{"id":2224,"date":"2024-10-02T22:44:54","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T03:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2024-10-02T22:44:54","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T03:44:54","slug":"weeknote-for-9-29-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/2024\/10\/02\/weeknote-for-9-29-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeknote for 9\/29\/2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Productivity<\/h2>\n

\ud83e\udd14<\/p>\n

I added another feature to my Notion setup and then stepped back to look at the big picture of this project.<\/strong> Things I did:<\/p>\n

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  1. I created a timeline view for my task history.<\/em> This lets me review my recent activity to write these weeknotes. It also gives me a convenient way to find the normally hidden completed tasks I need to refer back to in my current work. Plus it\u2019s just nice to see I\u2019ve been accomplishing things, since everything\u2019s normally lost to the fog of my memory.<\/li>\n
  2. I paused the project to trace some of its task dependencies.<\/em> The task list was getting unwieldy enough that I needed to step back, organize a bit, and pinpoint the most important tasks to get done. I\u2019m taking an outside-in approach, where I look through the various dashboards in my Notion setup and ask myself (1) what their purpose is and (2) what I\u2019d ideally need to do to make them as usable as possible. Then to trace the logic of the dependencies, once I had some tasks that would improve a dashboard, I asked about their prerequisites. Some common prerequisite tasks that have come up so far:\n
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    1. Decide how to relate knowledge and action items.<\/li>\n
    2. Determine my policies for refiling old projects and tasks.<\/li>\n
    3. Refile the old projects and tasks for statuses that already have refiling policies.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    4. I settled on a policy of trying out manual processes before I commit to making them easier through automation.<\/em> The problem with jumping into automation is that I may have gotten the process wrong, and designing and implementing an automation takes time that can add up. For example, I\u2019m not sure the Advised Status formula I spent so much time on will end up being that useful, depending on how I end up managing my tasks. I should\u2019ve put up with the inconveniences and waited till I was further along in my redesign. So I\u2019m planning my task dependencies in terms of experimenting with workarounds first.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Next up:<\/p>\n

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      1. I\u2019ll keep sorting out the task dependencies so I can focus my attention more intelligently.<\/li>\n
      2. I\u2019ll try out Notion\u2019s task dependency view to see if it\u2019ll be useful, though I\u2019ll try not to go overboard so I don\u2019t waste time on it.<\/li>\n
      3. I\u2019ll continue the task reorganizing I started a couple of weeks ago, which should give me a better starting point even if I end up reorganizing again later.<\/li>\n
      4. I\u2019ll keep digging into the current philosophy of my system so I have a more concrete basis for deciding the new design.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Elections<\/h2>\n

        \ud83e\udd13<\/p>\n

        I made a spreadsheet that models all the possible combinations of swing state victories by each party in the presidential election: Presidential Election 2024 Battleground Scenarios<\/a>.<\/strong> This mini-project was inspired by watching videos from Let\u2019s Talk Elections<\/a>. Making it gave me a much clearer picture of the electoral situation, which is explained well by this Politico article on the key swing states<\/a>. I might use the spreadsheet on election night to narrow down the possibilities as the results come in.<\/p>\n

        A guide to understanding the spreadsheet:<\/p>\n

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        1. I listed the state columns sorted by the number of electors, which is given in the column header (19 for Pennsylvania, 16 for Georgia, etc.).<\/li>\n
        2. To make the formulas easier, in the state columns I used numbers to represent each party\u2019s win: 0 for Republican and 1 for Democrat.<\/li>\n
        3. The BG columns show how many battleground electors each party won in that scenario.<\/li>\n
        4. The States columns show how many battleground states each party won.<\/li>\n
        5. The Total columns show how many total electors each party won.<\/li>\n
        6. The Winner column shows which party won the election or \u201c?\u201d if it was a tossup.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Nature<\/h2>\n

          \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

          I rescued a yellowjacket at the park.<\/strong> It was lying helplessly on its back on the path, flexing its body and waving its legs in the air. After trying a couple of other solutions, I held a leaf over it so it could grab on, and then I was able to lift it and set it in the grass, where it was able to right itself and crawl around, though still in a wobbly, tumbly fashion. This is something I never<\/em> would\u2019ve done growing up, when I was always scurrying away from potentially aggressive creatures, but since starting my nature walks and especially using the Seek app to identify things, I\u2019ve learned that in many cases curiosity is truly an antidote to fear.<\/p>\n

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          A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n