Categories
review

The Four Hour Chef

I’ve finished another of theĀ books that I’m trying to read in 2015. I think that I’ve shared posts and things from Tim Ferriss before, but this is probably the first time that I’ve written anything about any of his books. The Four Hour Workweek and The Four Hour Body are both interesting because of the underlying philosophy that is at work in both: strip things back to the bare essentials and focus on what is effective.

The Four Hour Chef is a step further; despite the title and the focus on cooking, it’s really a meta-guide to what is going on in Tim’s previous two books and to an effective learning process in general. It’s showcasing a very considered set of examples in to how to do things well, how to become an expert. In the book, cooking is the mechanism for exploring this, but there is a lot of examples of skill- and expertise-building in other settings too. I found it quite an inspiring read. There was a lot of neat stuff that I learned that will help me in the kitchen (practice makes perfect of course!) but also the approach to learning that is covered in the first section was helpful too.

Continue reading “The Four Hour Chef”
Categories
review

Book Review: Poke The Box

A few weeks ago I was sick. I had to take time off, pause and not really do much of anything. This is really hard when you’re in a house with a toddler. It’s one thing if you’re in the office and they’re in another room playing with your wife; quite another if you’re trying not to move too much in case you feel sick again, and they’re bouncing up to you asking to watch Frozen for the third time that day.

Being ill also coincided with feeling a little down. I don’t know why, but whenever I have to make decisions about the “what next?” for my business I feel a little down. I correlate it with thoughts of “but what if this isn’t a good idea?” and the doubts of “what if this really backfires or doesn’t go anywhere?” I was thinking about the coming academic year (which is out of sync with the business year by about six months, so it always feels a little odd when planning) and what new things I might do, when might I find time to write the next books and what shall I do about the projects on the back burner…

Doing all of this when feeling sick is not a good idea.

My wife, thankfully, suggested that I read an inspiring book to help find my mojo again, and after only a second’s pause I reached for my Kindle, curled up on the couch a bit more and started re-reading Poke The Box by Seth Godin.

Continue reading “Book Review: Poke The Box”
Categories
news

Interesting Things, June 8th 2015

Hello! How are things in your part of the world? Since I last shared an interesting things post I’ve had a strange series of weeks. First, I was ill – and being ill sucks! I got better after a couple of days, but I realised that I have very little in the way of relaxing strategies. And as I write that I realise how odd it sounds: why would someone need strategies for relaxing? People talk about strategies or systems for time management or planning all of the time, but it feels wrong to think about strategies for relaxing.

I’ve also had a couple of weeks where I’ve been working from home. I’ve missed being out and about delivering workshops, but enjoyed the extra time around family. It’s also meant that I’ve had time to start planning for the next writing project, which I’ll probably be in a position to share something about soon. I’m aiming to publish again by mid-to-late-September I think, but this is contingent on me getting first drafts done by the end of July. I’ll need to use this last week of non-workshop time to really get a good plan together, and also break some ground on chapters……..

…….but I think it’s doable šŸ™‚

Anyway! What have I been reading?

Continue reading “Interesting Things, June 8th 2015”
Categories
quick thought

Taking Your Own Advice

Whatever job you have, there are lots of things that you will recognise as being “the worst part of the job”. There’s never just one thing, there’s only whatever the thing is when you think of it. In what I think of as my day job, facilitating and delivering workshops to researchers, things that I have thought of as the worst part of the job have included:

  • interrupting people to move on to the next discussion/activity in a workshop;
  • travelling long distances;
  • being away from my daughter;
  • doubt about whether or not you’re connecting with a quiet room.

Today I have a new one: not taking my own advice.

Continue reading “Taking Your Own Advice”
Categories
quick thought work

One Hundred Posts

This is the hundredth post so far on this blog.

No guest posts, no repeats – a couple of round-ups – but a hundred original posts including this one. I started sharing posts on this blog in mid-September last year, with the hope of maintaining a regular schedule. For the most part I think I’ve kept that up, although I think that switching to three posts a week has been helpful to keep a writing habit going but not over-extend myself.

Writing has helped me to find new ideas, write a book, come up with ideas for other writing projects and workshops – and has also helped me to work through some undeveloped ideas that I’ve been exploring in other settings. It’s great to know that some things that I have done so far have resonated with people reading.

