Chris Wilson

Social Media Success for Every Brand Book Summary

December 29, 2020 by Chris Wilson Leave a Comment

Recently I read the book social media success for every brand, a social media marketing specific guide from Claire Diaz-Ortiz. This book is basically the social media part of building a storybrand. In fact, Claire wrote it in conjunction with Donald Miller and the whole Storybrand team.

My motivation was simple: my company is struggling with Social media, storybrand has some good ideas, perhaps this book will help? As it turns out, it has. Here are my key takeaways.

Table of Contents

Social Media Success for Every Brand Sketchnote Summary

The biggest social media mistake most companies make

The most common marketing mistake (including social media) is making your marketing about the company and not the customer or client.

This is one of the key ideas in Storybrand as well. The customer is the hero. You are the guide.

Changing your social media to focus on your customer, not the company is half the battle. This should be reflected in:

Your Bio: how do you help the customer?
Your posts: why does this matter to them?

Create a storybrand script for your company

One of the core steps Claire advises is to create a storybrand brand script. This is a story arc for your customer and how your company helps them achieve through their journey.

It gives you a map for a customer journey and the right language to communicate with them. The process of creating one is detailed in Donald Miller’s book Building A Story Brand.

Sharing different aspects of the storybrand script is a great way to connect with your customer base.

Build empathy

Post about your customer
Don’t post and ghost
Ask questions (and respond)

Focus on Engagement not expanding reach

Claire highlights a principle similar to a common business truism. Focus on engaging your current followers rather than getting new followers.

This runs counter to many marketing team directives but it is based on common sense. If your current followers are engaged, then that helps attract more followers. And if you focus on engagement, then you are more likely to get repeat sales.

It’s like the old idea that it costs five times as much to win a new customer, as to keep an existing one.

How to expand your social media reach

create great content – It will get shared
influencer marketing – team up with people who have an existing audience
paid advertising – advertise to spread your content.

The Deposit and Withdrawal principles

When posting, you should consider if you are depositing, or withdrawing. A deposit gives value to your follower, a withdrawal asks for something from your follower.

Some companies focus only on withdraws with repeated calls to buy. By focusing on giving value, you capitalize on the principle of reciprocity as made famous by Robert Cialdiani in Influence.

When you give something, people want to give back to you.

These deposits don’t have to be huge. Value can be as simple as some entertainment, or relevant information.

You can also make use of content created by other people and not just your company.

Examples of deposit content

Valuable and informative articles, podcasts, videos
Quotations
Statistics
Impactful images
Selfies that don’t suck

Example of withdraw content

Articles, podcasts and blog posts with calls to action
Impactful images
Selfies
videos
Statistics
testimonials

Planning a social media calendar

Planning a social media calendar requires an understanding of your company, your customer, where they are, and what is a realistic output.

A B2B business who sells high tech equipment will have a very different social media calendar to that of a boutique consumer lifestyle brand.

With a Storybrand brand script, you can identify where your customers can be found and prioritize which social networks you should focus on. It’s good to still experiment with other social networks as there can be exceptions.

Next, consider your company’s capacity and how much content you can realistically publish. This may also depend on your content marketing output.

This should give you a good idea about what amount of content you can start publishing. Next, you need to select a mix of deposits and withdraw type content that you can schedule into your plans.

The SHARE model

Story
How
Audience
Reach
Excellence

Story

Most social media marketing is brand a not direct marketing, so your goal is to take a prospective customer deeper into your story.

Use the Storybrand brand script and make sure your content is related to different aspects of the customer journey.

You don’t have to tell the whole story in one post.

How

How is all about the practical side of marketing.

Picking the right social media platforms to focus on
finding the right times to post
using a content scheduling tool

Audience

Social media (and all) marketing is all about your audience and not about you. You need to put them at the center of your messages.

Make sure your posts focus on your followers, not you. Cultivate empathy with your followers with effective communication and revealing the people behind the company.

Reach

Reach is all about expanding your network and connections.

The best way to achieve this is by focusing on the followers you already have instead of neglecting them.

Create great content, connect with influencers and use paid media to expand your reach further. Don’t rush things but look for a snow ball effect.

Excellence

Excellence is about achieving social media greatness.

Rather than sticking to ‘best practices” you should experiment and discover what works best for you.

Look for opportunities to connect with trending events (in principled ways),
be honest when you make a mistake,
look to delight your followers, especially grumpy customers.

Social network specific advice

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social network. In recent years, it has become more focused on the people you know, rather than the companies you follow. The limits of the newsfeed mean that you can’t just make a page anymore, instead you need a group.

