Hi friends!
I hope you’re all warm and cozy. We’ve had quite a snowstorm here in Ottawa in the past few days. On Wednesday evening, I weathered the storm. I drove to Carleton University for Technovation, where I mentored four girls between 10-16 years old about entrepreneurship and building apps. I couldn’t let them down!
Then yesterday morning, I had to reschedule my CrossFit class because my car got stuck three feet from my garage. Somehow I thought I could easily drive over a foot of snow. What can I say? After three years, I’m still a Canadian newbie.
I had to wake my husband up to help me move the car back into the garage. Thankfully, as an Ottawa native, he knew exactly what to do.
In times like these, I wish I was back in California.
🖋️ Quote of the week
Tasks that require concentration, logical thinking, and the catching of errors should be done during the vigilance phase. Tasks that require insight, creativity, and thinking outside the box should be done during recovery. And what should you do during the slump? Tasks that don’t require either of these things—running errands, doing administrative tasks, filling out travel forms, updating your project list, chores, phone calls to friends, napping, or taking a break.
Jim Davies, Cognitive Scientist and Author of “Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are: The Science of a Better You”
🏆 Wins
Month #1 of Crossfit Completed
Not actually, but almost! By early next week, month #1 will be in the books. After that, I have at least two more to go to reach one of my 2023 goals!
My First Notion Template
Last November, I wrote a startup memo about a productivity app called Notion. At the time, I was curious about how a company that nearly died in 2015 grew to raise a $275 million Series C at a $10.3 billion post-money valuation. As soon as I started using the tool for organizing my projects, writing, and contacts, I told myself that ONE DAY, I’ll start creating my own templates to share with others. I just need to figure out what to build first.
Well…this week, I went down the Notion rabbit hole. And that day was yesterday.
My Notion template inspiration came from a Write of Passage: Runway session by Karena de Suza called “Getting Through the Dip,” where she shared some tactics that helped her stay consistent with publishing her writing for years. One tactic is tracking your energy levels during the week using a “Weekly Heat-map” analysis. After reviewing your data, you can start optimizing your schedule and increase productivity by doing tasks and projects that fit your high, medium, and low energy time frames.
I plan to track my energy levels next week, starting on Sunday. If you’d like to do it as well, here’s a link to the tracker:
👩🏾💻 What I learned
My Tendency: Questioner
Another gold nugget from the “Getting Through the Dip” session was learning what my tendency is. Gretchen Rubin, author The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, and The Four Tendencies created a quiz to determine if you are an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel. The differences between the four come down to how we respond to our outer and inner expectations.
This is what being a Questioner is about:
“I’ll comply if you convince me why.”
Questioners question all expectations, and they respond to an expectation only if they conclude that it makes sense—in essence, they meet only inner expectations. They’re motivated by reason, logic, and fairness, which can lead to conflict when they don’t have enough information.
After reading my analysis, I’d have to say I agree! I must understand and buy into the “why” before committing to something.
Here’s the link to take the quiz yourself! I’d love to hear which one you are and if you agree with the results.
Ellicit
Think ChatGPT is cool? Try Ellicit to help you answer questions using academic journals and scientific papers!
🖼️ AI-Generated Image(s) of the week
Text description: “A Pixar-style 3D render of a cute fox running through the snow.”
AI system used: DALL·E 2 by OpenAI
🤔 My question for you
Help me go down my Notion rabbit hole and build templates to share. People have used Notion to organize their life, work, and personal projects. Here are some examples.
What Notion template should I make next?
👋🏽 That's all for now
I’d love to hear from you, whether it’s feedback on what you enjoyed about this newsletter, what needs work, and what you want to hear more about. Just hit reply.
Till next time!
Cheers,
Neilda
Loved this Neilda! Especially that you took some takeaways from Karena’s session and used the to create a Notion template! Very cool also to know you are a Questioner.