Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, and Learning – Blackbirch 3, Crash Course World History, and MS Excel

Tags

BlackBirch 3, Cliffhanger, Crash Course World History, Curiosity Stream, K.M. Allan, Kyle Pew, MS Excel, Office Newb, YouTube

Well, folks, I finished Blackbirch 3 yesterday. Wow is all I can say. The book ended with a cliffhanger of sorts, and man, I can’t wait for book 4. Well done, K.M. Allan!

I also finished Crash Course World History. I have now moved onto Crash Course World History 2. John Green is still the narrator, and he is very entertaining. You can find these courses on YouTube or Curiosity Stream.

I’m still taking the MS Excel course on Udemy. We are learning some neat tricks with VBA, the recorder, and various things that are related to macros. This is a really great course and will be over very soon. I’m on the final project of the course. What a great ride!

I started a new book, called A Deadly Influence. It falls in the thriller/action genre. It’s about a cop who is trying to locate a kidnapped boy. The story takes right off and boy, is it good so far.

As mentioned, I’m starting Crash Course World History 2 today. My next course will be with the same instructor, Kyle Pew. I’m going to take his MS Word course, next. I really enjoy how he puts courses together and shows you all the neat shortcuts that are available to us and also how to apply what we learn to real-world projects.

This is all about reading and learning for me. These both fall into Covey’s Mental realm. I always want to be learning something new, whether it is about a topic I am interested in, or something that can improve my game play in Call of Duty or other games.

Well, folks. I hope you have a great Thursday. We got a bunch of snow yesterday and are scheduled to get more. I love waking up to white! It’s so beautiful to see the trees coated with snow! Well, I’m off to my first cup of coffee of the day and will watch the sunrise.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, and Learning – Deep Mind, Blackbirch 3, IT, Crimson Peak, Dr. Sleep, and Discord, Canva, and MS Excel

Tags

BlackBirch 3, Canva, Crimson Peak, Deep Mind, Discord, Dr. Sleep, IT, K.M. Allan, MS Excel, Netflix, Udemy, Vudu

Well, as you can see I’m quite busy. Deep Mind is the next book in the Star Carrier Series. I finished Deep Time on Monday. Blackbirch 3 is the next book in the Blackbirch series by my friend and author K.M. Allan. She’s an Australian Author. If you haven’t read Blackbirch, I highly recommend it. It’s a great series.

My sister and I are watching scary movies this month. We started with Dr. Sleep, which is like a sequel to Stephen King’s The Shining, but it is all its own. We watched Crimson peak, which is a really eerie movie. Finally, we watched IT. I have never seen the movie, but Pennywise the clown was terrifying.

On the learning front, I’ve started a Discord course, restarted a Canva course, and still plugging through the MS Excel course. All of these are terrific courses. I get all of them on Udemy and bought all of them on sale for about $12. If you are ever interested on learning something new, Udemy is a great service.

Well, that’s it for today, folks.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Your Environment Can Be Motivating

Tags

Coffee, Comfort, Environment, family, Friends, K.M. Allan, Music, Snacks, Snow, Work, Writing

It’s snowing in my hometown. What a great way to wake up! Snow is such a nice thing to wake up to. I’m drinking my coffee, sitting in my favorite chair in my home office, and I’m listening to some of my favorite instrumental music. I find my environment motivating, which is the topic of today’s Motivation Monday edition.

One of my writer friends in Australia, K.M. Allan, author of the Blackbirch series, has a laptop, her cats, a whiteboard, and typically a cup of tea and some goodies to snack on. This is her environment to write. Mine is a cup of coffee, a comfortable chair, my laptop, and some music I listen to through my airpods. The point is that your environment can be motivating or demotivating.

What do you like to drink? Tea, Coffee, energy drink? Do you have a comfortable office chair? Do you like to listen to music while you work? Do you have any specific gear you like to work with? These are all questions to ask when you are going to work. Your work environment can be a huge source of motivation, particularly when you’ve found the right combination of things to make your work interesting and fun.

When I was a corporate recruiter, the work could be very monotonous. Most days it was terrific, but there were some days it was absolute drudgery. So, I started at looking at ways to flair up my workspace. I bought a chair and replaced my employer-issued one. I bought some new pens, pen holder, new legal pads, and I also got a few big jars of pretzels, licorice, and assorted nuts. I brought in a picture of my family. I also brought in my Bose bluetooth speaker. Once I had this set up, the drudgery days became less so. I could see my family and this motivated me to grind through my calls. I had snacks within easy reach so I wouldn’t have to get up from my desk until my calls were done. Oh, I even bought a Keurig coffee maker so I could have coffee on demand. You see, I learned early on that the environment I worked in made a huge difference between drudgery and adventure, discomfort and comfort, and meaning and meaningless. You can do the same.

