Review - 2021: The Year of the Chisel

Lots of change and learning. Graduating, going full-time on Augment, throwing balance to the wind, overwhelming myself. Joining ZeroTo510 cohort, moving to Memphis, and more.

Overall, 2021 gets a thumbs up. Deducting a few points for COVID-related transgressions.

Close of the year, feeling good. The Year of the Chisel had a threefold focus. Artisan Tools, Hammer, and Stone.

Artisan Tools

The artisan tools dimension. Using specific tools for specific jobs. Unbundling the functionality of my devices and services.

Software side: tools are starting to cover everything. Each specializes in a very particular way.

Hardware side: lots of room for progress. Phone remains multi-tool-y. New Focus mode features and widgets are promising. Created special settings for “Work” mode and other modes. Next trick: making sure I actually use and engage with them.

Hammer

Hammer dimension. Improving my systems. Craft and Todoist: core knowledge and task management tools, respectively. Used them for a few months. System unwieldy. Also added friction. Great at capturing things. Not at surfacing them.

Online research. PARA and PPV systems surface. Weekend after Thanksgiving, total overhaul time. Short mental panic — “wow I have no clue how to use this, system is burning down, need to undo everything.” Things start clicking. Week or two later, much more efficient and on top of everything.

Finally. Things have a place. Thing places make sense. Notes and projects live in Craft. Action items in Todoist. Smooth. Invisible value from seeing projects in one place, prompts a little progress. Would have forgotten about them before.

Stone

Stone dimension. Prioritizing creation.

Worked on Augment Health. Probably created value. Partially top secret.

Worked on neurosurgery project with Mayo Clinic. Created new medical device concept.

Very happy with this year’s Jaredigms articles. Didn’t complete full 30-day blogging challenge. Some interesting pieces still came out of it. 16 posts since Year of the Chisel post, including 3 long-form posts.

Hoping to continue into 2022. Goal: 4 long-form posts this year.

2022: The Year of Alignment

Second half of last year, relatively tumultuous time personally. Working off a short time horizon. Scale of months, incredibly different from 4-year horizons of high school and college.

Also working wrong. Not sure if there’s a “right” way to work. Definitely did it wrong. Ended up all-consumed, also making less progress than usual. Icing on the cake: friends told me I needed to find balance. Proceeded to ignore. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way. Others, the even harder way.

This year: finding the trajectory for the next undetermined amount of time. Developing the habits, systems, and relationships to continue that track. Finding balance. Ensuring my actions and behaviors are aligned with who I am and what my goals are.

Setting the destination

First element: finding the “you are here” marker. Puzzle of figuring out who I am, how I think, why I am. Also includes identifying my strengths and weaknesses.

Interested to experiment. First, leaning into strengths while dealing with weaknesses. May be better than struggling to turn weaknesses into strengths. Second, plotting activities and functions on strength/weakness and enjoy/dislike axes.

Creating the route and following the path

Next element: putting things in motion. Identifying habits and practices to drive myself forward. Also involves optimizing systems to support those activities and minimize friction.

Major question this year is relaxation and decompression. My best ideas come from time and space to think. Appears to be echoed across history.

Another experiment, gathering feedback. Better understanding how others see me. For comparing to self-image.

Looking forward to what my Year of Alignment brings.

Here’s to a great 2022 🎉 🎉

Thoughts, ideas, or feedback? Would love to hear it 😄

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