Kia ora friends,
This week I have been spending my time improving my coding environment as well as my working environment.
Work Environment
In previous newsletters, you might seen some investments I have made in my office space. This includes a new chair that I can sit cross-legged as well as a split keyboard. This new investment I made didn’t involve any money this time, only moving things around.
Here is a video showing the process.
Unfortunately, the 3M strips I’m using don’t stick onto the wall, so it’s something to think about.
What sparked it?
The glare from behind would really bother me.
I had to lower the blinds to get rid of this glare, so the room would get dark.
Because the room was dark, I had to light it up with artificial light so it didn’t feel appealing to work in.
I posted a story on Instagram and someone recommended I look into Feng Shui. This video explained the basics for me:
Pair programming & Coding Environment
I also changed my Neovim configuration.
What sparked this? The technical debt of my dotfiles has grown to the point that I have deprecated packages that are no longer updated, and this was leading to errors that I didn’t want to deal with until it became too much. Additionally, I was doing some pair programming for the first time during this week, and we were working on SQL files.
My linters and formatters were not working for these SQL files, so this also sparked the need to look into my configuration.
I found a project, kickstart.nvim, which has led me to a complete overall my configuration from scratch with a good starting point.
Here are my dotfiles if you are interested.
I also had to replace the package, null-ls and here is an outstanding video on how to do this:
You might think it’s a waste of time to tinker with environments — can’t you just get the work done? Maybe, but I do think if you just spend some time making your workplace the best it can be, you will perform better — which is good for your long-term outcomes and the future self.
Speaking of performing at your best, here is some good advice to stay holistically healthy:
Some Random Things
I’m not going to do a “best things” section this week, so will just dump some cool things I can across during the week here.
First is a tweet from a friend, where he is incorporating single-purpose technology into his life. We have phones and since they can do almost everything they become a time sink, where what you end up doing isn’t the intention of the device. In other words, you use your phone to check the time and then you end up scrolling for hours on end. Oppose this to having an old-school flip-top phone that just makes calls and nothing else.
I had my first private lesson for pole dance, so I am excited that I have somewhat of a routine to put together for this showcase. Before this private lesson, I was worried because I could not think of what to do on stage. However, my instructor explained their story, where they had moves that they wanted to do during the showcase. This opened my mind because my goal is just to get on stage — just like with weightlifting, to compete or Kīwaha (thank you for this, you know who you are). But after, you have the goal of nailing some moves in front of people.
Before this lesson, I listened to a really cool podcast on self-awareness.
Some key takeaways:
if you aren’t aware of your shortcomings you can’t change them
if you can’t own up to the bad, then you can’t own up to when you have done good (leading to imposter syndrome and low self-worth).
don’t sugarcoat your apologies with excuses — just own up to them
I also finished “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandburg. It’s a good book and I’ll review it soon!
Please check out my friend’s newsletter on comparison traps. If you are someone who struggles with this, you aren’t alone.
Lastly, I’ve recorded a podcast for the ManawaTech which will be out soon hopefully!
I hope you enjoyed this bit of a ramble and dumping of content this week. I hope you have a fantastic week ahead (it’s 11:52 pm and I need to wake up at 6 am to go flying, wish me luck — I’m trying to get the landing down from flying in circuits).
Stay focused and talk soon,
Shivan
Kindle Highlight of the Week
"For this, I’ve found no better advice than the following from Dolly Parton: “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”" (Paul Millerd, The Pathless Path)