What can you add to your environment to make it more comfortable? What can you add to your environment to soothe the mind? What can you add to your environment to overcome the drudgery in your work? What can you change in your environment to add meaning to your work?

Happy Monday, folks! I wish all of you a great day!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Persistence

Tags

Australia, K.M. Allan, Love, passion, Persistence, Struggle, Writer

I recently read a blog posting my friend in Australia wrote. In a nutshell, she did some edits on her manuscript, sent it out to her readers, and discovered she did not fix any of the problems they identified earlier. She simply added more problems.

Have you ever had something like that happen? It’s at these times when many would just throw up their arms, have a temper tantrum, and quit. This is where persistence comes in.

Persistence means we do not quit. We keep pushing forward. We continue to move forward, despite the difficulties.

Many of you have read my thoughts on giving up on goals we have to struggle to do, but here’s the caveat–even the things we love to do and focus on can cause frustration or problems. You need this love or passion for a thing to push through these hard times. If you have to fight against yourself every time you have to do something you’ve set a goal for, stop doing that goal. You see?

Anyway, my author friend in Australia loves what she does, and has the ability to push through these tough times, because of that love. I bet if she really didn’t enjoy writing or working on this book project, this latest round of feedback would have caused her to quit. This is the best example I can give about loving what you do, and letting go of things that you thought you loved, but discovered weren’t your cup of tea. (Are you tired of all my trite expressions yet? HA!)

We got our first snow in Michigan. Wow, was it beautiful! My sister came in for Thanksgiving, and it was great. Good conversations, plenty of movie watching, and great food, courtesy Mom and her. We had a smoked turkey this year. Have you ever had one of those? Smoked turkey is delicious, and makes one hell of a sandwich!

Well, that’s all I got for today, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Tracking

Tags

Achievement, Adjusting, calendars, Goals, K.M. Allan, measurable, Measuring, Progress, todo apps, Tracking

I’m huge on tracking my work and results. One of the motivating things about tracking the books you read, the blog posts you’ve put up, the exercises you do, is that these things are measurable. I try to set my goals this way, because I can track and measure my progress. Tracking your results, particularly if they are goal-oriented, is key to achieving anything.

If you want to lose weight, you have to track what you’re eating and what you’re doing for exercise. There is no other way. At least we haven’t figured out one. Ever notice how many weight-loss apps, food tracking apps, and all the rest are out there? It’s because you have to track things to see how you are doing. Make sense?

So today, as you move through your week, take a moment to see what you are measuring and what you are not. It is likely that the things you are not measuring are goals you have set for yourself that can’t be measured–a big no no, if you are trying to improve yourself. This is why I use SMART goals when I set my goals for the year. The M stands for measurable. There is no other way to pursue a meaningful goal. You have to have the capability of measuring it, and YOU have to decide what measures you are looking at. Let’s say you have a goal of reading so many books a year. Easy. Write down that goal and check off a number each time you finish a book. If you want to lose weight, the same thing applies–weigh yourself once a week, and track what you are eating and how much exercise you are doing. Easy-peasy.

The key is selecting goals and determining how you are going to track and measure them from the get-go. If you can easily determine your progress on something, you’ve done it right. If not, you’ll have to tweak your goals so you really know what you are shooting for. One of my goals if blog followers. This is easy to track, because WordPress tells you every day who has followed your blog and how many followers you have. This goal is trackable. The key difference is WordPress does the tracking for you.

I hope this makes sense, folks. Measurable goals are the way to go. It is the only way to truly know where you are making progress or not. When you identify a goal that is not moving or making progress, you can either put more effort into it, or decide to put that goal on hold for a bit. Perhaps you’re no longer motivated by that goal, or perhaps it requires an effort that you just do not want to commit to. The key to all this is to set a measurable goal, track your progress, and adjust your efforts based on your tracking.

One of my friends, K.M. Allan, uses a whiteboard to track all of her writing goals for the week. This is a great system! I am more digital, but the process is the same. You have so many things to do, and you have to have a plan and a way to track your progress. In K.M.’s case, it is merely a way to cross off things as she goes. Then she can reassess herself on the weekend and reset for the upcoming week. So simple—yet so effective. Bravo!

