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Weeknotes 7/3

Ran a DIY Fashion Hack + Show

Got a few friends together to DIY fashion pieces — like Project Runway, but no sewing or modeling skills required. Friends came over with art supplies, and we painted and glued an outfit together. Then we modeled our creations on our DIY runway for the audience (my mom and neighbor). It was a lot of fun! I wish activities like this were standard for a hangout instead of whatever normal people do.

Redid My Website

I made my website vibecode friendly in order to encourage updating it more often. For me, that means simplifying the design and code. I removed WordPress and switched to Astro. I took inspo from Derek Sivers.

My website before (old WordPress site) and after (Astro)

Revamped Productivity + Motivation

My motivation felt low the week before. To fix it, I:

  • Set up my workspace to have more surface area.

    • An open notebook
    • A 2nd monitor
    • Project files open

    For 5 weeks prior, while traveling, I worked with little surface area: just a mini notebook and phone remoting into my computer. A portable working area has benefits. It’s good for travel or stretching away from your desk. But back at home, I realized I needed surface area back!

    The more I use AI, the more likely I am to default to a small surface area. Since agents themselves have access to a large surface (editing and reading your files), if I’m using an agent, it’s easy to outsource touching the surfaces to the agent. But working feels confined on a small device with one window, relying on a robot to edit or read a file to me.

    I needed the fluidity of a larger work setup. Sometimes you need to ideate on paper. Sometimes you need to actually see a file (god forbid!), instead of Claude summarizing it for you. More surface area means I can match the task to the surface, easily moving between text editing, reading material, renders, pen and paper, and terminals.

  • Made a digital vision board.

  • Journaled my goals before executing.

  • Drew progress bars to plan my week. It’s satisfying to fill the bars while I wait for an agent to cook, a time when I otherwise get distracted. My analog progress bars — hand-drawn bars for each project that I fill in as I go

Collected Sleep Data

I built this wearable for a data collection project I’m starting that should help me understand the brain during sleep stage transitions. It’s for a larger project to stimulate lucid dreams. I collected one night of data, then redesigned the study. I run these studies on myself with computer-programmed study protocols. So no researcher has to lose sleep running a protocol!

The sleep-data wearable — sensors on my hand with the live data on the laptop behind

Organized Sleep Data

A few weeks ago, my friend and researcher Daniel Morris gave me some data to explore for an upcoming study he’s doing at Northwestern. My goal is to help him enough to get credited on the paper. We’ll see! I continued to build an automated pipeline for organizing the data (which is perhaps more time-consuming than if I just manually organized the data…)

Updated Exercise Routine

I added Tchaikovsky ballet music to my workouts. The ballet music helps me feel graceful which keeps me intentional with my movements. It also adds novelty.

Before my 5-week Eurotrip, I had a great exercise routine. While I tried to keep this going, traveling without the right equipment set me back. So back to it!

Watched Lego Dispute Part 1, Part 2

My brother-in-law sent this to our whole family chat, and it was a great recommendation. YouTuber Reckless Ben is hired to retrieve an old man’s $200k Lego set from a deal gone bad. It’s investigative journalism meets Nathan For You, and leads to a story about police corruption, a large Mormon corporation, and an ever-escalating legal situation. The story is ongoing!