I’ve no idea what I will write about in the future – I just hope that I can continue to write regularly, and hope that it keeps resonating. If you have ideas for topics that you think might be interesting to explore, let me know in the comments. Or if you want to know more about the other kinds of work that I do, get in touch!

So if you are or have been, thanks for reading, here’s to the next hundred posts – and more!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

Categories
quick thought

Hard To Find A Gap In A Chasm

I remember reading somewhere once, I don’t know if it’s true or not though, that if the Earth was the size of a golf ball it would be almost entirely smooth. Holding it in one’s hand we would not notice any mountains, the Grand Canyon would be indistinguishable and so would the deepest ocean trenches.

Seen from a great distance or a different scale, the massive seems inconsequential. Yet from inside the Grand Canyon, you’re dwarfed by what’s around you. On a workshop once, a postgraduate researcher shared with me that they loved their research field, but that they were struggling to find something to focus on.

“After all,” they said, “It’s hard to find a gap in a chasm.”

Continue reading “Hard To Find A Gap In A Chasm”
Categories
quick thought

On a Storage Shoestring

During my Masters, and then later during my PhD, I learned how to use the typesetting software LaTeX in order to write my dissertation and thesis. If you ever looked at a maths or sciencey thesis and thought, “How did they do all the equations and stuff?” the answer is LaTeX. At times, writing up was tough; not because the subject matter was difficult or because I was learning LaTeX as I went, but because we were given 20Mb of storage to cover all of our data requirements at the university. Stop for a second and think about the capacity of the SD card in your phone. 20Mb was a microscopic amount of storage to process images, files and so on to produce a dissertation.

Continue reading “On a Storage Shoestring”
Categories
quick thought

Circumstances

I write a lot of my posts a few days or a week in advance. This suits me, but along with using Buffer to schedule tweets it gives the impression that I’m here a lot, when in fact the lights are on a timer and I only check the mail when I feel like it. Last week, when I published three posts on here and one over on Viva Survivors, I started the week in South Wales and finished it feeling exhausted due to illness. It was only when I had a look just now that I realised I had actually published some thoughts last week – and got some comments! – for the most part when I got home I was too busy focussing on feeling sorry for myself.

Skipping The Gory Details

Now, I wasn’t really very, very ill. I don’t know what caused the illness, could have been something I ate, more likely to be a virus that seems to be going around. I had to cancel a workshop with less than 24 hours notice – which I hated doing, and hope I get to Edge Hill soon! I felt hot, cold, hungry, unable to eat, weird, tired and all sorts of other things. But towards the end of the week something worse happened.

I couldn’t drink tea.

Continue reading “Circumstances”
Categories
quick thought

Three Weeks

Three weeks into a month, my mind starts thinking about the next one: “What have I accomplished, what am I unlikely to get done, what do I need to start on the first of the next month?”

I do this a lot, sometimes I set goals so realistic that I don’t do anything but what I set out to do. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with this; I don’t think I or anyone needs to work flat out all the time. I have noticed in the last week or so, though, that when I work from home I’m setting more and more realistic goals – to the point of finishing everything early, doing a little extra and then feeling pleased with myself. But on the following day(s) I don’t take time for myself, or for my family, I just wonder what else I could do to “get ahead.”

There are so many tensions here! The tension between doing too little, too much and “enough” – the tension between getting things done and getting more done – work expanding to fill the time available versus being realistic… Am I alone in thinking about these areas? Have you experienced similar thoughts, either in work on a PhD or in other creative work? Let me know in the comments if any of this resonates with you.

Next week I am going to review where I’m up to, and I am going to plan for June – but not before I do my best to really make the most of the last week of May, and any opportunities that that might bring.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

Categories
quick thought

Bad Powerpoint

A short post and a few thoughts for today. I was reviewing my business notes a few days ago and realised that I have delivered nearly 40 First Year Development Workshops at the University of Liverpool. That means I’ve met and worked with over 1000 new PhD students at the university! A key component of the workshop is communicating research ideas, and one way we do that is through a group Powerpoint presentation. We help participants think about how to do this well, and start that process by sharing the following video:

I don’t use Powerpoint a lot for my work any more; I like the spontaneity of having a few key points in a talk or workshop that I’m trying to explore with participants, and being free to work towards those points in a variety of ways. I think that I can do this better with flipcharts and boards rather than a pre-determined series of images and text.

Continue reading “Bad Powerpoint”