I have to stop starting things, and start stopping things.
What I'm Up To (NINE NINE), What I Reflected On (ENERGY AUDIT TIME), and What's Occupying My Mind (INTROVERT RANT) - all part of Allen's Friday Flights
HELLO to my Friday Flights
Ciao,
Allen
Past Friday Flights
What I’m Up To
TL;DR: OLED ON MY MIND
The Things:
I have replaced my amazing Dell 34 inch Ultrawide Monitor - 3440x1440 - that I have recommended and converted 6 different people on that I got for free due to a shipping error in 2016 with a Sony 42 inch OLED that has 4k 120hz. This will get its own tale.
Whole Foods sells Cava dips. Enjoy. Red Pepper Hummus | Crazy Feta | Harissa
If you have a cat, or know anyone with cats, this toy I got is effective. DM for cat video usage.
Massive shoutout to Brennan Woodruff & the GoCharlie.Ai team for launching a 2.0 version of their Product. Brennan used to work at KPMG.
DO YOU LIKE GOLF? I have a friend and founder who are building something to help golf lovers enter the Web3 world - and you can be part of it! DM me on that.
I’m now into this Building a Second Brain thing, which conveniently the author and founder uses Notion to have a Second Brain. Spoiler Alert: Documentation is king.
Playing Horizon Forbidden West on my OLED. Its amazing.
I’ve been doing weekly job post contents on LinkedIn, and for the one this week eclipsed all previous posts (450+ likes and 250k views). I’ve been posting the same type of content for 25 weeks. It has resulted in the creation of this.
I finished and submitted my last set of letters of recommendation for people who asked. ‘Tis a great honor when someone asks you to do it.
I’m obsessing over this tweet on SBA Loans. Is this my 2025-2027 plan?
This is the most solid Twitter Thread around adapting book content into movie/tv show content - specifically this thing about “respecting an author’s vision” versus casting people of color in to roles.
What I reflected on
TL;DR: Just like the Southern California electric grid, I too am now becoming more aware of my energy.
Stop Starting, Start Stopping
I have to stop starting things, and start stopping things.
I’m an idea generator, that also has a tendency to execute things too. But as great as idea generation is, I also need to be really great at killing ideas that aren’t returning as much value as they should be.
I’m getting busier these days. It doesn’t all at once - it happens little by little, from different sources.
I enjoy all the things I am choosing to do. Writing, consulting, advising, meet & greets, communities, contributing, projects, more projects, contract work, other contract work etc.
But, I’m also fully aware that I can’t keep everything if I want to manage my energy and be sustainable.
So over the next weeks I’ll have to be “deprecating” things, which is a fancy way to say “I’m about to kill the things I don’t need to do /// put in hibernation”. They are going to the chopping board.
It’s all part of the Energy Audit Methodology you should be doing every now and then.
Here are my thoughts on why this is important to be in my thoughts:
Doing things because you love it isn’t enough. You can love many things, but everything you love to do also demands a price that you have to ask - can you constantly afford the upkeep on all of them in the same period of time?
We put boundaries in not to create distance from the a topic, but to make sure we can thrive to do it again. Or else we’re going to take everything down by affiliation when we don’t.
The consequence for trying to uphold everything is that I will slowly inch to enjoying nothing as the tax for doing it all slowly saps my will to be there in the first place.
Here are my thoughts on how I’m going to kill things, I mean hibernate, things:
FUTURE PICKUP: What are the things that can be written down and archived for a future pick up?
INSTANT RELIEF: What are are the things that will give instant relief (in the form of free bandwidth, mental energy, physical hours, etc) - and why haven’t I already done them?
TIMEBOUND: What is timebound to the season or moment?
DUPLICITY AND COVERAGE: Am I doing too many of one thing such as too many activities in intellectual curiosity but not enough things in physical vigor? Is over indexing in one bucket worth the trade off?
REDUCTION: What can I reduce overall effort or frequency on, but still the spirit of doing it in the first place?
And above all else- what activities would fall under this specific question:
What activities and responsibilities in my day do I want to fast-forward on, and what do I want to slow-motion on?
What is on my mind:
TL;DR: In Person Working Environments are So Extrovert Centered
Turns out, this article from PsyPost, indicates that people who are slower to respond to questions are perceived as more introverted.
Makes me ponder about how extrovert heavy in-person working environments were.
One of the beautiful things about working remote is that we have finally dethroned extroverts and social-manics ruling the work environment, paving a way for fairness for the rest of us.
The thing about in person workplaces is that it’s fast, it’s responsive, and it’s highly impromptu based. Being in the room and being asked a question immediately creates that expectation for immediacy and urgency.
I don’t like it. It is usually a false sense of urgency.
When asking for things remote, we have time to process (read), and respond (write) thoughts that are more intentful and thought-out. Basically, higher quality.
Btw I’m introverted.
“Oh but you can talk to people”