In IOI#1 I mentioned “goal factoring”. In a nut, the idea is to apply a consistent, rational process to the goals you’re thinking of setting for yourself to ensure they’re appropriately sized, likely to succeed, and the best path to the underlying thing that you want to accomplish.
I’m currently working on my own goal definition / factoring process, but I wanted to offer a tip of the hat towards these two templates which I’ve repeatedly pored over:
I awoke this morning to a text message from an old friend with a rather sharp tongue:
Lol. You’ve gotta stop it with these Facebook posts.
I knew exactly what it meant. It stung a bit because it was precisely what I worry about: I have a tenuous relationship with Facebook because there’s a disconnect between the people I know & consider (Internet) friends, and the interests I have. I vacillate between thinking I should post content I’m interested in (and let the audience self-select) and thinking that I should tailor my posts to my audience.
Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of participating in an Emacs-themed Google Hangout arranged by Sacha Chua, in which several of us Emacs geeks got together and discussed what we’ve been working on, questions we have about particular packages or workflows, etc.:
I’ve been playing with Emacs in the evenings lately and writing a lot
of Elisp, and I just finished a little Emacs package for quickly
manipulating textual checkboxes ([ ] / [x], etc.) in buffers, like
a simple version of org-mode’s task manipulation, but available
everywhere. It’s called checkbox.el.
From 2006 to 2009 I worked for a company called Tektronix on the 9th floor of a curvilinear glass-and-concrete tower in Richardson, Texas. My division built network monitoring solutions for Fortune 100 companies like AT&T “that enable[d] network operators to more strategically and profitably operate their businesses”—which sounds like fairly memorable work, but more than anything, I remember the door.
I’d park my car in the underground parking garage and climb the two flights of concrete steps towards the ground floor lobby. And waiting for me daily at the top of the stairs was one of the most poignant lessons in design that I’ve ever received. It was a plain door, hinged outward, with a metal push plate. And six inches above the plate, the paint was worn off the door from years of pushing.
Hold for consideration.
Kris Jenkins wrote a great post last month about
rapidly navigating Clojure files in Emacs using
Helm–definitely check it out. Helm is near the top of my
list of Emacs extensions I need to explore, but in the meantime I
thought I’d point out that’s there actually a great solution for this
use case in a stock Emacs installation–imenu-mode.
