Musing About Journaling Goals

I maintain a daily journal at work where I jot down the day’s highlights. I write about what went well, the current challenges I’m facing, and any opportunities to do something different. I also note the clients I spoke to and the reasons behind it. I’ve been doing this for a while now, but I never refer to the journal once it’s written. It’s just a dump of my thoughts.

I wonder why I’m doing this. I think the act of writing it down is the ultimate goal, not the end results. It’s the same with my personal journal. I rarely write in it, but I do occasionally. I rarely, if ever, refer to it. Why is that?

Now, let’s talk about blogging. Why is all that? Is there a pattern here?

It’s the type of day where I would have liked to work in a coffee shop, but I can’t because I’m working for my job doing some extra time. We’re not allowed to work client’s documents in public spaces.

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about our respective hobbies as content creators. He’s quite into YouTube, while I’m more into writing. At one point, we discussed the importance of being transparent with our employers about our hobbies. Since we share our content publicly, we should consider informing our HR department, at least according to him. I’m not entirely convinced about this, though. Nobody really knows about what I’m doing online with my blogs and YouTube channel. According to my friend, it might be a positive thing that my HR department is aware of what I’m doing because this puts me in a different class of employee, even my boss should know.

I’m still contemplating whether this is a requirement or not. After all, my hobbies don’t negatively affect my job, so why should I discuss my personal pursuits when I’m not working?

So I launched my personal website in French yesterday by writing a very short post on my Facebook account. Many people visited the blog for sure, and got one message via Messenger from a guy that I barely know. A few of my closest friends wrote to me, those I selected to a get a peek before the “official” launch. It’s fun to connect without all the usual noise.

On a different note, I spend 2 minutes looking at my Facebook timeline and boy this is junk. I don’t understand why people are still paying attention to Facebook. What a cancer.

Dear, Will You Read My Blog?

Me: “My new French blog is nearly ready to go live. Will you read it?"

Her: “Well, yeah, sure, but how will I know there is something new to read?"

Me: “Well, you just have to go to the website, just like you read the news."

Her: “Mmm, but it’s not the same. I have to remember the website’s address. Can you send notifications instead?"

Me: “Well, I’m not sure this would fit the idea of a blog, but you just need to save it as a bookmark. Also, I can show you a great RSS reader?"

Her: “🤔"

Me: “It’s an app where you can read blog posts. There are many great ones for your iPhone or iPad."

Her: “Well, yeah, but I must remember to open it just to see if something is new?"

Me: “Yes, exactly, just like when you open up your favourite news website or when you just tap on the Facebook icon on your iPad…"

Her: “🤨"

Me: “If there was a weekly newsletter, would it be ok for you to read it?"

Her: “That would be better, for sure, but… you know… I already get so many emails!"

Me: “M’ok, but my hosting service doesn’t provide a newsletter feature. Maybe I could just tell you: there is something new on my blog that you might find interesting because I wrote a story about you."

Her: “👩🏻‍💻"

The challenges a blogger may face can be unpredictable.

Putting Something Out There

I’m about to start a recording session for my next video about Craft and the PARA method. I wonder: why am I doing this? Is it because it might help Craft users to better take advantage of the app features? Is it because I just like being in a creative process? Is it because I love working on the Mac using different apps together to put something out there? Is it all the reasons above? Or is it simply because it provides a subtle reminder of being human is being creative and putting something out there? Maybe I’m asking myself too many questions.

Returning to work this morning is really hard and cumbersome after two weeks of intense personal life. I really disconnected from work. So, I mostly forgot about my passwords, my pending items when I left back in late December. Is this what we call “work & life balance”?

I’m Getting Old Apparently

I old enough to be one of those who witnessed the birth of MTV and music videos… but I rarely watch those these days… but today, I decided to spend some time watching what’s « hot ». A few observations are in order: video duration is short (less than 3 min), hyper-short scenes abuse (less than two seconds in duration), 4:3 screen ratio is strange (is this a thing now?)… I barely can stand this shit now. I’m getting old, I guess.

The cool thing about our new (and temporary) apartment is that, both my wife and me, have the feeling of being traveling somewhere in the world1. We stay right beside a beautiful park with a lot of mature trees. I already see myself going out to do some photography. Too bad it’s winter time, though. 🤷🏻‍♂️

We often travel to places, rent an Airbnb for a week, so that we can feel being part of a small community. It’s really a nice feeling making the whole thing more bearable.

  1. We are 1km from our house! ↩︎