This week I’m all about paper and the tools we use to write on it. I’ve become so busy at work that even when it’s slow, my to do list overflows with various side projects–learning Tableau, doing some coding, and trying to figure out the best way to mash up three very different data sets into a coherent whole. I have so many paper lists it’s not even funny anymore: I have my weekly list in my bullet journal, I have a list scribbled on my white board, and I have a daily top three and time blocking list.

And, amazingly enough, I am really enjoying my job now. I’m busy as hell, but I’m doing good work, learning new things, and helping to build a new company that I hope will have a really great culture and that will do great things for the world.

In other news, the description of the merger between Red King Consolidated and Heartstone in Max Gladstone’s Two Serpents Rise is surprisingly accurate. We don’t have any sentient walking skeletons at the office or serpents sleeping in volcanoes (or do we?), but the way the complexity of the deal is described and the competing agendas of the various involved parties? Oh yeah. That part’s right.

• Mike Vardy on why paper works.
• I’m really intrigued by these journaling techniques described by Trina O’Gorman: MindMosaics and Loop Writing. I’ll probably give both a try in the near future.
• A new (to me) concept for keeping a notebook. Commonplace books are significantly more free form than a bullet journal, but I can see trying to incorporate a bit more of this looseness into my next bullet journal. Right now, I only have one for work and I feel kind of weird about that. I have been journaling, but I’ve also been letting things fall off the back of the wagon because my dated planner often doesn’t make it out of my work bag in the evenings.
• Preserving analog tools in a digital world. There really is something about writing things down on a piece of paper. I love my digital tools, but I don’t know how I’d get along without pen and paper.
• I am not really that great at mind-mapping but neither is Rebecca Rose Thering and she managed to make one a day for 100 days.
• A modest guide to productivity.
• Finally, a video: I watched this recent talk from Austin Kleon and I found it really helpful and inspiring. Maybe you will, too.

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