On the Road To My 2nd Brain

The dreaded mistake of spending more time on the tools rather than on the process has plagued me. For trying out which is the best electric drill, buy a few models and try each one instead of using the tool to create. I get caught up in the intricacies of planning and nothing gets done. I have gone so far as to structure my folders and create respective categories but I struggle in creating good notes and fumbling with my to-do list and calendar.

The first mistake in handling my email which is my Waterloo.I persist in keeping the email in the inbox instead of acting: create a calendar entry, add to the to-do list, and transfer it to an active folder or archive. I do well in transferring to the folder and flagging the note though I did not act upon it; as if the act of flagging has done the job. Instead, I let the email languish in my inbox.

I am confused about mixing email and notes; thinking that the email is a captured note and one should just flag it or move it to a One Note folder. It is not a note but a message that one should deal with, or nothing could come out of it and there should be action. I still keep the action in my mind instead of moving it somewhere like a to-do list or a calendar entry to move the process to the next stage. I lack the skill to review or come back to the list of to-do items or flagged emails.

The next mistake is failing to capture fleeting notes and placing them into a folder. I am not comfortable in dashing out a few short sentences and prefer long-flowing entries like in my journal. In fact, I should be reflecting in the same manner as in my journal entry both with a more concise and brief description. Instead, I linger on. Hence, I am still in the Capture mode and have not succeeded in the next steps: Organize, Distill and Express.

I also get mixed up in my tool set on whether notes are TO DO tasks or an entry in Microsoft One Note for my work or  Google Keep Notes for my personal work. Moving to the next phase or Organizing and Distilling requires a different mindset than note-taking. I get all mixed up in the scheme of work as I also need to use other tools like JIRA and EasyPPM and Microsoft Teams. These are systems that help execute a project but are not really used to build a second brain. 

Aside from the tools for knowledge management, Microsoft  Teams is a powerful tool set including Sharepoint and Planner that can help organize work. The rich toolset will bewilder you because they refer to different aspects of the project and daily work though some tools such as One Note can serve both BASB or project work. Into this mess is the everyday stress and excitement that the work brings into the mix.     

 

Workshop with the French

Last week we had a 4-day workshop with our Europe team. One member was originally from Columbia and emigrated to France after marrying her French husband. The other member has a surname that has origins in England. On our side was a lady from Mexico who took American citizenship though speaks fluent French. The other member, me, is from the Philippines and took Singapore citizenship and is now American.  The other member is from the American South and loves fishing in the Florida keys.

I kept quiet most of the time in the workshop as I represented computer technology while the others were on the business side. Sometimes keeping quiet is the best contribution that one can bring though it gives the mind a sense of paranoia as it second guesses what one perceives to be where one should speak. It is the imposter syndrome. However, everyone knows (at least I think so) that I am engaged in several projects both as squad leader and Project Manager.

My mind is prone to rumination, churning along as I had to focus on cleaning up PMB data, planning for going live,  meeting with my squad members, scheduling meetings, and handling several issues\. I am at a disadvantage since I have to do double work as compared to when I was only a squad leader and my work has increased with the turnover of the other projects. This is the best outcome as helps me avoid bureaucratic effort if no person is the project manager.

Yesterday, I ran in the 6k GE race which was held at Hartness subdivision which was like a park with a lot of green hills, lakes, and excellent views of the countryside. In the afternoon, we were at a party with our friends where we were exchanging stories and as usual, expressed where individual projects which were better than the others. In our case, moving money from the Philippines to the US stock market. Various tax strategies were discussed.

 Today, I swam in the early morning, rode our bike in the Swamp Rabbit trail, went to the Fall for Greenville where I had 2 glasses of beer, and samosa, and watched a Jazz and Blues band called amongst the trees. Afterward, we walked to the new Grand Bohemian hotel looking at the waterfall below with great views from the balcony. It was a great weekend with time to get out of my ruminating mind which ad focused on paranoia and imposter syndrome rather than celebrating our own contribution.

Perhaps it is because of our young American colleague who is eager to show her intelligence. Youth is on her side and I am glad she is on the team. As usual, there is a lot of politics involved with my young boss trying to be part of the team in this project. My paranoia has gotten the better of me and my 6k race in the rolling countryside, weekend swim and bike ride, and Fall for Greenville has brought me back to my senses. 

 

Video Casting

I started my course on video storytelling in The Great Courses. I took the first 3 courses after my workday ended. I also have several other lessons on video casting in Udemy and MasterClass. The plan is to start a second career in this space; to be a content creator. There are several YouTube videos on the topic. This is the natural progression of courses in increasing productivity like Building a Second Brain.

