What Has My Attention

If you’re a new subscriber and this is your first newsletter from me...oof. I’m sorry about that. It’ll get better from here, I promise.

For the rest of you...

Hey.

It has been a minute. Or two. Or a few months. What’s a few missed months among friends?

I’m still here, but barely. Well, no, that makes things sound more dire than they are. I’m more fortunate than many. A job that I enjoy. Great relationship. Adequate health. Given the underlying state of the world that’s a pretty stellar combo to have in my pocket.

But I am tired. So very tired. Because of the good things I just listed above (mostly, a job that has just gotten busier and more intense over the past few months) I’ve been slow to realize that a.) I am tired (I mentioned I’m tired, right?) and b.) that it’s okay to be tired.

A casualty of that tiredness, though, has been this newsletter.

I still care about it very much and I don’t intend to retire it. But, it’s time to face facts and say that a newsletter I haven’t published since June — and that I’m really just scraping out of the bottom of the barrel right now — is not on any kind of real cadence and is unlikely to be for the immediate future (again, the tiredness).

I’m trying to be okay with that.

Saying it out loud helps.

I’ve gotta keep plugging away at my day job because in the maelstrom of complexity and uncertainty called “life” right now that’s the thing that has to have my attention. You know, for money reasons. And for professional growth reasons. And for keeping my sanity reasons. It won’t be that way forever — but it is for now.

I’ve been collecting interesting links and tweets for weeks at this point, though. Do y’all mind if I just dump them all here? I’m thinking if I clear out the backlog it might free up some pathways for new ideas and perhaps some fresh momentum.

Let’s go for it.

Links Worth Your Attention

First, into the Twitter bookmarks we go:

Have —> Do —> Be or Be —> Do —> Have?
When your confidence shrinks, your future shrinks.
The products that the most hypercritical man in the world actually likes.
Could Mickey’s Ten Commandments help your team define their principles, too?
“...care about surroundings down to the cups you drink from...”
“...it’s okay to just wander through life finding interesting things until you die.”
A thread for remembering the times you re-experience something from the Before Times.
When you’re burnt out it becomes very hard to tell if you’re burnt out.
How to get better at cooking.
A lesson in applying extreme constraints leading to the meteoric rise of one of the world’s most influential chefs.
A thread on operating under information surplus and information deficit.
Extremely analog checklists, ftw.
Brave wild failure.
Let’s talk about work beliefs.

Now, let’s go spelunking into Instapaper:

I’m pretty sure Fernando is a subscriber and I put his site into my RSS reader many months ago and it seems like he publishes some fire like 2 or 3 times a week. He’s probably going to show up in this list a couple times. Here’s the first one about managing energy rather than time.
Always be writing. (MicahWalter.com)
Maker, manager, consumer. (MacSparky)
Fatigue. (SimonTerry.com)
You don’t need to be a hero to change your habits. (FernandoGros.com)
How to use seasonal themes. (FernandoGros.com, told you)
The art of looking: Eleven ways of viewing the multiple realities of our everyday wonderland. (Brain Pickings)
What life changing item can you buy for less than $100? (Reddit)
Watch this woman track her guitar progress over four years. (BoingBoing)
How to understand things. (Nabeelqu.co)
Let each task fill up your world. (ZenHabits)
On the usefulness of photography. (Simon Sarris)

Closing Round

Playing: Honestly, not much. For the first time in many weeks I picked up my Switch and played Dead Cells for a few minutes. I think it has the potential to grab me, but hasn’t yet.
Reading: Since last issue? Quite a bit, I’m sure. Right now? War and Peace, mostly. I think I’ve gotten far enough in to have a bit of a mental map of the characters and adapted to the style. I’m starting to dig it.
Eating: Our go-to Friday pizza delivery has changed to Pizza Sicilian in Arlington, VA. If your local to me, this place is legit good. Don’t sleep on their wings or antipasto salad, too. Wings are huge and well cooked/seasoned and the antipasto salad comes with enough meat on it for a week’s worth of sandwiches.
Watching: Emily and I devoured the two seasons of What We Do in the Shadows. DEVOURED it. Instant classic and already in my top 3 or 4 shows of all-time.

That wasn’t so bad, eh? Next time, more me (but less self-pity) and fewer links (probably).

But until then — I remain deliberately your friend,

Sam

P.S. Feel free to respond to this email if you have something you think I should read or just want to say hello. Or pop on over to Twitter. God knows you can find me over there more easily than you probably should...