Moving (Forward), Drawing, Book Buying, Gmail.js-ing, and Jazz-Quoting

Forward Progress

Forward progress is important in business. Even the tiniest bit of forward progress can catapult you into further action.

It has been weeks since I did any work on my cold email projects. Two days ago, I received a response to an email I sent a month ago. This response has me excited for the project again.

I know it’s small, but this is a sign of moving forward. It wasn’t even technically forward progress, but it gave me the illusion of forward progress.

This illusion of forward progress got me to send 3 other emails I put off for two weeks. I feel energized again.

All because of one little email response.

My takeaway: Do something everyday to make it seem like there is progress. Even if there’s no real progress, even if it’s just an illusion of progress, this will give you the juice you need to keep going.

Learning to Draw

I’m still learning to draw. Today, my task is to draw the vase that looks like two faces. Here’s something interesting I read today. It’s from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: “Learning to perceive is the basic skill that the students acquired [in this course], not drawing skill.”

It’s interesting and very true. I’m starting to look at everyday shapes differently – little by little. I’m no picasso... not yet.

Binge Book Buying

Every so often, I buy too many books. My wife hates when this happens.

It happened a few days ago.

I went on a buying binge after coming across a few lists of books every person should read before they turn 30. I’m 31, but why not try a few of those. I bought a few books that appeared on multiple lists.

There was a Kurt Vonnegut book, Slaughterhouse 5, Siddhartha (an indian tale I first heard from Tim Ferriss), Brave New World, and a few others. I also bought The Autobiography of Ben Franklin, which I used to have, and 7 Habits of Effective People, which I still have, but my dog chewed up most of it.

Gmail.js

I found a sweet library on github today. It’s gmail.js. I also found boilerplate code to make it easy to use gmail.js in a chrome extension.

This is one of my side projects I hope will explode into a large company. I’m working on a chrome extension for SDRs and BDRs. I mentioned it a few days ago. These are going to be extremely helpful! Super excited!

Quote

“If you gotta ask what jazz is, you ain’t never gonna know” -Fats Waller