A personal note ☀️ (Patreon)

Hi folks, 👋🏼

I want to update you this week with a personal message. Next week I am about to make my move to Barcelona. I will be landing at the airport in the Catalonian city on Tuesday at noon with my two suitcases plus hand luggage to start my new life there. And I can tell you that I am really looking forward to it. The last few weeks have felt like being stuck in an airport waiting for a flight that gets postponed over and over again. For trcc, interestingly enough, I've come up with a lot of great new ideas in this state. For example that of my livestream trustTheProcess(): From my point of view, the style of the stream was fundamentally shaped by this vibe that everything is open, that I'm on the go and sharing my ideas from there. Here I definitely want to thank Olinga Ok, who did a great job with the editing.

At the same time, living in this in-between space has become a bit exhausting. I realize that I've tapped into my reserves and that I'm running a little low right now. I have a few very intense weeks ahead of me, during which I will be rearranging my life in Spain. I'm going to take some time now to sort myself out and recharge my batteries.

Since I'm on this topic, I'd like to allow myself the fun and share with you a few things I've learned. This year, I've been spending a lot of time with Cal Newport's wonderful books. There are two of them, "Digital Minimalism" and "Deep Work". I want to tell you briefly about "Deep Work." As the title suggests, it's all about focused work. It sounds boring at first, but strictly speaking, it is the one thing that makes the difference between success and non-success. It is absolutely crucial. Newport distinguishes between "Shallow Work" and "Deep Work," the scattered and the focused. We spend altogether too much time on Shallow Work: surfing the Internet aimlessly, consuming the latest news headlines or online magazines without reflection, scrolling through feeds, making phone calls, simply to feel busy. But being busy and working effectively on something are two very different things. I often feel this way when I'm slowly but surely approaching the state where it's time to take a break. Basically, this "Shallow Work" state is an important indicator that signals me that it's time for a vacation.

It gets especially tricky when you set out to learn something complicated, like creative coding. Maybe you entered the subject with strong intentions and full of motivation, spent some time on it, went full throttle, but also ran out of gas in the process. Then you're like the lumberjack Stephen Covey describes in his book "The 7 habits of highly effective people", who wonders why he cuts down fewer and fewer trees a day and completely forgets to sharpen the saw. Learning something new requires a lot of proactivity, i.e. the ability to structure and motivate oneself.

For me, it's now time to sharpen the saw again and arrive in Barcelona in peace and quiet, take care of myself and take a little vacation, get some rest and then go back to work with renewed energy. So it's a short summer break for a few weeks. Unfortunately I have to cancel the livestream next week. After the summer break it will go on again.

I wish you all a great time! 

See you shortly! ☀️

Tim