• The Week #315

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    • 🌊 Summer vacation started with a 3-day weekend in Japan (Marine Day). We spent the half of the day in Kamakura. Blue Bottle opened a new cafe in area so we decided to pop in for an iced beverage and some reading time. Afterwards while wondering around looking for lunch we went to Muji Cafe for the first time. Looking back, this visit really speaks gentrification of Kamakura, especially on the komachi dori side of things...but also the spaces were big and easy to get seating at.
    • 📚 I finished reading Getting Things Done and continue to stick with it. I think it's helping me get a lot things done (imagine that?) that have sat on the back burner for far too long because I'd remember them when I couldn't action them, then forget when I had the time to actually do it. Silly things like store the winter clothes properly or selling the tent. And also the not so silly things like organizing the futon closest downstairs, which has been a place I try to close the doors and not think about because I didn't know where to start. In recent years he wrote a team version, which I am looking forward to reading next.
    • 🏃‍♂️ I made my two runs for the week and it's far too hot to run. Even at night the heat and humidity don't stop. Even going slow you start off fine, but by the end of the 30 minutes a single bottle of Aquarius isn't enough.
    • 🍻 I went for beers with one of the foreigner dads in Leo's class. It was a lot of fun to be able to build some relationships outside of work, but also especially in Leo's school. I wish I had done this sooner. We're going to get together again this summer after we both do our trips out of Japan.
    • 🎵 I found this banger of a set inside a dry cleaners in LA. I'm loving this trend of just DJing from wherever.
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    Monday Activity
    Even in darkness the suffering continues 🥵. 31c 70% humidity 8pm. At least this should make autumn runs feel easy in comparison.

    4.4km

    32.5min

    14.2m climbed

    avg bpm

  • Checkin to MUJI com

    Lunch 😋

  • Checkin to BLUE BOTTLE COFFEE KAMAKURA CAFE (ブルーボトルコーヒー 鎌倉カフェ)

    Enjoying a cold brew in this heat.

  • The Week #314

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    • 🎯 Using OmniFocus and GTD has really helped me get more organized at work and at home. Things I would continually forget, remember, tell myself I'll do in 10 minutes, then subsequently forget about are actually getting done. It's been really good.

      One area that I think it's a game changer for me at work is being able to explicitly track waiting for/delegated tasks with dates. Not that I couldn't do this before by writing notes or adding things to calendars, but I can create a custom perspective (effectively a custom query) of all tasks in the system and show them...then they appear along side my tasks in the forecast / the tagged items so I can follow up more consistently.
    • ☀️ Japan's infamous summer heat has finally shown up. We're still on the more mild end in Yokohama/Tokyo, but 92% humidity is 92% humidity.
    •  😮‍💨 We had one of those rough days going to school that we haven't had in the past few months. I can't believe every day was like that. I know it's about more than just school, but I can't help but wonder if an environment like an international school would be better for the boy...

  • The Week #313

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    • 🍿 We saw Toy Story 5 in English. What a film, perhaps my favorite one yet? The writers really do hit the nail on the head about the challenges that parenting in the world of prolific screens provides. How do you balance between keeping your kid engaged with the real world and socialising with their friends (when a lot of that starts to happen online). And when every kid is a dopamine addicted iPad kid...how do you find that balance? (The answer is enforced boundaries, but that gets harder and harder to enforce as they get older and cleverer and you're tried).  I know I'll hold out on connected tech for as long as feasible.
    • ☑️ I've felt a bit like my brain has been all over the place. Work. Home. All the tasks popping into my head all the time. As fate would have it, Tim Ferris had David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done and reposted it this week in episode 873. I am not a regular listener to his podcast, but it seemed wildly appropriate. Almost the algorithm has made the leap to mine directly from my head (though it's just plain ol' RSS).

      This in turn encouraged me to re-read Getting Things Done. It's been 20 years since I read it and, my life wasn't nearly complex enough back then to really need it. And it's been like an epiphany. Still early days (and I haven't finished re-reading it), but having a single inbox for all things is helping my mind relax. And that's because everything is in one place, rather than split across Slack reminder me later, Obsidian, written down somewhere, or in my inbox. If there's something I need to do, I add it to....
    • 💻 OmniFocus 4. The last time I tried OmniFocus in an attempt to start GTD, I was too cheap to go on all in and thought I could manage with just the iPhone app. Needless to say, when most of your work occurs at desk, it's suboptimal to need to reference your phone each time. Now a single license works across platforms, so it's easier to add all the things in the moment.

      The app itself, I am still getting used to, but it's made me remember an era of macOS history that is gone. You know the one. Back when every app was native and they were crafted for the platform, not web apps bolted into a wrapper. What a breath of fresh air.

  • Checkin to Yokohama Burg 13 (横浜ブルク13)

    Toy Story 5!

  • Checkin to mango tree cafe

    😋
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    Saturday Activity
    Humid hills. 🥵

    4.3km

    31.5min

    53.8m climbed

    avg bpm

  • The Week #312

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    • 6️⃣ This post marks 6 years of writing The Week. Technically it was last week, but I proper missed, without just flubbing the status, the 6th year anniversary post and I don't really remember what I did. When I started mid-pandemic, I wasn't sure how long I'd continue. And truthfully, in this age of LLMs stealing all the content and fakes, at times I question if I should continue, but if I stopped it's a win for the the bad guys and the closed internet, and we can't have that.
    • 🇦🇺 One of the reasons I missed was a short trip to Melbourne for work. This time I transited through Sydney. Like last time, this flight was overnight (at least to Sydney) and I actually slept decently. I skipped the main meal because it was late and, I don't need to be eating a second dinner at 11pm at night after a curry in the lounge.  I rode on Virgin airlines for the first time – getting on/off from the rear of the plane was an interesting experience. I imagine it enables more efficient boarding / unboarding.
    • ☕️ I took the opportunity in Melbourne to drink as many magics as possible. I love the sheer number of cafes and coffee shops in Melbs. I think I probably went to a different shop each day and they were all excellent.
    • 🗾 I took a trip to immigration to get a new card for my permanent residence. They were absolutely slammed. What usually takes an hour or two – tops, took four, almost five. The new cards are pink and last for 9 years now and expire on your birthday, which is far easier to remember. You can merge them with your MyNumber card these days, but I opted not to because it required some extra paperwork and I'll merge my driver's license and MyNumber in my next renewal. And maybe at my next residence card renewal in 2035, the systems will be battle tested enough for me to merge all 3 into 1. 
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