Facebook (currently) likes groups and so shows more content that is posted in groups. This means you can share as a profile, then share it to your brand’s group. You can also use a group for discussion and connecting with your audience.

Paid ads also perform extremely well on Facebook. This is partially due to how limited organic reach is for profiles, but also their ability to appear native to the platform.

A final idea to explore is live video streams. Facebook likes to highlight these, and they have higher retention rates than pre-recorded content.

Instagram

Instagram is one of the most engaged social networks and users spend a lot of time in the app. Due to the limited ability to links off Instagram, it has a greater focus on storytelling and pictures.

Instagram has strong connections with B2C companies as it’s a great way to connect with your customers and show your products. But it also works for B2B as a way to help build connections and share your story.

Good use of hashtags and mentions helps grow your visibility. You can also use influencers to expand your reach.

High-quality and professional images do well, but so do lower-quality more authentic images from a smart phone. Don’t be afraid to break things up and try variations.

Twitter

Twitter is all about the latest and breaking news. You need to share the latest insights and new ideas.

One simple idea Claire shares is to find reports and new stories that are connected to your brand script. This could be the customer, their struggles, the cost of failure, the joys of success. Then share them with a short reference to your mission.

LinkedIn is a highly engaged professional network that focuses on both personal networking and text rather than images.

So instead of focusing on sending messages from your company profile, it’s better to get your employees blogging and writing long-form articles on LinkedIn. Other types of content can work well too.

The CEO of Pinterest described it as a place for your dreams and ambitions rather than where you are now. Creating boards that are about how a person or company could be in the future encourages them to dream and rePin.

YouTube

YouTube works really well alongside other networks. You can use it to share the story behind a campaign. You can then post it on other relevant networks.

The main point of social media success for every brand?

There’s a lot of advice in social media success for every brand; some practical, some strategical. Some of the most common mistakes are making your social media all about yourself and how great you are, and not the customer. This simple shift will probably bring the greatest benefit to your company.

How to Start Sketchnoting today

December 14, 2020 by Chris Wilson Leave a Comment

I struggled to start sketchnoting. Although I caught the idea immediately but putting pen to paper felt overwhelming. I don’t want you to suffer the same issue, so here is a simple guide to start sketchnoting today.

This could be a useful classroom activity to introduce sketchnotes to students.

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Table of Contents

What are sketchnotes?

Sketchnotes are a form of visual notetaking that includes both text and graphical elements such as icons, banners, dividers, multiple colors and layouts. They don’t tend to follow strict left to right, top to bottom organization but instead are more flexible in their layouts.

You can learn more about what Sketchnotes are and why you should use them in this post.

Why should I bother with Sketchnotes?

Visual note-taking, such as sketchnotes, helps engage with conference talks, lectures and lessons and remember more information. It’s no wonder students, teachers and average Joes have started using this note taking method in the classroom, at conferences and at home for study and personal reflection.

Read this post if you’d like to know more about the benefits of sketchnoting.

What should I start sketchnoting?

You can sketchnote anything you want. It can be a conference talk that is occurring live, a lesson in your classroom or notes on a book you’ve just read.

It can be information someone else has given you, or ideas and plans you are thinking through.

For your first sketchnote, I suggest you make a sketchnote selfie including information about yourself. This is a topic that you are bound to be familiar with and will have a unique element of yourself.

I can’t draw, can I still sketchnote?

Yes! you can! There are three reasons for this.

Sketchnotes are about “Ideas not art”, that means getting the idea down is more important than an accurate impression. As long as you can understand your notes, that’s okay. That means simple pictures are usually better than art.
Sketchnotes are personal and reflect the sketchnoter. Some sketchnoters use more text, others use more images. You can choose to use more text in your notes if you like.
Your drawing will improve as you practice more. The only way to improve is to start! So let’s start today.

For more on how to sketchnote even if you can’t draw, join this free short course.

7 steps to create your first sketchnote and start sketchnoting.

Now that we know the basics of Sketchnoting, it’s time to create your first sketchnote. These steps will help guide you through the process of creating your own sketchnote.

This approach is not the approach I would take for a sketchnoting a live event such as a class. It does, however, provide a useful intro to sketchnoting which will help you develop core skills. You can then apply skills these when making a live sketchnote.

You don’t have to follow my recommendations at each point. Their purpose is to give you an easy to implement idea for your first sketchnote.

1. Brainstorm your topic

Before you start creating your sketchnote selfie, think about the things you want to include. Write a plain list of items you can include such as your:

name
age
location
job or studies
hobbies and interests
favorite… (book, food, etc.)

