know what type of content you’d like to see (especially if you are a ukulele player yourself) and follow the @ukulele account

I’ve found it harder to write “title worthy” posts recently. I’m not sure the exact origin of this trend.

• Perhaps I’m concentrating more on other creative activities that drain that inspirational spark.
• Maybe I’m being drained more by work with a more strenuous workload.
• Possibly my inspirational diet isn’t as rich as it has been in the past.
• or it might just be a little creative burnout. Whatever it is, I’m still going through the creative motions–Learning and getting inspired, doing some common creative activities, sharing items that inspire me. These habits have helped me not worry about the lack of titled posts. After all. I’m still creating–I have many sketchnotes which aren’t for others to see–and I know that the drought will end at some point. Yes, this is a post about writing: A thing I usually hate. In my opinion, it’s much better to create primary source material than commentary on top of commentary. But it’s not criminal to occasionally discuss the frustrations of creating and you can do whatever you want with your blog.

Sidenote, I’m not talking about writers block. I’ve been writing, just none of it was worth sharing on my site.

Newton’s third law of physics states “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” It’s true of the creative process too.

I’ve noticed a tension present in most creative work. The ideas and projects which are the most exciting and motivating also have the most inertia.

The cause of that drag can be laziness, distractions and self-doubt.

That tension doesn’t feel pleasant, but it’s a telltale sign that a project is a good idea.