Hi there!
I’m focused on learning about the different causes of death and how to get rid of them: Viva Immortality!
I am into IT, anti-aging, politics, and more!
I also write over at the EA Forum: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/willa
Join the EAHub professional network and community! You don’t have to rely on LinkedIn to find other EAs for interesting and impactful job opportunities or discussions. https://eahub.org/profile/willa-lambert/
Shortform #146 Happy New Year! (a few updates; all dates from 2022 unless specified otherwise)
Resuming on October 16th didn’t happen, oops. Looks like January 3rd (today) will have to do! Now for some updates:
I changed jobs in October: I went from a contract employee to a full employee at the healthcare org I work at, with a promotion to a new team! Now I am supporting clinical & medical technology systems, it’s cool stuff, I’m learning a ton, and I love the position, it’s a very good fit.
November disappeared into the abyss of working a lot, I can’t say I did much this month besides my normal routine, work & lots of learning at work, and increasing healthy eating habits. I did journal a decent amount in November, so I can use those and other electronic items (messages to others) to piece together a memory prosthetic for that month if I become so inclined.
December was a very long month, with quite a bit of activity. In addition to normal holiday stuff, I went to Texas for ten days and had a great time travelling & hanging out with friends. I’m happy that I was able to attend a Houston Rationalists meetup and an Austin LW meetup while in Texas, those were fun and it was great to meet a lot of new excellent people & see a few people I already knew too!
The book club that another Rationalist Organizer and I co-organized ran to completion and finished in December. I learned a lot, and also really enjoyed participating in a book club with other Rationalists & Organizers. The discussions were excellent and everyone had helpful anecdotes to share related to the book we read: “The Art of Gathering: How We Meeting and Why it Matters”, by Priya Parker
Sadly, I was unable to make it to Washington D.C. for New Years like originally planned, but the large winter storm & mass cancelling of flights by Southwest Airlines prevented my friends from flying in to where I’m at (we were going to take the train to D.C.), so we had to cancel those plans. I look forward to visiting D.C. and also meeting up with the local Rationalists community while there another time!
I don’t have any explicit New Year’s resolutions, more so I will be continuing with life improvements already deemed desirable (improving diet, sleep, and exercise) and continuing to learn more and do well at work. I’d also like to continue improving consistency & conscientiousness because I find those to be very high reward areas to skill-up in. I have a YouTube project in the works, but will not be launching that until I’ve written a more coherent business plan than my current draft and have completed scripts for at least five videos. I haven’t forgotten about my Substack, but I think I launched that a little bit too early. I intend to continue that Substack and write more there, but this time without as much of a rush & with more deliberateness. I am hopeful and excited for 2023!
I can see the egregore of Overwork & Hustle looming as I think about how much I both have to do and want to do in 2023, but I will make sure to take time to rest & take care of myself. Staying deliberate with my time and actions helps with that, so I expect to write Shortforms at a decent cadence this year; they help with such deliberateness. It may be better to move to a personal blogsite for them...but I’m still on the fence about that.
May you have a most excellent and profitable 2023!
Cheers,
Willa
Fair Grounds is closed today, so we will be meeting up at Cafe Stella instead at the same time. The address is 1907 Colonial Ave, Norfolk, VA 23517
Shortform #145 Audio Journaling | Rethinking Shortforms
I tried audio journaling for the first time today, it felt weird but I think the experience was actually great! Recorded for about 30 minutes on an old non-internet connected phone (to pacify my paranoia) and then listened to the recording and got hit in the feels in all sorts of good and helpful ways.
I like writing these shortform posts, but am not sure how valuable they’ve been over the last few weeks in particular (I know writing the posts as a whole has been incredibly valuable to my personal development and overcoming shyness so just targeting the last few weeks). I’ve increased my in-person organizing commitments and have a lot going on in my life, including a possible job change. Those things plus...I do feel bad when I write a shortform post that feels rushed or low quality, and I’ve felt that way about too many of my shortform posts recently. My time is important and your time is important, so I’d like to ensure these posts are generating the kind of value I want them to. No more shortform posts this week, I will post again on Sunday October 16th.
No shortform post today...I developed a migraine early afternoon and it’s still with me though not as intense as the worst part of it thankfully. I met my “wake up at 5am” commitment today and felt really well rested & great today until the migraine struck me in the early afternoon (not sure the cause, might have been too much caffeine). I enjoyed having the extra full hour or so in the morning to devote to whatever I wanted: I listened to more of a good audiobook, sent an email, and did another thing or two, it was pleasant.
Shortform #147 Working & Considering Partial Digital Nomadism
I experience significant value-add to my life / nice things when I travel. I trialed working semi nomadically in December when I stayed at 7 or 8 households over 10 days while working remotely full time. That was fun, exhausting, and a very valuable learning experience! I definitely overbooked myself on that trip and did not schedule enough downtime, plus, I found working from a single laptop screen a bit less efficient than my normal 4 screen work setup & other desktop accoutrements.
With a bit more equipment optimized for working from anywhere, a few more optimized habits picked up from frequent travelers, and ensuring that I schedule in downtime, I feel confident that I could go a solid month or two working fully nomadically without experiencing significant issues or drawbacks. I do occasionally go onsite for projects & team meetings at my job so I likely would want to not be gone for longer than a month or two at a time anyhow.
For a variety of reasons I don’t really want to go too too far out of state and work until late summer, so I’ll practise digital nomadism in the meantime by doing multiple local, near local, and nearby state trips so I can find remaining pain points and build the habits, get the equipment, or otherwise develop solutions to address those pain points. Then late summer I’d like to head out to the other side of the country (US) and visit up and down the west coast. It would be fun to visit rationalists in all the cities I travel to, so when I do travel I intend to reach out in the meetup groups, discords, and elsewhere to coordinate such visits for each city I end up in!