At some point you’ll feel that you’ve got every idea down that you could include, don’t stop. Wait a few minutes longer and see if you can get a few extra ideas. Those extra ideas are often the most interesting items.

to start sketchnoting, think about what ideas you should include

2: Group your ideas together

Now, you have some ideas written down, it’s time to group them together. By identifying information that work well together, you’ll help yourself create an easy-to-understand layout.

You could write your list out again, this time with your information gathered into groups. Alternatively, you could add marks to the side to signify what belongs together.

3. Plan your Sketchnote layout

A good sketchnote layout can help arrange information clearly and tell a good story. Some sketchnoters seem to have a magical ability to group information together.

Most of us aren’t like that.

By grouping your information together, you may already have an idea about how you could layout your sketchnote. Alternatively, you could look at the most common sketchnote layouts and find one to use.

A selection of different sketchnote layouts

While you could choose any sketchnote layout, I’d recommend the radial layout for your first sketchnote.

It’s probably more familiar to you as it’s similar to mind maps. This style also works well for a selfie as all the information is about one central item — you.

4: Identify some icons you can include

One last step before we make the sketchnote. Identify some icons that you could draw for points on your sketchnote. For example, if you like photography, you could draw a camera.

Need inspiration for what to draw? Look at the Noun project

While you could just do a Google image search, I recommend using The noun project. This site contains simple icons that represent different ideas. It is a great tool to see an example of a simple drawing that represents and idea. You can use this to get drawing ideas.

5. Start your sketchnote: Add your title

Start by adding your title and an image of you. If you are going with a radial format, place yourself in the center.

Your portrait doesn’t need to be accurate. Focus on the main details like the overall shape of your face and distinct features. If it doesn’t look accurate, never mind, this is just your first time.

6. Mentally divide up your paper

With your layout in mind, imagine some dividing lines on your paper. Think about how much information you need to include in each area and plan space accordingly. Make sure there is a gap between different sections.

If you want, you can pencil in some lines to help plan your space. I recommend using pencil at first as you may get this wrong.

If you are making a digital sketchnote using an app like procreate, you can add a layer with some guidelines.

7. Fill in your information

Now start filling in your information. Use your groupings to direct what you include where. I suggest you start with the main points, and then expanding outward to the smaller points and details.

You can add banners with text to show groupings like “Favorites” for your favorite things, or “bio” for some biographical data.

Leave space between sections so you can see what belongs where.

8. Stand back and appreciate it

You’ve done it! Your first sketchnote! I promise the next will be easier.

What’s next?

Now you’ve defeated the first sketchnote, you can continue to grow and the best way is with regular practice.

If you’d like some more guidance on the fundamentals of sketchnoting, sign up to 7 days to start sketchnoting. This free course will get you exploring the different types of sketchnotes available.

How I read 3x more books this year

December 2, 2020 by Chris Wilson Leave a Comment

Growing up, I struggled with reading. As someone diagnosed with Dyslexia, that is hardly surprising. Last year I set my self a modest goal to read more books.

My target was a book every month for 2019. I did it, so I decided to set a more ambitious reading goal. Read two books every month for 2020. Well, currently I have read 36 books this year and will probably read a few more before the year-end. Here’s how I tripled the number of books I read in 2020.

Table of Contents

Sketchnote of how to read more

Principles for reading more

Every action I took conformed to one of a few principles. While you may choose different actions, I suspect the principles will help inform your actions.

Want to read more books
Momentum is key
Create an encouraging reading environment
Cheat (you’ll see)

Start with Why

The first step was to start with the reason why. There are so many goals that are born out of ideas of what we ought to do and not whether we want to. This can lead to feelings of guilt and failure rather than motivation.

My motivation started two years ago when I revisited my intention to read more timeless books and fewer temporary articles and social media posts. Last year I started a reading habit, but I was inconsistent. I knew that I could read more by making it a regular part of my week.

That small success gave me a taste of the benefits of a consistent reading habit:

Learning about important entrepreneurial insights
Discovering fascinating new developments in different fields
Stretching my imagination by entering a new fictional world
Learning lessons from the lives of those who have gone before us.
Knowing interesting ideas to share in conversations
Having a break from a screen
Gaining ideas to blog about

All these benefits provided the inspiration and motivation I needed to read more.

Set yourself a goal

The first practical step I took was to set a goal. I knew I wanted to read more than last year. I also knew my rate of reading thanks to tracking my reading in goodreads.

