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2022 In Review

Written January 3, 2023

    # Experiences (in no particular order)

    • Winning the Broadway lottery and having front row seats for Six w/ Charlie

    • Hamilton

    • Wicked with Marshie and Charlie

    • Taking Charlie to see the Lion King

    • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge time with Marshie and Charlie

    • Cory Wong concert at Friday Cheers with Marshie thanks to a recommendation from Jake

    • Saw Movements at Canal Club with Bryson

    • Such an amazing Landmvrks and Miss May I show

    • Started Playing Tennis with Robert

    • Took a Tennis lesson with Holger Schmidt

    • Started playing Tennis on Wednesday nights with Marshie and Charlie and then going to Galley afterwards

    • Charlie joined Richmond Montessori School

    • Katniss becoming incontent

    • Bought a Playstation 5 from a guy in Southside in the snow

    • Apple claiming water damage in Marshie’s M1 Macbook despite the water indicators being intact and non-reactive

      • After much fighting they ultimately decided to reimburse the cost for the display in Marshie’s computer.

    • Found a PCP and found out I had a vitamin D deficiency

    • Spent two weeks in New York this summer

      • Ate at Los Tacos No 1 (really, really good tacos and Horchata)
      • Visited The High Line.
      • Won the lottery and took Charlie to see Six on Broadway
      • Lin Qiu reached out to me on my birthday.
      • Took Charlie and Pietra to the Museum of Ice Cream
      • Saw Marcel the Shell
      • Checked out Design within Reach and Herman Miller in SOHO
      • Visited Little Island
      • Crunchy Cereal Milk Shake at Milk Bar
      • Tried a Matcha Latte at Chalait
      • Breakfast at Maman
      • Ate at MeMe with Marshie
      • Saw Hamilton
      • Tried out the Away Backpack, but didn’t end up liking it
      • Visited Oula Health in Brooklyn, NY
      • Learned how to do laundry in New York
      • Learned the coffee shops in NYC purposefully don’t have public restrooms so that people don’t stay all day. They assume that eventually you will need “to go.”
      • Rode bikes on Governor’s Island
        • Charlie hit a dog and scraped her hand and knee. Thankfully the dog is okay.
        • Great food on the island
      • Took Charlie to see Six on Broadway. We had front row center seats from the lottery. It was amazing. Show was great and Charlie is obsessed.
      • Made Minifigs at Lego
        • Made a character for Marshie
      • Had breakfast at Maman in UWS.
      • Had a Matcha Horchata Latte at Chalait
      • Ate at Los Tacos No 1 again. Best taco I’ve had
      • Ate at MeMe with Marshie
      • Tried a Matcha Latte at Chalait.

    • Going glamping with Marshie and Charlie

    • Dorsata onsite in Charlottesville, VA

    # Places

    • Richmond, VA
    • New York Trip
    • Charlottesville, VA
    • Wintergreen, VA
    • Massanutten, VA
    • Farmville, VA
    • Mathews, VA
    • Whitestone, VA
    • Bath County, VA
    • Salisbury, NC
    • Roanoke, VA
    • Sea Isle City, NJ

    # Accomplishments

    # YouTube

    • Started the year at 340 subs

    • Gained 3,437 subs

    • 30 Videos published

    • 516,244 views

    • 35,864 watch hours

      • (1494.33 watch days)
      • (4.09 watch years)

    • I stumbled upon my Save Chrome Tab Groups with Tabox video from a year ago and the quality difference is pretty significant. Same sweater, much better video quality. BKB 2023-01-02 at 16.06.00.png

    • Defined a YouTube Video Process and learned the importance of thumbnail, title, and hook to the success of a moc/YouTube video

    • Improved the audio and got the microphone out of the shot with the Rode Videomic NTG

    • Settled into a cadence of one video every two weeks

    # Books Read

    # e-Ink

    • Ordered my first eInk tablet, the Boox Note Air 2 Plus
      • This led to one of my most popular videos I’ve done and also opened the wonderful rabbit hole into eInk Tablets
      • Kit Betts-Masters reached out with a question and then promoted the video. (Thank you, Kit!)
    • Got the reMarkable 2 in for testing (ended up loving it)
      • Learned that I don’t hate the Ballpoint pen on the reMarkable 2, only the Fineliner.
      • reMarkable 2 made screen-sharing and connectivity free
    • Reviewed the Supernote A5 X
      • It is also great.

