#4 Glühwein and note-taking

Life peek: Wholesome feelings after work

Being in semi-lockdown in Berlin feels both fast and slow. Days resemble each other and night falls early. Yet, I feel like I have been doing a lot of new small exciting things lately — this Update being one of them. Week after week, there are always a few highlights worth mentioning.

Work wise, this last week was pretty intense for me: lots of Black Friday-related emergencies (ugh, marketing agencies) and the confirmation of my promotion to Senior Designer.

After hectic days at work, Robin and I did what was left for us in a city half in lockdown: go for a walk in the cold and drink Glühwein. It seems like every coffee shop, bakery and restaurant has now started making its own mulled wine. Some are fruitier, some are spicier, some are just cheaper. I love them all. I love the contrast between the hot spicy drink, the warm lights and the cold evening weather. It gives me wholesome feelings.

Read & Watched

How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably (article, 2019)

Like many others, Steph Smith explains why building a habit of progression might be your best bet at becoming great. She defines it as a continuous effort, where inputs lead to expected outputs. In short:

If I were to continue this every day for the next year, would I be in a better place?

The Zettelkasten Method: Examples to help you get started. (article, 2020)

Rebecca Williams gives a clear and concise explanation to get started with the Zettelkasten Method — beginner friendly!

Her step by step approach with concrete examples really helped me settle on a working note-taking system.

Discovered

PaperSpan

Save articles in a few clicks and add highlights for free.

As I got more serious with my note-taking habit, I also needed a place to save what I read. My only requirement was unlimited highlights. Pocket and Instapaper felt a bit overpriced for my simple needs. I decided to opt for PaperSpan which does the job perfectly.

Newslettrs

A newsletter-dedicated inbox out of your email — beta mode.

Robin was telling me that I have an "early adopter" personality. Newslettrs is one of those services I subscribed to less than 30 minutes after discovering them.

I had enough of dividing my email inbox between work emails and newsletters — which I think require a completely different mindset. Separating them completely sounded like an ideal plan to me!

Overheard

Not only is any sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic; any sufficiently advanced technologist seems like a magician.

— Autotranslucence, Becoming a magician

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