When I really applied myself, I could read a short book in a week (with some other reading on the side). I decided to aim for two books a month. This gave me a bit of leeway if I came across a heavier book or if life got in the way. In the end I have managed three books a month.

Form a book collective

I have never formally joined a book club, but they certainly help many readers. Instead, I have taken part in reading groups and found an informal association of like minded readers.

Some examples include the roam research book club and finding fellow readers on MicroBlog and the ness labs community.

These book groups help find recommendations for good books and can help identify parts you might miss when reading.

You can also share what you’ve read which helps practice summarizing and recontextualising information: both practices which help to understand and remember key information.

Creating a positive reading environment

Create a positive reading environment to read more books

One of the core ideas from Atomic habits is to focus on creating a habitat that encourages a certain activity (and prevents distractions). This is more effective than seeking to increasing or exercise your willpower.

Here are some practical points on how I created a positive reading environment.

1. Always have something to read

There are two aspects to this idea:

Keep a collection of books that you can start reading as soon as you finish one book.
Keep a book with you at all times.

These two aspects means you always have an option to read. So you never find yourself in the situation of wanting to read, but not having anything. I save books that sound interesting to a list in my task manager and knowledge management system — Obsidian.

I also frequently buy books for kindle even while I’m still reading a book, so I have a library ready for later. Admittedly, sometimes I don’t ever read these books as they don’t seem interesting later, but It still helps create the right reading environment

2. Set times to read

Initially, my reading time was at least one evening a week and during commutes. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns ended that habit and caused a blip in my reading routine.

I adapted. I soon found the time after I gave my daughter a bath was the perfect time to get in a chapter or two. Plus, reading in the evening felt an even better way to relax after a day of non-stop screens.

3. Read good books

This feels stupid to say as it’s so obvious but it’s easier to read good books than bad books. That doesn’t mean you should only read light and easy books, while avoiding intellectually challenging material. Instead, pick books you want to read, not feel obliged to read.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try some books that are outside your comfort zone. You may find that you enjoy them! Just don’t try to keep up with the latest “must reads” out of social pressure. You should read books that you want to.

Also, you can always…

4. Quit bad books

Some books just aren’t for you. That’s okay. If you find yourself somewhere into a book and decided that it isn’t for you. Quit. It’s okay.

The faster you quit your bad book, the sooner you can start reading another good one. You can even come back to the book later if you wish.

5. Use external motivators

Intrinsic motivation (motivation for the process of an action) trump extrinsic motivation (motivation for the product or reward). While most of the points here have address intrinsic motivation (as it’s more powerful), it’s also okay to use some external motivators too.

Early, I mentioned that I set a goal. I put my target number of books in Goodreads, so I could track my progress. Every finished book was another step on the way. I also used Streaks to encourage myself to read something every day. These little motivators can help get into a state where intrinsic motivation takes over.

At the same time, you need to be careful with external motivators, they can supplant and kill your intrinsic motivation.

A nudge is good, but make sure you revisit your why.

6. Avoid distractions

It’s easy to disappear down the internet rabbit hole of Wikipedia articles, twitter threads, non-stop news and YouTube autoplays. These forms of content can be interesting, relevant and even edifying. But they are more likely distrations. They are a form of pushed content that often gets in the way of what you actually want to read. It’s good to set up some barriers against these distractions like:

limiting access to social media on your phone
reducing notifications
setting timers for certain activities.

The following points are controversial and may not work for you. They do, however, work for me.

Read different genres

You might have a favorite style or type of book, but variety is the spice of life. Sometimes reading books of the same genre can get tiresome. By switching from fiction to non-fiction or from thriller to biography, you can have a fresh change and boost your motivation.

This can work well with using different book formats.

Use different formats of books

Read different formats and genres of books

I read both e-books and paper books (as well as listen to audiobooks). This is partially out of necessity (I can’t always get a paper book in Poland) but also for variety. Ebooks, whether on kindle or a phone/tablet and app, are great for travel as they don’t take up so much space. Paper books are great at home. And audiobooks are great when your hands are occupied.

I also find certain types of books are better suited to different formats.

Fiction works well in paper (the experience) and audiobook (for long car journeys)
Non-fiction business works well in e-book (highlighting) and audio (2x speed!)
Books where you want to jump around are better in paper

You may find that you prefer paper books for highlighting (and writing notes in the side). That’s fine. It’s important to work out what type of books works best for you in which format. Some of my preference is determined by using the service Scribd (a kind o Netflix for books) which has e-books and audiobooks.

Have multiple books on the go at once

Some people prefer to read one book at a time, so they can focus on it and get through each book quicker. I, however, prefer to read several books at once.

