Tech

Alec over at Technology Connections recently posted a video that I suspect might just put words to the issues many are facing today. I have written before about the energy barrier needed to get change to happen and how, doom-scrolling and short-form contents are the opposite of mindfully approaching content on the internet. I have seen significant improvements now that I actively stop this - taking time to seek out long form articles, essays and news sites that I trust and can learn from....

Motivation A key task at the moment is individual 1-to-1s/catch-ups. These come around quick, and I often don’t have a huge amount of time to deal set them up. I have stared to tag things in Emacs with peoples name so that I can run queries against my agenda and pull out all tasks that I’ve tagged for someone - a great way to get info to the right people....

Motivation I am doing lots or recruitment at the moment - some weeks it can be near 15-25 % of my time. It is for this reason I wanted to think about my workflow and put in some automation to help me with the process. I am currently living almost exclusively in denote - the fantastic notes package by Prot. The real aim here is to remove as much cognitive load as possible and reduce the amount of time needed in preparation of interviews....

I have heard wonderful things about gptel - the Emacs package that gives an interface to various LLMs. I will admit however I really struggled to get this working using my OpenAI API key with the Docs in their GitHub. Below is a quick guide for anyone else that got stuck - running a Linux machine. First things, get gptel installed - add the below to your config: (use-package gptel :ensure t) (setq gptel-api-key (getenv "OPENAI_API_KEY")) You will notice here we have to specify out OpenAI API key....

When it comes to quickly pulling in images into my org documents, org-download is superb. This package is a critical part of my workflow and I use it daily on my Windows work system. Having a Windows system at work1 means that some of the cool functions that work with org-download do not function due to the limitation put on my by corporate policy. One of those is pasting images from the clipboard....

Intro I wanted to share a quick tool I’ve been using recently to up my writing - emacs-langtool. This is a tool that bring spell and grammar checking tools you would expect in modern word processing suites into Emacs. It is also free, open source and can be run locally without an internet connection. Set-up Download Languagetool and extract it into a folder on your system. Also make sure you have Java installed too....

Intro Change has an energy barrier. To do anything new you need help to get over that hump, make a change, and enjoy the rewards of your new situation. I have written in the past about my efforts to remove distractions by limiting my phone’s functionality with, if I’m being honest, the aim to remove doom-scrolling and short form content. Ideally becoming a more present person who, when they do consume content, consumes high-quality content mindfully....

Link to article: Consistency Matters Non-AI thoughts I have been happy to watch the rise of Calleb Hammer, a finance YouTuber who has made a name for himself sharing financial content about people in some of the most dire debt you can imagine. His approach, and something that was at least rare when I was growing up, is his relentless focus on the future and how we need to make steps now to make that vision happen....

Link to article:How to Feel Bad & Be Wrong Non-AI thoughts The below article highlighted some key concepts that I feel have a direct impact on my personal and professional life. Avoid the “hard question” in favour of the “easy” one is something I think we can all relate to. The example of working hard correlating to doing good work is something also explored deeply in Slow Productivity. Clearly this idea of doing the right thing in the right is coming up in a number of places....

Link to article: So you wanna to de-bog yourself? Non-AI thoughts The below article really helped to clarify some of my thoughts in the area. I have long been aware of the “activation-energy” problem and something I have tried to mitigate in my own work. I saw this most jarringly when I was made redundant in 2022. I had been unhappy in my role for some time, even looking for new opportunities elsewhere, however it was this big push that was the drive needed to find a new role that got me into the, much better, place I am today....