Have a great week, folks.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of Aug 24, 2020.

Tags

Coding, Exercising, journaling, K.M. Allan, Learning, motivation, Reading, Spiritual, Writing

I hope everyone’s weekend was outstanding! I got my work done and took some time to watch a few Marvel movies. I re-watched Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Iron Man 3. These are all great stories, and the special effects are over the top. I also got in some entertainment reading. I’m reading K.M. Allan’s second book in her Blackbirch series, which is really entertaining. I don’t read a lot of fiction, because non-fiction is more up my alley, but the Blackbirch series is awesome. I highly recommend you buy it, if you enjoy a good story. Here’s the link: https://amzn.to/2QlKrmR

Anyway, I hope all of you have a great week! Here’s my daily schedule:

Journaling daily (Personal, Dream, and Spiritual)

Coding daily (Data Science Path Codecademy)

Writing daily (Book, Blog, Classwork)

Exercise daily (See Workout Routine)

Reading daily (multiple books, articles)

Learning daily (Codecademy, Masterclass, Study.com)

Spiritual daily (Contemplation, Spiritual Reading)

That’s it folks! Have a great week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of August 3, 2020.

Tags

Consistency, Dedication, Drive, Exercise, K.M. Allan, motivation, Reading, rituals, social media, spiritual efforts, Writing

Here’s my schedule for the week:

I’ll be conducting some research on Afghanistan for my book. I’ll be taking three courses (Sociology on Study.com, Sociology course at Grand Canyon University, and Malcolm Gladwell’s writing course on Masterclass). I’ll also continue pushing through my Computer Science course. I’m currently working on a Python project that reinforces the algorithms surrounding various search strategies.

I’ll also continue reading my books. One of them is on politics by Ben Shapiro, the other is a book on Afghanistan for my book research, and the third is a book by one of my favorite new authors (K.M. Allan) who just released book two of her Blackbirch series.

I’ll be jounaling daily, blogging daily, doing my spiritual exercises, spiritual reading, physical exercises (see my workout routine posting), and posting meaningful quotes and other uplifting content to my social media feeds.

Well, that’s it folks. Keep pushing on whatever goals you set for the year. I realize that some of them have probably gotten nixed due to COVID, but do the best you can. I’m rootin’ for ya!

Have a great Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Book Review – Blackbirch: The Beginning

Tags

Blackbirch, Blackbirch Series, Book Recommendation, Fantasy, Goodreads, K.M. Allan, Young Adult

Well, folks, my friend’s book was outstanding! I won’t give anything away about the story here. It is a terrific story and one that will keep you engaged throughout. I really tried to keep myself to one chapter a day to savor this one, but just couldn’t do it, once the story took off. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys the fantasy genre. Here’s the link to the book on Goodreads: Blackbirch: The Beginning

Bravo! Kate.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Learning a New Skill

Tags

Blackbirch, creativity, Developing Wisdom, Great Article, K.M. Allan, Lyle, wisdom, Wisdom Wednesday

I was rummaging around for new ideas for my post for Wisdom Wednesday and came across a work by Lyle (2015) which lists out 5 areas we can improve our wisdom and knowledge. One was in creativity. It reads: Take a pottery, photography, stained glass, sculpture or painting class. (Lyle, 2015). I’ve always wanted to improve my ability to draw new things and figured why not? I found a drawing course online that I’ve got some interest in and will pursue that. This idea fell under Lyle’s (2015) second heading labeled creativity [originality, ingenuity].

How does learning to draw fit in with what I am already pursuing? Well, here it is: Sometimes I have a hard time thinking about a scene in my fiction book and would like to create a drawing of it before I write it out. Make sense? I’ve also enjoyed drawing for several reasons. It is a nice way to use my creativity; it helps with internal visualizations, and it allows me to spend some time on something else during the day. It also presents a challenge. I don’t know how to draw too well now and it’ll be nice flexing the muscles on something I’ve put no time into.

Creativity is a great skill to have, particularly when you are writing fiction, depicting a scene graphically. It’s nice to build something from nothing, literally bringing what is in my mind to the page or canvas. Speaking of creativity, I’m reading a book by a fellow blogger and author, K.M. Allan. I’m about 75% through and it is a wonderful story. Here’s the link: Blackbirch: The Beginning. I highly recommend it.

Well, that’s all I have for today, folks! Have a great Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

Reference

Lyle, L. (2015). Developing wisdom & knowledge. Retrieved from https://www.thepositivepsychologypeople.com/developing-wisdom-knowledge/