By using different formats, I can have multiple books on the go at once with clear distinctions for when to read each one. This also helps provide some variety when you don’t feel like reading a certain book today. You can switch to a different book. Some possible options include…

Have a paper fiction book on the go if you tend to read non-fiction on a Kindle
Have an audiobook as an alternative to your paper book
Read a biography as a break from the theoretical book.
Have a book on a topic “for fun” as a break for the book “for work”

It’s really up to you, and you should experiment and find the right book combinations for you.

Cheat 1 – use faster playback with audiobooks

Most audiobook players can have faster playback speeds. I resisted this idea for a long time. 2x speed felt against the spirit of audiobooks. I also worried about not taking notes at key moments.

That was a misplaced fear.

Pausing is easy enough to do and it’s possible to rewind a few second (or re-listen). This also helps practice the “read, recite, review” process that helps remember information better.

You can try speeding up to just 1.1 or 1.2x and then slowly increase from there.

I sometime feel a bit anxious when I listen at 2x but 1.5x is always comfortable for me now. In fact, 1x feels strangely slow.

Cheat 2 – Finishing what I started last year

One trick I’ve employed to boost my numbers in this final month is returning to some books I quit this year and last year. These range from 25-75% finished, but they’ve helped me rack up my numbers in these final two months.

I didn’t force myself to read these books, they were all books I wanted to read. For one reason or another — another book came along or a section felt less relevant/interesting — but I wanted to return to them.

This helped grease the figures but I still read more than previous years.

My goals and ideas for next year

I’ve set my sight on 45 books for next year. Not quite one a week, but getting closer. I’m planning on using all the same tactics as before and some new ones including.

Getting a kindle or similar ereader

While using a tablet it great and has some advantages. A dedicate ereading device is less distracting. I’ve heard many other writers like Ali Abdaal recommend getting a kindle to read more.

Writing more books summaries

While I have created some book summaries this year, I want to make more. Doing so can provide some extra external motivation. There is a risk that this will prove to be a distraction, so we’ll see how this experiment goes.

What’s your advice how to read more books in a year?

I’ll admit that what worked for me, might not work for you and there may be some ideas or practices that I am missing. I’d love to know how you have been able to increase the number of books you read in a year. Leave a comment with your advice.

Create on demand: The Accidental Creative Book Summary

November 7, 2020 by Chris Wilson Leave a Comment

The Accidental Creative is a book by Todd Henry who runs a website of the same name. It covers the challenges of creative work, what causes those challenges, and five practices to help avoid those issues. I have written this The Accidental Creative Book summary to help distill my understand and key lessons from the book. It is not a comprehensive guide to every aspect of the book.

Table of Contents

The Accidental Creative book summary Sketchnote

A sketchnote of The accidental creative book summary.

The Problem: being brilliant every day

As professional creatives, we have to be brilliant every day. We are only as good as our last idea and our next one had better exceed our last.

If we were amateurs then we could relax, take the pressure off and just enjoy the process. But that’s not easy when your income is on the line and your manager or client even more spectacular work than yesterday’s product.

To cope, we usually try to brute force our way through creative blocks. We spend more and more time on projects, but that ultimate just leads to burn out.

The Goal: Sustainable Brillance

The three characteristics of great creative work.

There are three characteristics of great creative work, but we can usually only get two at a time.

Prolific – generating large amounts of work
Brilliant – generating high-quality work
Healthy – Not feeling emotionally, physically and spiritually drained.

Achieving two at a time is easy but when one aspect is missing, we either are unreliable, mediocre or burnout. The goal, is to manage to achieve all three. To produce high-quality work on a regular basis and not breakdown or split from our families.

The Obstacles: The Assassins of Creativity

The three assassins of creativity: Dissonance, Fear and Expectation Escalation.

There are 3 pressures that prevent us from doing our best creative work.

Disonance – confusion caused by unclear systems, tasks and objectives. This causes creatives to spend effort working out the task or dealing with the system than doing the task.
Fear – both of success and failure. We become worried about the repercussions of our actions and so trend towards safety and stability instead of taking needed risks.
Expectation Escalation – We can reject good ideas because they aren’t great. This pressure can come from inside the project, from our past success and from looking at our competitors. Many great ideas have humble beginnings.

The Soltuion: Creating a routine that aids creativity

We can’t guarantee that our next project will be our best, but we can guarantee that we will fully apply ourselves. If we implement a series of routines and habits, we can ensure that we aren’t overwhelmed with stress. Instead, we will have an abundance of inspiration to draw upon when we create.

