Underrated and a 12 Week Year!

As a four we struggle to find something we can all watch, last night however we hit a sweet spot with the latest basketball related documentary.

Bit of a tear jerker for me at the end, but nothing from the rest of the crew. Heartless!! Full of inspiration, hard work and determination. A nice take on the game and what feels like a really humble guy compared to the the other star studied documentaries we’ve watched (not that I didn’t enjoy them as well!). The last dance is definitely a must watch if you are into that thing.

Determined to get a coffee share up this week, it’s been a while and I think I’ve mentioned before that summer takes me away from the desktop. There just feels so much to do. This morning the boss is out for a run and I feel I’ve put my strides in so taking a few minutes to check in and say hello.

If we were having coffee I’d let you know that last week was more of a transition week, back into work after a few weeks away camping. Which provided quite a tonic for the mind and soul. I wrote daily with the theory that I could share the journey. It helped with the practice of writing, kept the muscle going. Editing I think is another muscle that needs to be worked on. Facing into that might be hard when the priorities come on thick and fast.

So, back on the grid this week after three weeks away. Monday, getting ready was tough. I was all out of kilter, my memory of things that needed to go in the pannier, what I had in my locker and pulling my lunch together was not very slick! I need to do better 🤪

With being away, my brain was free to think and became full to bursting of things that I wanted to do around creativity, side line activities and distractions.

I’d gone down a rabbit hole of sketch noting the week before we’d left. Sketchnotes at their heart are simply a way of note taking with a flair of creative expression.

My ideas of grandeur, just grew and grew as the days in the mountains peeled back the layers of being stuck at the PC. Either side of the mountains we visited both Strasbourg and the Hague, and I dropped in on a couple of art shops. Wow, like being a child in a candy store. Needless to say I came away with a new journal (because I haven’t got enough of them on the go!) and a few pens that would revolutionise my new ability!

So Monday morning, first thing I unwrapped the new journal, and like a rabbit in headlights wondered where and how to start! The blank page creating a feeling of electricity that just numbs the brain into blankness.

It wasn’t cheap and so along side on a cheapo dot grid I made a rough plan of a plan and then …just bit the bullet and started thinking about the next 12 weeks, treating as a year and what would I like to achieve.

At the same time I attended a webinar for the 12 week year approach. Full of good food for thought. A little disappointed that it was full of upsell on further ways of spending money to make my life great. Key takeaway for me was the concept of my execution system and my brain jumps to the quote:

You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems

James Clear

So this week I’ve been running with the idea on how to bring my culinary thoughts together, push through the resistance and get back into the rhythm of working on the book. I now have a working title ‘Cook One Thing’. It feels like a gift, as suggested by Big Magic (Elizabeth Gilbert). I find the URL hasn’t been taken, a further sign that this is mine and something to get behind.

I also recently came across the concept of a Digital Garden, and been wondering how I can manage my eco system. I’ve been quiet for a few days, trying to get my head around the best approach to doing this from self hosting through to just pushing the button through Obsidian Publish. I tried the self hosting hosting route using GitHub and Netifly. It worked, and then I felt myself drifting away into the technology side for technology sake. I really need to focus on the content, the book and pushing that forward rather than an endless loop of looking for the best tools for the job. So I pushed the button on Obsidian Publish, at 8$ a month it just cut through a lot of nonsense. I had a post up within 15 mins. The custom domain took a little longer, the instructions are fairly straight forward, I bit that bullet as well and just accepted that Obsidian Publish works with Cloudflare. The cost seemed reasonable at about 9$. Just left me to get my head around the publish interface in Obsidian. A breeze and honestly works really well.

New domain name….CookOneThing, is up and running, I’m keen to set myself a goal around a weekly ship, an update through substack Scribble and Scran (something else that feels like a blank journal on opening!)

The dailies and photo’s from the break are on my mind, as is a new 12 week year and focus.

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The #WeekendCoffeeShare is an informal weekly link-up hosted by Natalie the Explorer that serves as weekly heart beat and sort of of a mind-dump. Helps me reflect on my week, with a list of achievements, thoughts and rambles normally whilst drinking a beverage probably listening to music.