It makes sense to move to this area as I have experience in blogging and uploading YouTube videos made from pictures. I studied AdSense, SEO, monetizing blogs, and other such topics for several years but the endeavor never took off. Most of the successful entrepreneurs in this space are young with a new life ahead of them. My goal is to have something to do after I retire; hopefully to generate income; the old fogey strikes back.

I bought an Apple Mac mini in an attempt to jump-start this plan. I also bought a Smartphone Gimbel as well as a new Pixel 6 with a dual camera.  What I lack in youth I compensate with experience as a project manager and extensive computer skills and the naivete of an amateur. Lessons on Building a Second Brain and other productivity topics have given me a spark of possibility that I lacked before; instead of ruminating in a never-ending thought cycle.

My new role as squad leader necessitated my quest for increasing productivity which is really an emotional challenge. Procrastination is all about managing one's emotions and trying new techniques such as interstitial journaling is a way to handle one feelings and be mindful at work. All this learning in productivity, including my daily meditation, had provided mental space to bring in these new thinking with the potential for achievement.

My work-life and personal goals merge into a single stream with the common elements of using new tools in Microsoft, Google, and personal knowledge apps like Notion and Obsidian. Interconnectivity and synchronized workspaces are the keys. Externalizing one's thoughts based on concepts like The Extended Mind, Building a Second Brain, and The Organized mind make this possible.

Sprint Demo

Our squad had its sprint demo today with squad members presenting their accomplishments. The day started slightly disorganized as the team scrambled to complete the presentation. One slide was missed and the team rushed to add the missing slide a few minutes before the sprint started. The demo went well with certain members presenting their accomplishments. After the demo, we had a retrospective to review what worked and did not and what needed improvement.

The session was brutally honest as more areas needed to be improved compared to what went well. It was a call for changes and I did my part by scheduling weekly sessions with each squad member. A humbling experience for me but I had the reckoning coming. The honesty of the session was good as everyone had a chance to speak out and clear the air. The next step is clearly to perform and make improvements. This is the kind of situation that I like due to the challenges.

In the afternoon, I had my frequent feedback session where we cleared the air with my domain manager. There were past episodes of tension and my boss had a chance to express her concerns while I had an opportunity to apologize, More work was piled on me but that is what I wanted anyway since the model I wanted to do was not approved. Such is the game that I find myself in with challenges from the squad and from my boss.

The productivity videos and books that I am reading are just in time for such a quandary. I do not feel any stress and took these challenges in stride. These are the circumstances of any manager facing tough times at work and one needs to keep his wits and weather the storm.  The work day ended on a good note with the last meeting of the day where I explained the plan for the deployment of a project I was leading as project manager. The business team supports my view.

There is a lot of talk about mental health these days as people cope with inflation, return to work, covid ( some people in the office still wear masks) personal challenges, and work demands. The threat of nuclear war in the horizon with the war between Ukraine and Russia. Is this milieu causing people to complain more? Can this situation be attributed to external factors rather than immediate work stress? People have their own perception of reality ( see Vladimir Putin) that the world is a mess.

Building a Second Brain

In my new role, I often feel overwhelmed and bewildered. There is no one helping me as my French colleague would say, perceptively concerned about my mental health. There is a challenge in my current cognitive ability and discovering new tools such as BASB is a God send. A tool in the burgeoning field of knowledge management. I am using all the new tricks that I can find on Youtube to keep above the water.

I hit the motherlode of new self-help books: Atomic Habits, The Organized Mind, Building a Second Brain, and The Extended Mind plus the several Youtube creators out there is fuel enough to educate the uninitiated like me. In fact, I have been building a second brain without my conscious knowledge by using tools like EverNote, Dropbox, and MS OneNote. However, I lacked the Aritoteliean rigor of categorization, which would have helped in simple things like organizing my file system. Or even my garage.

Instead, I get stuck in the software tools. I downloaded Obsidian, then Notion but never got to use them, preferring the suite of tools I already use; for work Microsoft suite of Outlook, To Do, Teams, and OneNote. For personal use, I look to the Google suite of Gmail, Keep Notes, Gmail, Tasks, and Drive. Despite having used these tools for a while now, I am unable to smoothly incorporate them into my workflow.

Last week, I tried interstitial journaling, creating a new notebook in OneNote where I make daily entries. The idea is to be mindful of my working day and to control my emotion. Procrastination is really about managing one's emotions and journaling is a way to be aware of what I feel during the day. This technique shows some promise in calming my emotions and controlling my thoughts. I do not have the time to write long journal entries like these on a daily basis as I used to do in the past.