These habits fall into five areas

Focus – directing your efforts where they are best placed.
Energy – whole life planning to avoid burnout and prepare for challenging times.
Relationships – cultivating purposeful relationships to help each other grow.
Stimuli – avoiding distractions and reducing low-quality input while feasting on rich creative input.
Hours – Managing your time to ensure that important tasks get done.

Adding more can actually help you get more done.

It seems counterintuitive that adding extra activities can help you get more done, but it can be true in creative work. Most creative work tasks require a breakthrough, insight or motivation. When you are burned out, it will take you far longer to complete even easy tasks.

By adding extra process and activities, you can be more well rested and inspired which allows you to more effectively address tasks. This means you can do more, and work more effectively.

But this doesn’t mean you should work extra long hours. It may be better to take a good break and regain your energy than try to push through the creative barrier.

Implementing practices that drive creativity

There is a challenge between reflecting too often, leading to overthinking, and too infrequently, not benefiting from reflection. By adopting weekly, monthly and quarterly checkpoints you can strike a balance. These items can be used alongside other systems.

The difference between weekly, monthly and quarterly checkpoints

Each checkpoint looks at the forthcoming time period mentioned in the name. So a weekly checkpoint looks at the week ahead, while monthly ones look at the following month and Quarterly the subsequent quarter.

Consequently, a weekly checkpoint is much more detailed orientated while the quarterly checkpoint is more focused on the big details.

While the weekly lays out an agenda for the following week according to set in place principles, the quarterly examines the big picture. Quarterly checkpoints reflect on your principles and makes adjustments to apply in your weekly and monthly actions.

Reflective prompts for the 5 Creative Practice

The following section includes reflective prompts to bring these creative practices in your life.

1. Focus

Focus is about identifying the most important activities that will bring about the greatest results and match your values. It’s not just about work, but your personal life as well.

Focus is also about being clear over what you are actually doing. A clear project helps avoid wasting time. This can come from working out what you are doing, or finishing a project and then realizing it’s wrong.

At quarterly checkpoints, establish areas of focus. Make sure you list personal and professional.
Set (quarterly) or review (monthly, weekly) your “big three” (These are big challenges you need to address. Make sure you write them as challenges answering “What am I really trying to do?”)
At weekly checkpoints, Identify any tasks you can cluster together.

2.Relationships

Being intention with your relationships allows you to find stimulating, inspiring and challenging creators to help and be helped by. These can (and should) be people in similar areas or in wildly different fields.

At your weekly checkpoint, check if you need to meet with anyone, what you should prepare and schedule your meet ups. At your quarterly checkpoints, consider your relationships and note times to meet.

Head to heads – meetings with individual people where you prepare something to share that is interesting you at the moment and may interest them. A relationship to ignite the creative spark in each other. This relationship may last for a season. Meet every month or so.
Circles – A group meeting where you share work, ideas and challenges to draw collective wisdom and accountability. These groups may come, go and change. Meet every month.
Core team – Individuals whose opinions and whose perspectives you want on major decisions. These relationships should last a long-time, but they too may change over time due to commitments. The most infrequent meeting you will have.

3.Energy

Energy is about managing your ability to perform. Some times you will be more drained than others. Some tasks and personal commitments can be more draining. Noticing these trends and commitments that will drain you allow you to plan to avoid burnout.

Weekly planning focuses more on moving projects on a day-to-day basis. Quarterly planning should look more at regular activities and week-long projects or commitments.

For example, if you have a major work project one week, it’s probably best to scale back personal commitments that week.

Identify any large projects and commitments. Pay close attention to possible conflicts.
Identify activities that should be pruned. Perhaps it seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it isn’t.

4.Stimuli

Many of us consume mostly low-quality input that is pushed to us such as pop TV, the news, and social media. While there is nothing wrong with this content, it shouldn’t be the only content we consume.

It’s much better to get some high-quality content in the form of serious study material and time-tested classics.

In your quarterly checklist you should focus on identify the types of materials and projects you will do. In your weekly checklist you should look at your study, project and experience lists and select the best items for that week.

Make a study plan with areas where you are lacking knowledge (25%) things you are interested in (50%) and What would be good for you (25%).
Review your notes on material you have studied recently.
Plan stimulating experiences (nature, museums, out of comfort zone locations, service opportunities).

Hours

Hours is about allocating your precious time to all the activities you have listed. Although it is tempting to focus just on work, make sure you allocate time for every part of your life. This should include stimulation and unnecessary creating.

