Daniel Voicu

I kept seeing things about speed reading, I think that I always saw as something that should be avoided. Reading should be done at a pace that allows us to absorb information in a way that we allow it to settle, to sediment itself so we can use it at some point. Speed reading is a way to gather information, but I don't know if it helps on the long term.

A while ago I found about the barbell method. This is a term coined by Nassim Taleb, and I think this is something that works for me. It allows one to better filter information from books and find out faster if a book is useful or not, among other things.

I found out about the Barbell Method from zettelkasten.de. In the article, they say:

It means that you make sure that the majority of your investment is safe while you make small but very risky bets. You combine safety with the possibility of high revenue. The trick is that you floor the possible loss while leaving the possible revenue unlimited.

And applied to books, it would mean that you would have to:

1. Read the book. Read swiftly but don’t skip any parts unless they make you vomit or put you to sleep. Mark all the passages that stand out and contain useful, interesting or inspiring information.
   
2. Read the book a second time. But now you read the marked parts only. This time you make notes, connect them to past notes (Zettelkasten Method!) and think about what you’ve read. Make mindmaps, drawings, bullet points – everything that helps you to think more clearly.

I'm going to leave a link to the article here so I can get back to it some time in the future, and maybe someone else will also find it useful.

Find out more here: Reading using the Barbell Method

I've started writing this trying to remember how eleventy works, as I forgot that I had a digital garden thingy. I tend to forget stuff like this: too much time spent in front of screens.

I had a short vacation which was beneficial. I needed to get away from screens, at least for a few days. I am feeling some sort of technology fatigue, and what I previously considered to be a sign of inatentiveness, now I think it's related to the amount of time I spend in front of a screen.

I am trying to look more at the things I spend my time doing. I've reduced the amount of social media to a minimum; I can not be in a mental state where everything I read/watch is a distraction or something that tries to grab my attention.

With limited access to internet - mostly because of the slow connection I had where I went - I downloaded some music and some documentaries from DW. Watched the documentaries on the train, helped me to pass the time while the train was having a 3 hour delay.

I'm rediscovering listening to music in "full albums", not just singles. Found 3 albums from totally different types of artists and I am enjoying them. My favorite is "Cover songs in inferno", by Francoiz Breut and Don Nino. I've also listened to IX, the first album from HOST (a band with members from Paradise Lost).

I haven't read that much during the vacation, but before that I've managed to finish a few books on Kindle, including the first two books from the "Discworld" series by Terry Pratchett.

Now I'm trying to figure out ways to configure my site to work with eleventy. Speaking of, I've added "types" to the notes, based on their status. So now my notes will be categorized into seeds, growing, budding, flourishing, and notes that need pruning. Trying to go all the way with the digital garden metaphor. Besides that, I'm rewriting some stuff, and adding some automations. It's interesting to see how this digital garden grows and updates; hope it doesn't turn into a mess.