Listening to Tiago Forte, in the process of BASB, one must become a producer or creator instead of being a consumer. I am a glutton for consuming media which reflects my overall attitude with one look at my cluttered garage. I am in the midst of clearing this mess up which takes a lot of mental energy because of the awareness of my sickness of consumption; whether media or physical things. In fact, it is a mental disease that has corrupted me with mindless material accumulation.

Externalizing the mind, liberates one from rumination and too much thinking, by creating an external brain that one must bring order and clarity, to be organized and productive. This is the goal that one must achieve instead of diddling with the various software tools out there. Again the mind gets stuck with all the thoughts that swirly around with the possibilities of what one can do with these various software tools.

 

Daufuskie Island

Last week I was on vacation where I spent Monday on Edisto Island, Tuesday on Daufuskie Island, and Wednesday in Beaufort. We drove home on Wednesday afternoon. The rest of the week I spent playing golf in my usual Thursday game, and the rest of the week swimming, watching movies, and biking the swamp rabbit trial. I did not respond to any email or Teams post but spent some time on Friday replying to some with needed a response due to production issues. It is the first time wherein I did not work during a vacation as most of the time was a workcation in the past.

During my off days, I read Tiago Forte's 'Building a Second Brain' and watched his videos. Learning his process to offload work from my brain and make notes in a structured way will be the key to my success in my new role and make me succeed in my other projects like writing a book, learning a new language, and traveling abroad. I also spent last week clearing out my garage. Like my father, I am a pack rat who likes to buy things in the hope these purchases would help me grow as a person. In fact, I realize it is a disease of affluence, to spend money on useless stuff like buying dreams or a new life.

Shifting through the clutter, there is no mistake in realizing that something has gone wrong with my thinking process to allow myself to buy all this stuff. Clearing the garage and organizing my work will de-clutter both my physical and mental space. It is a wonder that I could function in such disorganized circumstances; which I attribute to my youthful intelligence and habit of journaling (which is a brain dump)  but which one can no longer sustain as one age. Creating a second brain will allow me to succeed in my later years plus allow me to work on several projects at the same time.

We enjoyed our vacation at the beach in Edisto and the bike ride exploring Daufuskie Island. I watched a movie based on Pat Conroy's 'The Water is Wide' which was set on the island when he was a young teacher. The vacation allowed me to step away from the pressure at work and think of ways to be better and more organized. I feel the wind behind me as I catch a new wave bringing me forward. I have been practicing meditation; by counting my breaths, listening to guided meditation, and, recently, chanting meditation where I recite affriming quotes. 

In my last session, my therapist said that I am managing better in my life; the difference is like night and day compared to several months back. Interestingly, my golf mates also made the same remark about my golf game. I have been taking golf lessons but I think it is my mindful meditation that allows me to focus and avoid distracting thoughts. I now have a 14 handicap as compared to 21 a few years back. Last year, my handicap was about 19. In fact, I am starting to enjoy my golf game now that I have more control. I hope to have the same feeling at work now that I am beyond the youthful drive and intuitive gut feeling that has driven me to success.

 

Saturday Bike Ride

 After swimming in the early morning, I went biking with my wife and friends in a nearby park. I left early to come home to grill a chicken in my weber grill, burn coal in the chimney firestarter, and install the rotisserie over the grill. I had to prepare 3 loads of coal to keep the temperature at 300+ Fahrenheit to grill the inside of the chicken to at least 165 F. I had my usual doubts since this was only the 2nd time I used the rotisserie but the task went well.

My friends came back near noon before I finished cooking the chicken. In the end, after an hour on the grill, we decided the bake the chicken in the oven for another 15 minutes to make the insides well done. My wife cooked noodles 'bak chor mee' following the Singapore style with fish balls, minced meat, and mushrooms. We ate lunch after 1 pm when the chicken was ready from the oven.

Prior to lunch, we watched old Filipino movies in memory of an actress who died recently due to cancer. The movie was an old classic in the 70s or 80s starring a popular singer and actress who is now married to a senator. It was fun to watch these old movies which made us reminiscences of the old days in our youth when these films were popular. I used a Pixy drone camera to take videos of our gathering and posted them to our group chat.

Our get-together ended early as one of our friends had to go home to complete some work they were doing on the weekend. Perhaps it is the new swimming pool that they were talking about in past gatherings, that was scheduled to be installed in August. Recently, the couple bought another electric vehicle which is not really needed since traveling is not a constant in their life but just to get the latest car popular in the news.

Though I did not spend time biking in the park since I had to get home to grill the kitchen, I enjoyed the brief time as we had coffee and chocolate rice which was a popular breakfast meal when I was young, when eaten together with salty fried fish. We enjoyed our time together as usual and our friends brought lech flan cake, mango sago, and sticky rice for dessert.