In your quarterly planning sessions, look at the major time commitments on the horizon. Also look at your general routine and patters. When would be a good time to spend studying? What activities are at an ill-suited time? When could you move them to?

I remember having a Polish class very early in the morning. I always arrived feeling tired and found it hard. We moved it thirty minutes later, and I was a far more effective student.

Get your copy of The Accidental Creative

If you have found my Accidental creative book Summary interesting, you might want to purchase a copy of the book. It goes into more specifics on how to reflect on each point.

You can find more book summaries here.

The Best Way to Save Twitter Threads to Evernote

November 2, 2020 by Chris Wilson Leave a Comment

Recently, I found myself wanting to save a tweet storm to Evernote but I wasn’t sure how. Would the standard web clipper produce the results that I wanted? Or should I use a different service first to get a simplified view. After some investigation, I came upon the best way to save twitter threads to Evernote.

Table of Contents

What are Tweetstorms and why should you save them?

Tweet storms (or twitter threads) are a form of publishing where you write a longer item of content by connecting tweets together. Each thought is limited to 280 characters but by grouping them together, you can write a much longer message.

This provides some of the brevity of Twitter (each part is constrained to 280) while also allowing a larger thought to be expressed.

Skilled practitioners can turn it into an art form, where the reader enjoys moving from tweet to tweet. They may imploy Gifs and images to highlight emotions, or end tweets with unresolved questions, inviting you to contiune reading.

With the decline in personal blogging, tweet storms have become a common way to share written content. Even bloggers may condense a long post into a more direct thread with a link back to the blog.

It’s no wonder I, like many others, would want to save a tweet storm for later.

The issue with saving tweet threads to Evernote

The only issue is, each tweet is separate.

While Twitter does a good job of grouping tweet storms together, This isn’t always recognized by third-party services. Twitter also often includes responses from other users at the end of the thread. Sometimes these can be valuable, but often they either agree with or attack the writer.

This can lead to you to either save notes that are only a link to the thread or only save the first tweet from the thread. In some cases you may have a note that contains a mixture of different users tweets.

So what is the best way to save a thread from twitter that keeps the content you want, without the scruff. Let’s look at some options.

The Evernote web clipper

Evernote provides two default tools to help you save items from the web into files and notes. The first is the Evernote web clipper, a browser extension for PC and Macs. The second is the mobile extension for iOS and Android.

Saving twitter threads with the desktop Evernote web clipper

There are several options to save a note using the Evernote browser web clipper.

Article: Saves the HTML version of only the tweets but the layout is… strange.
Simplified article: saves a note about the cookie notice.
Full page: saves the whole web page including replies.
Bookmark: saves the URL with a preview of the content.
Screenshot: saves a screenshot

As I’m sure you can agree, none of these are really perfect. They either include aspects you might not want or they are so minimal that they don’t include aspects you want.

An example of a twitter thread saved using the desktop web clipper

Saving Twitter threads with the Evernote iOS Share Sheet

Unlike the desktop browser extension, the Evernote IiOS Share sheet doesn’t provide you with a selection of options. Instead, it simply shares a web clip with only the first tweet selected. Admittedly, this includes a link so you can check out the rest of the thread. But you don’t get the full tweet storm in your Evernote cup.

A twitter thread saved into evernote using the IOS share sheet

What about using the Android Share Sheet?

I’m afraid I don’t currently have an android phone, so I can’t say what if any difference there is with the android share sheet.

If you are an android user, perhaps you can test it out and let me know.

Saving Tweetstorms using an app like Threader

Apps like threader or threads provide services to save threads for later reading with only the content from the post’s writer.

A twitter thread saved into the the threader app

For some people, a service like this would be enough. Threader removes distractions and allows you to save threads to read later. It also features collections of popular threads from other users.

If, however, you like to bring everything into one place, then these services can be a temporary storage, and triage on your journey.

Once saved to threader, you can access it on the desktop and use the Evernote web clipper browser extension. This gives you the same options as before with article, full page and simplified article saving the whole thread. In this case, the whole thread will be saved and visible in Evernote.

A twitter thread saved to evernote from Threader app using the desktop web clipper

If you use the iOS share sheet extension from the iOS threader app, it will only take the start of the thread. You won’t get the whole thread.

A tweetstorm saved to evernote using the iOS threader app and iOS share sheet

Personally, I am surprised that saving to Evernote, notion or roam research isn’t one of the premium features. However, the fact that Threader is an indie project powered by two developers might explain this omission.

Regardless, adding this functionality would be a great idea.

