First things first - I hope everyone is well and thriving in these uncertain times. I also hope to be able to stop using the phrase “uncertain times” at some point in the not-too-distant future.
You can hardly have failed to notice the total absence of an INFODUMP thudding into your inboxes over the past few months/year/pandemic. There are a number of reasons for this. Let’s list them…
1. I’m lazy. This is a fundamental problem with me doing anything that requires any effort on a regular basis. If it’s this versus watching TV, watching TV is always going to win.
2. I’ve been busy. This is true, but it’s not something anyone wants to hear when they’re wondering why you haven’t been in touch. Yes, I have been running a writers room for a (hopefully) big upcoming show, and yes I have had lots of other projects taking up my time. Does that mean I couldn’t have carved out some time for the INFODUMP if I had wanted to? No, it doesn’t. It’s a poor excuse. If I had really wanted to, then I could have found the time, so that must lead to…
3. I stopped enjoying it. There, I said it. I’d locked myself into recommending apps and bits and pieces on a semi-regular (I know, who am I kidding?) basis and my appetite to do that just kind of waned over time. It became a chore and I don’t take well to chores
4. I came to hate the title. It had seemed like a clever idea at the time, but that title seemed to carry some kind of responsibility to provide useful information. As I got busier, my appetite to explore new apps and websites drifted away and thus my ability to find useful things to recommend weakened. But I had this thing called INFODUMP and if I wasn’t dumping info, what was I doing?! So I stuck my head in the sand and let days become weeks become months become over a year… And here we are…
But I want to come back, if you’ll have me. And first I want to ditch the title. Out with INFODUMP and hello Cartoon Gravity, which is a meaningless phrase but I like it and it seems to evoke something non-specific, which is exactly what I need it to do.
There has been a lot of talk in productivity circles (dear God, spare me from productivity circles) about the Second Brain. Well I’m interested in that concept, but I’m wondering what a public second brain looks like? A scrapbook of thoughts, ideas, recommendations, etc.
This is not going to be something with a structure, it’s going to be a website/newsletter that talks about whatever is on my brain at the time of writing. Yes, that’s probably a giant ego trip, but hopefully it won’t come across that way (note that I’m not saying it isn’t, just that I’m hoping to disguise it). Since ditching all social media (a good thing, highly recommended) I have become more engaged with the newsletters that I subscribe to and I’ve realised that the ones I like most are the ones that come across like an occasional letter from an old friend or acquaintance - missives that seem to be random catch-ups, streams-of-consciousness, rather than structured pieces. And I’d like to give that a go.
So I’d like to reframe the premise of the INFODUMP (Cartoon Gravity) and I’m hoping you’ll be up for sticking around, at least until you can get a better sense of how badly it sucks.
I’m not going to be using Mailchimp any more, I’m going to try out sending the new letter from my Ghost site, which means I’ll be transferring all subscriptions over there. I hope this isn’t a diabolical liberty (you can still unsubscribe at any time). I don’t use your names or details for anything other than these letters (I have never even looked at the list), so there is nothing nefarious going on.
Ghost subscribers, as I understand it, get all posts sent to the website dropped into their inboxes. This might turn out to be a pain, in which case shout at me, but in reality I’m not expecting to be posting a gazillion times a day, so you probably won’t notice. I’ll try to keep the “lol at this gif” posts to a minimum (that minimum being zero) because I know first-hand how annoying it is to get pointless emails.
Anyway, that’s it from me. For the moment. I’ll get to work on Cartoon Gravity and update everyone when things are moving in the right direction.
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