I’m in my final year of college and, in order to complete my Drama degree, am enrolled in a theater class which requires us to put on 5 small performances over the course of the semester. We spend our valuable class time filling out sprint logs, estimating story points, and self-assessing for “optimal” project efficiency. The course fulfills a history-like requirement for my degree, but the professor has shifted the focus to creating as many small “productions” as possible. That on it’s own is not the problem. The problem is that the professor has decided to enforce Agile as the methodology for making theatre.

There are two kinds of laziness. The first type drives you to find the easiest, fastest way to get things done, while the second just looks for excuses to avoid doing anything at all.

That first kind—the laziness that seeks out the path of least resistance—can be a hidden strength. It’s the urge to streamline, to make the work less tedious and more efficient. This is the kind of laziness that makes you want to automate repetitive tasks or rethink a process so you’re not wasting time on the same thing over and over. It’s the lazy impulse that motivates you to create a macro to save yourself the trouble of editing 40 lines one by one. Instead of slogging through unnecessary work, this kind of laziness pushes you to make things faster and smoother for the future. It’s the type of laziness worth bragging about.

Timeliness is critical, especially when it affects others. To me, being on time is a sign of respect and professionalism. I try to live by the mantra: “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.” Here’s why.

First, arriving early gives you a buffer for the inevitable things that might go wrong. Maybe you have trouble finding parking, maybe you get the location wrong—whatever the issue, being early builds in time to handle these situations without making you late.

Few things frustrate me more than people who don’t communicate consistently or effectively in a professional setting. When you’re working on a group project—especially one with multiple stakeholders—every participant benefits from a shared understanding of the project’s current status.

This doesn’t mean everyone needs to know every detail. But if you complete something that might impact others, it helps to communicate that progress. Keeping everyone on the same page prevents potential conflicts, ensures that parts of the project integrate smoothly, and allows each person to adapt as needed.

I’m always fiddling with the tools I use, so it’s possible this eventually becomes out of date. But for now, here’s what I use:

The OS

My first computer was a Mac. Then I got a Windows computer. At some point, I installed Linux (Mint) on that machine and used that full-time. Now I use MacOS full time. While it’s far from perfect, seamless integration with my iPhone, Airdrop, native Arc (see The Browser), gives it an edge over the alternatives, especially when coupled with the AeroSpace.

When I discovered Obsidian a year ago, I was immediately smitten. I loved how fun it made note-taking and how intuitive it all felt. It felt like this software, more than anything I’d used before, was going to change the way I worked and lived.

I spent hours migrating parts of my existing workflow to Obsidian: Tasks would replace Todoist, the the Obsidian app with the Excalidraw plugin would replace Notability on my iPad, and an iframe Google Calendar embed meant I would never need to leave the app.