2 min read

52 Mondays The Process

The Holding Pen in our Irish kitchen
The Holding Pen in our Irish kitchen
Surface Book and Leuchtturm 1917 with grapes on campus
Surface Book with Leuchtturm 1917 and grapes on campus

I'm writing about finishing my university teaching career 52 Mondays from now. My classroom activities finish within 31 Mondays from now. And I'm a little concerned about this very significant countdown, mainly because of the loss of income I will encounter. So I've started looking around at things that might allow a pivot towards a sustainable future. My search--more of a quest--takes me into my digital stash. My collection of notes that I've started to curate while developing a set of practical workflows reinforced by pro tips.

Double Bracketing my Vault

Bing Image creator thinks this is my Obsidian Vault
Bing Image creator thinks this is my Obsidian Vault

I'm writing this Monday report inside my Obsidian Vault. I should start with bullet statements that work as an outline but instead I'm just free-flowing. I simply type the keys on my Surface Book while different snippets of information float through my mind. I put a double bracket around some of the key terms that float by me and my Obsidian Vault tells me what I've written before. In this post, the bracketed items appear in bold print.

💡
Drafts started inside Obsidian would germinate as more sophisticated thoughts if I began them a week before publishing them.

Unmasking the motivation

Part of Tim Ereneta's Mask Monday collection

Like Tim Ereneta does with his Mask Mondays, I should start my Monday reports at least a week ahead of time so I can offer more substantial information, perhaps hitting north of 730 words for each of my Mondays. That's what Suw Charman does on her Suwca Substack and that's what Simon McGarr tries to do with The Gist. I reckon that's the same process used by Marua McHugh aka Splinister, Christopher S. Penn and his prolific dense content, and James Whatley occasional Whatleydude Five for Friday is a nice recap. There's no way Christian Payne aka Documentally would be able to crank out his comprehensive multimedia weekly release with just an afternoon of writing.

Until next week

So I'm looking at 52 Mondays remaining and setting a goal of doubling the word count the next time this Ghost-powered newsletter drops into your inbox. Thanks for reading.

The banner image is our holding pen in our kitchen.

Current Vault Stats 240819: 68.4 MB 2942 files 154 folders

Bernard Goldbach

Bernard Goldbach

Creates rich media content as a short form blogger and podcaster. Teaches creatives to write and share.
Ireland