Tim Rodenbröker
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A personal note ☀️
🕑 Added 2023-08-11 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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
Comments
Tim Rodenbröker
Hi Ricardo! I'm hoping to meet you one day in BCN to have a chat. Please let me know if you are around, then we can have some tapas or something like that. That would be great. I think the current state of the internet is simply extreme. Nasty social media, clickbait, floods of informations. It's challenging for all of us to stay focused and keep track. When I observe my students in universtities, I see how some of them think this kind of distracting enviroment is normal, which is obviously bad... This brings me to a spontaneous idea: Maybe we could develop new metaphors for the capacities of our brains. A computer has a limited Memory (RAM), it simply can not store unlimited data in the conscious mind. Also the CPU has a limited frequency. Both are physical limits of performance. From my experience, and I will translate this metaphor back to the human brain again, having just a few tasks occupying the RAM and the CPU makes sure the data will be written onto the hard drive in a clean way. Less is more. From my point of view, the world around us sometimes reacts quite aggressively to the habit of disconnecting from information. The husband of my mother for example watches the news all day and he can not understand that I don't. Another friend is sending me TikTok-videos of people who state that design will be obsolete next week. Another friend often sends me articles about the devastating consequences of AI. I think as human beeings we need be much more aware of the space that these emotions occupy on our brains RAM and our CPU. Of course I do not ignore the news or topics that are uncomfortable. I just think we have to treat our individual resources with more mindfulness and compassion. For this we need systems, rules and strategies to cultivate calm and reflection in the age of distraction. The worst thing, both for ourself and the systems we are involved in, is despair. I will close this little philosophical excourse with a quote by Epictetus the ancient stoic: "Do the best you can with what is in your power and take the rest as it naturally happens.".
Tim Rodenbröker
Thank you very much Joseph!
Ricardo Lodroño
Summer break and vacation for some rest is something totally necessary for all of us, Tim, even more if you are moving to a new city and you need to put all the effort into settling in your new place. You already know Barcelona and everything it has to offer. I never lived there although I don't discard spending part of my life there anytime. I try to visit the city every time I have the opportunity, I wish there was a better train connection with Valencia. You're going to enjoy life there for sure! Regarding your thoughts about deep work and digital scattering, I can't agree more and I'm suffering the same pains in the self-taught process I'm involved in at the moment. It feels like there's so much to do and so little time, that it's hard to focus on something and dedicate it the necessary time to turn information into knowledge. FOMO increases every time you surf the internet, but we need to be connected to keep developing our work. It seems like there's no escape... In the end, I console myself with the idea of making even a small advancement every day.🤷🏻♂️
Joseph Jolton
I loved Barcelona, and I can’t wait to go back! Best food I’ve ever had. Enjoy your new home and life, and we’ll be here when you come back online!
