Musings on privacy, disruption and mindfulness.

Note: This is my second Year-in-Review, check the link down below for the first.

https://medium.com/@brennanbrown/becoming-an-adult-10fd7135ce3c

This post was meant to come out on my birthday, but that was over two weeks ago now. I wasn’t writing on a schedule. I haven’t been writing much at all on Medium, in spite of how much I’ve been thinking about writing lately. Which is fitting, because that’s largely what I’m going to be ideating about.

Last year, when I wrote my yearly review, I focused mostly on the past. It made sense since I essentially had twenty years of material to cover. This year is different, though. I only have to really think about what’s happened in the past twelve months. There’s still plenty to talk about, though.

I’ve decided to tackle a few themes — and subsequently, their opposites — which have been resonating with me the most.

Idea → Prototype → Product

When you’re creating anything, it can feel daunting to try to go from an initial idea to a finished product. We think we have these fantastic ideas for things in our work or personal life, but they suddenly become vague and murky when we sit down and try to actually hash them out on paper.

In my previous post, I wrote about the difficulties in trying to find a balance between creating and planning. In this article, I’ll discuss how to make a more fluid transition between planning and creating. In other words, doing both simultaneously.

Craftship is a termed for the creative work done by someone who practices a trade or handicraft — it is the act of doing. This is exactly what this workflow is about: taking action instead of contemplating taking action.

Using the Internet and Bees

For quite awhile now, I haven’t posted anything to Medium. There are eighty different posts in my drafts, sporadic and eclectic ideas waiting to be posts. And I always think I have epiphanies late at night when I’m trying to go to sleep — or in the middle of a shower — about what I think might make a good post.

But then nothing happens. I don’t end up posting anything. I grow older and eventually whither away, the end. But why?

I’m not sure how familiar this will sound to you, but I’ve come to realize that I generally have two modes of operation. I’m either in the process of creating things or planning to create things.

How to unlock the full potential of a new era of education.

For the past few years, the world of MOOC (Massively Open Online Courses) has become a fiercely large phenomenon. Across Medium and Reddit you can find great, comprehensive lists of free classes you can take:

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/the-best-free-online-university-courses-for-learning-a-new-world-language-ccf42ad1b5d5