I hope you're well.
I've been continuing my habit of getting out with the sunrise each day for a walk. I've been covering 4-5mi each morning. By my count, today I'll hit a 62 day streak, so if you're playing along at home, that's about 250mi I've traipsed through my neighborhood since this whole shutdown started. It's given me lots of time to work through my thoughts and feelings on everything going on in the world.
Brain training
Write more!
I'm trying to write more in general, and I'm starting by taking better notes. Part of that process is writing down things that I think about or come across each day, if they pique my attention in any way.
If you've crossed the same parts of the internet as I have, you may have heard about Roam Research - a fairly brutalist note-taking tool which helps you see how your thoughts are linked together. I've been using it for a few months now, and while I'm not quite addicted to the thing, I absolutely see the value in continued use. They've had a tremendous amount of adoption lately. Last weekend, they saw 10k users register, which all but shut down their service. That's a hell of a success story!
If you make things for the web...
- 📈 I put out a new article last week on why I adopted Fathom Analytics for my personal site (and a few other projects). If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, give it a look here.
- 🔨 Have you tried out Gatsby's incremental builds yet? I've given it a go on both Netlify and Gatsby Cloud, and I've gotta say, I'm impressed.
- 🎨 Designing software with accessibility in mind is more important every day - and I've really enjoyed watching the growth of a product called Stark, which helps teams meet accessibility standards.
Never stop learning
- 🥬 Unlike most commodities in the US during the pandemic, asparagus has become harder to source, and so its price has gone up drastically.
- 📚 On any given day, the average person reads 113 thousand words(!). Cognition is the process of acquiring knowledge, and it's been capturing my attention lately. Check out this great twitter thread from Kyle Harrison about how much we read, and some compelling thoughts on
- 🇬🇧 Did you know London is divided into 32 boroughs? I sure didn't. Jay Foreman's video explaining what makes them all unique and strange is about as witty and British as one could hope for.
Thanks for reading Tiny Improvements. If you've got any feedback, my inbox is always open: hello@mikebifulco.com
Be excellent to each other -
Mike