Trurn a thread into markdown with The.Rip

The rip promises to turn twitter threads into markdown, so they are easily imported into Evernote, Notion or Roam.

Unfortunately I was unable to get the rip to work. Whenever I tried to log in to the site, it revealed an error message.

Error message from The.Rip when trying to log in.

This was a real shame as it seemed like a great, flexible solution.

Saving twitter threads with Readwise

Readwise is a service that helps you save highlights, review what you’ve saved, and then share or store your highlights. It includes features like automatic import for Kindle book highlights and has export functionality for Evernote with Notion and Roam Research in beta.

Readwise can also save tweets and twitter threads. All you need to do is reply to (or better DM) @readwise and say “save” (to save a tweet). Alternatively you can message “Save thread” to save a thread. You can read more details on the readwise help page.

Now, the tweet or thread is saved to your readwise highlights to review and it can be automatically or manually exported to Evernote. This is by far the simplest way to save threads and you can still review items you save before you export them.

Saving Tweets with IFTTT

IFTTT is an internet service that connects multiple services. It follows simple programming logic of “If This, then that”. One common actions is to save tweets you star to Evernote (or another service). You can even set a specific notebook and tags with static and dynamic characteristics.

Unfortunately, IFTTT only works with the first tweet, so it can’t save a whole thread. IFTTT will, however, save a link to the thread. Not an ideal solution, but certainly easy to use.

What is the best way to save Twitter threads to Evernote?

It really depends on your needs but personally, I’m sticking with readwise. I already use it to save and review other highlights and notes so applying it to twitter threads makes sense.

The easy, universal nature of its functionality is another plus. As long as I’m logged in to my twitter account, I can save a thread easily.

If you’ve settled on a different choice or found an alternative method, I’d love you to leave a comment, so I can know why.

Ego is the Enemy Book Summary [Sketchnote]

August 15, 2020 by Chris Wilson Leave a Comment

Sometime last year I was caught in a conflict at work. I thought I was right and my manager was wrong. My justification was rooted in the training I had completed and the other project successes that had come as a result.

I believed I knew what I was doing, while my manager had to be in the wrong. Worse still, she was wasn’t even letting me finish what I had started by was taking over and making extreme changes. Changes which completely ignored all the work and research I had done before that.

The conflict intensified for several days until I decided that I had best just go along with what she wanted and move on to something new.

As soon as that happened, I realised I had been a fool.

Suddenly, I saw things from her perspective. I realised what she was trying to do. We started co-operating. Within a couple of days, it was done and the project was a massive success.

Perhaps my original idea was better than hers (probably not) but even if it was, my ego had prevented us from working together or doing anything good.

On the train home after the project launch, I ordered up a copy of Ryan Holiday’s book Ego is the Enemy.

I had reflected and realised that not only had ego stopped me from doing my best work on this project, it was also the cause of most of the issues I had noticed at work.

If you are looking at this review, I hope you have had a similar epiphany of the dangers of your ego: it will make it a far easier process to change and absorb the points that follow.

But if you haven’t, I hope this summary will still benefit you.

Table of Contents

About Ego is the Enemy

Ego is the enemy came out in 2016 and is the second of Ryan Holiday’s books inspired by stoicism. The first being the Obstacle is the Way and the third is Stillness is the Key. Like the other two books, it is divided into three sections.

Aspire
Success
Failure
Which follows the likely path a person faces in life. They aspire to something, they have some success, they suffer some failure, and the cycle possibly repeats.

Ego is the Enemy Book Summary Sketchnote

Ego is different, yet the same.

Although ego is an challenge in every part, the way it appears and affects those around us is different. Along the whole path we need to remain level-headed, objective, studious, and living by our own standards. These are characters that help avoid falling into ego’s negative paths.

Aspire

When we start out, in a new endeavor or as those entering into the adult world, we are ill prepared for some aspect of our life. We need to keep our ego in check to develop the skills, and put in the right work in the right areas to advance.

Success

Even if we take the right first steps, success can feed our ego and send us down dark paths. We need to stay true to the path that brought us success in the first place, while being ready to abandon what worked yesterday to take advantage of what will work tomorrow.

Failure

At some point we will fail. It may be in small ways, or significant ways. Our ego can lead us to blame those around us, preventing us from doing anything positive and instead growing in bitterness and passivity.
We can do everything right and still be rejected and fail. The only response is to stay true to our virtues and ignore the lure of our egos.

Ego is the Enemy Conclusion

We need to keep our ego in check and focus on our core values. It isn’t easy and there is no guaranteed reward, but we can be certain that letting our ego rule will ruin our lives.