    # Other

    • Started a Blog (brandonkboswell.com)
      • It runs on Obsidian and Hugo
      • Established RSS for it
      • Did a video on it ( Link)
      • Established Branding for the Homepage
    • Laid the technical foundation for a Newsletter
      • Have started getting sign ups, but haven’t started writing for it yet (27 subscribers as of EOY 2022)
        • “People are preordering your thoughts”. —Bryson Davis
    • Started the Knowledge Workers Discord Community ( https://discord.gg/v4qdKMughq)
    • Obsidian / Second Brain
      • Wrote an Obsidian plugin, Obsidian Weekly Review Plugin ( Link)
      • Stood up a dashboard for Areas in Obsidian
      • Started a Content Calendar in Obsidian
        • It worked okay, but wasn’t perfect
        • Still looking for something that I stick to better
      • Set up Obsidian to automatically back up to Github. The last thing I need is to lose my PKM system because it’s not backed up. ( Link)
      • Created Backlogs in Obsidian
        • Gaming Backlog
        • Idea Backlog
        • TV Backlog
    • Got a Smoker and learned how to smoke a few things:
      • Salmon
      • Chicken
      • Ham
      • Chuck Roast
    • Got into the Readwise Reader Beta ( Link )
    • Got comfortable controlling OSX without Mouse
    • New PR on Peloton
    • Marshie and I’s 10th Anniversary
    • Re-did the dining room
      • Got 8 dining chairs from Charm School for $200
      • New table
      • New Chandelier

    # Things

    # Game Changers

    # Learning / discovery this year

    • Began tracking notes on my outcomes when cooking in the cooking folder so that the next time I cook something, I can benefit from my learnings the previous time. Don’t Start from Scratch

    • Figured out how to bind the Quick App Launching as Toggles.

    • Learned how to get CSV output from jQ.

    • Swapped over to Warp as my terminal of choice

      • Later swapped back to iTerm

    • Had more productive morning time by avoiding time traps like Twitter and Feedly

      • Learned to avoid my phone and Time Traps during the morning routine to get the most out of my most productive time of the day
      • Avoid your phone for the first hour of the day
      • Move Readwise to lunch time along with Wordle to up more time in the morning

    • I took Readwise’s Bionic Reading study and found that I read 17% faster with Bionic reading.

    • Adjusted my daily template to just use: “Today was a good day because:” for reflection

    • Shifted my left monitor back to portrait so that it can show me more of the list content I consume in TickTick, Slack, Akiflow, Obsidian

    • Realized I can open any url from my clipboard in a web browser by pasting it into Alfred

    • Decaffinated Coffee can still make it difficult to get to sleep

    • Daily & Weekly Reflection is difficult when I’m not on my routine. Especially during the Holidays

    • I learned that I avoid/struggle with self-promotion due to being accused of bragging as a child.

    • Read the content you’ve already curated instead of looking for more via RSS.

    • Connected the softbox to a smart plug to make it easy to turn on and off.

    • Tasks that aren’t immediately actionable shouldn’t be in your To-Do list they need to be incubated somewhere else

    • The importance of starting the day with a plan

      • If you expect there to be time and energy at the end of the day for your daily highlight you are setting yourself up for failure
      • Avoid phone usage before lunchtime as a goal.

    • Weekly Planning

      • Working from a pre-planned week makes the morning routine significantly easier.

    • Reducing Distractions

      • Trying hiding the bookmark bar to try to remove it as a distraction.

    • Started documenting my Areas of Focus

    • Learned about the ABZ Framework. I need to figure out how to apply this in projects.

    • Research as a form of procrastination

    • Doing a dedicated script-writing session prior to record videos.

    • Consume less content, produce more

    • Updated Daily template to include this day last year. Revisiting the journal entry from this day one year ago

    • PARA‘ified my Google Drive

    • Reviewing my journal entries from a year ago has been rewarding and insightful

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