The Journal App Making Journal: Day 37

Command line interface, a look into Interstitial Journaling, and keep journaling on Atomic Habits

Continue to journal on 3 questions everyday in this Journal App Making Journal.

1. What have I learned about app design and development today?

Screenshot by Author, from iOS App Development course on Udemy by Angela Yu and the London App Brewery

Learned about the Bash Shell in Mac OS today, where,

• the “nut” is the operating system (OS);
• the “kernel” is the program that talks to the hardware;
• the “shell” is the interface that talks to the human;
• “shells” come in two flavours, the graphical, and the command line (CLI);
• the former is prettier, friendlier, more popular, usable, readable, human, and familiar (think windows and browsers);
• the latter is more machine-like, strictly no-frills texting, in an extremely abbreviated, curt, cryptic, and privileged style of insider language (think Matrix, the movie, where Trinity, the hacker, talks in green texts on black screens to Neo, the one);
• the “bash shell” is a CLI kind of shell, short for the “Bourne-again shell”, and is the name of the CLI which replaced in 1989 the “Bourne shell” originally authored in 1979 by one English computer scientist, Stephen Bourne, (sorry to disappoint fans of one CIA agent Jason Bourne), for the purpose of interacting with UNIX based or UNIX like operating systems;
• Macintosh is a UNIX like operating system, as opposed to the competing family of Microsoft Windows and DOS based operating systems;
• And the greatest advantages of using the “bash shell” in the MacOS Terminal application is control and speed, because you are typing precisely from the keyboard rather than moving around with the mouse.

2. What have I learned about other journal users today?

Continue to look into journal users under the #journaling hashtag.

Featured journal user today is: Coach Tony

Coach Tony wrote a popular article in 2017, Replace Your To-Do List With Interstitial Journaling To Increase Productivity. He proposed a Interstitial Journaling system. The basic idea is very appealing, “instead of tracking your work with a to-do list, track your work with a journal”.

Top 3 take-aways I got are,

1 — Interstitial Journaling is about thoughtful transition from one activity to the next that efficiently refocuses the mind.

• Had to look up the word “interstitial”, it means an intervening space.
• Interstitial Journaling involves writing briefly on 4 questions during transition, or “interstitial” breaks between activities. Without this, the mind is much slower at restarting.
• The first 2 questions help tying out loose ends from the previous activity. They are,
• >>> 1) What project did I just finish?
• >>> 2) Are there any parts of that project that I’m still thinking about?
• The other 2 questions help the mind concretely move into and plan out the next activity, making it more specific and less overwhelming. They are,
• >>> 3) What is the first action of the project I’m about to start? This borrows from David Allan’s Getting-Things-Done ideas, where writing down doable actions (eg. Google tire repair shops) are more effective than making a list of projects with non-actionable titles (eg. change tire).
• >>> 4) How should I approach getting the project done? This is about choosing what to do is more important than doing what’s there.

2 — Journaling the flow of activities through the rest of your day keeps you mindful at the tasks and aware of distractions.

• It gives you an opportunity to observe triggers and patterns, and manage your future responses better.And this replaces your todo list.

Screenshot by author, showing Coach Tony’s example of journaling as a replacement for todo lists

3 — The best tool for journaling, whether it is an app or a paper journal, depends on whether you are a Maker or Manager.

• A “maker” here refers to someone who works mostly with the computer. A “manager” here refers to someone who works mostly in the physical world with real people and physical objects.

How interesting.

3. What have I learned about journaling products / technologies today?

Continue to look into implementation systems for the popular book, Atomic Habits.

This is a follow-up project after reviewing the Clear Habit Journal system. This project revisits ideas from the book, applies them, uses and assesses how effectively the Clear Habit Journal and the online video course are as implementation technologies for the book’s key ideas.

> Featured ideas from the book > Chapter 1 on why habits are important

• Tiny atomic changes create remarkable results the same way compound interest works. Each atomic change produced by a system is fundamentally powerful, but hardly exciting or noticeable. “Overnight successes” are very exciting and noticeable, but rarely all that “overnight”. Whether conscious or not, there is always a system behind every small thing we do.
• Patience and long term thinking is key to making atomic changes work, because the reality about the most powerful outcomes from any compounding process is that they are delayed and must be expected as such.
• Achieving goals don’t necessarily change behaviours. It is short term and momentary. Changing a process creates enjoyment and behavioural change that last the distance, where results are more secondary effects than targeted goals.
• So true, and I love it.

Screenshot and annotation by author

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

• Author James Clear told a sports story to illustrate the power of tiny atomic gains. I was never very interested in sports, but with the story he shared, I have come to a new found appreciation for sports and competitions. They are experiments on our ability to evolve.

> Featured ideas from Habit Academy the video course > Module 1 on how to apply the book and the course

• Getting the principles of behavioural change takes revisiting the ideas again and again.
• When learning and applying new principles, focus on one habit at a time.

> Using the Clear Habit Journal for my own habit change

• The Clear Habit Journal is a well-made notebook. The tangible experience of a physical piece of paper has never seemed replaceable.
• The first problems for me though with using any physical notebook are 1) I hardly carry a pen anymore, and there is no pen holders on the journal; and 2) the bulk is something I don’t incline to carry.
• I do find it easier to take and share notes digitally here today.

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