Monday, 18th December, 2023

I should use Shortcuts more.

I was looking in Photos.app on my iPad last night and it was enjoyable going back though old photos. Again, makes me want to have all my photos in it. Yet again, I hesitate as I’d be committed to paying for 2TB of Apple iCloud storage forever more. AND yet, yet again, makes me think of getting a desktop Mac.

I played with the AR feature of the Apple website when viewed via your phone to place iMacs about the house. Obviously they looked nice. A mini is still probably a better option.

I’ve come to hate my desk chair. It’s a laz-e-boy huge thing from the states. However the gas has gone and it sinks down. Plus it ls far too big for the small office. I genuinely think some of my malaise when on the computer comes from this chair. I sat on the workshop computer for a while and felt much better about it. So I’ve ordered a new chair, just a little wooden one from Ikea, the same as the workshop, but it’ll fit much better. I also wanted to get another of the stools we have from Ikea, but annoyingly they’ve stopped selling them in the U.K. So I picked some colourful ones for the kids to sit on.

I’m trying to finish up work stuff this week but also thinking about how I can do better next year. Mostly around organisational things, keeping track of actions, meeting notes, just generally being and working smarter. I had a brief visit of going all in with OneNote - microsoft intergration, great for screenshots of slides etc. - but then I looked at it harder and realised I don’t like it for typing and that’s where a lot of my time goes. I’ve been using Logseq since February 2022 at work and it is my go to for recording notes during meetings. Although now I just remembered some meeting notes I took on my iPad (as easier to take to an offsite meeting) which haven’t come into logseq yet. I think I should tidy it up, and create myself a little bit of a work process.

I’m quite good at capturing information, but I’m not good with managing it. I need something simple, that I don’t need to think too hard about, and isn’t an ordeal to manage and organise. I also need to make myself some time each day/week to look after it as it’ll never get done. I should try and incorproate it with something useful for work, e.g. my weekly updates for my boss. I’m a sucker for complex systems that appear really clever, and even if I do all the setup, I never use them and it falls apart. The core of my system has to revolve around the daily note entry, as this is what shows up in Logseq first and then I just start typing. I think using tags against headings is what I’ll do but I need to decide upon those tags first, at least the main ones, as otherwise I just make up a load of random tags which are often for the same thing but I can’t remember. I think a cheatsheet for myself in the side bar would be useful too. I’ll have to play about with somethings this week and see if I can get a starter arrangement going.

I had wondered about making my own static blog for work, which I just generate locally and look at. Not quite sure why but I like the idea of it. Maybe as a work journal?

Github.dev with VS Code is pretty amazing…I should make use of this more. Particularly as you can install extensions as well.

I keep thinking about combining daily notes and my main blog, but I like this domain name, CSS style and the psuedo-anonymity of it.