Improving My Social Connection Index

I went to PINC, a single-track conference with over a dozen speakers covering the general theme of People, Ideas, Nature, and Community. This was their 11th year. The talks ranged from techniques to help teens manage social media, to cheese sculpting, to collecting data on homelessness, to disaster resilient housing (and more).

One talk stood out to me as being applicable to my life. Aaron Hurst talked about his plan to open up US Chambers of Connection around the country. I learned about his social connection index and the six points of connection. There were two points on that list that I need to work on: (1) a neighborhood contact (2) a third place.

When I first moved to Sarasota, my building had frequent events where I met many of my neighbors. But after COVID, they all moved out of the building. I have not focussed on meeting new neighbors, which I intend to change in 2026.

I would also say that I do not have a “Third Place” as defined by this index. I do belong to a couple of meetups and online communities. I am also a member of the local Toastmasters and Art Center. These types of communities are covered by other items in the six points of connection.

What I like about a Third Place is that it isn’t as tied to people or time, but more to the place itself (where you might find new people with a common interest). The idea is that you could pop in at any time for serendipitous connection. The classic examples are a church or senior center, but those aren’t right for me.

I have been considering rejoining Crossfit for access to barbells, but I might also meet other like-minded people. It’s possible that this helps me find accountability as well.

LLMs Are Good At (some) Languages

Yesterday, I wrote about how I am going to use Page-o-Mat to make some Supernote page templates. Page-o-Mat is a python program that lets you describe journals using a YAML based configuration and then generates a PDF. Since template pages are just a PDF, you can use Page-o-Mat for that too.

My first step was to see if I could get ChatGPT to help me. At first, I gave it a link to the docs, but it seemed to have trouble accessing it. So, I just grabbed the YAML for my 2025 journal and pasted it in the chat. Then, I asked what kind of template pages I should make. Its ideas were pretty good and it generated some for me, which worked great.

But, then I asked if it could just make the PDF directly—which it did. On inspection, I see the PDF was generated by https://www.reportlab.com, which says that their “flagship commercial tool for making beautiful PDFs quickly using Report Markup Language and a preprocessor. Create PDFs the same way you create dynamic web pages”. So, it’s essentially (like Page-o-Mat) a language for generating PDFs.

It’s interesting that ChatGPT makes PDF with a language tool even though PDFs themselves are a language. Knowing the internals of PDF, it makes sense. You need to remember the exact byte locations of each object you create to write out the PDF trailer at the end. It’s extremely easy to mess up and there isn’t a good tool for debugging it. Humans would be horrible at making it by hand, and so are LLMs (but we both can make PDFs with tools).

Page-o-Mat Can Make Smartnote Page Templates

In 2024, I used my tool, Page-o-Mat, to make a PDF journal for my Smartnote. It worked fine, but there was no way to insert pages or add more internal (or external) linking to a PDF on Smartnote.

I think a better way to use the Smartnote is to use the native .note format, though, not a PDF. This format supports template pages, and luckily, you can put the Smartnote template pages in a PDF, so it’s possible to do that with Page-o-Mat. This lets me use all of the features of the Smartnote, but still have pages that have spaces to fill in.

I have to think through what I want in my template pages, but I’ll share the configs and PDFs when I make them. If you already have ideas, go check out Page-o-Mat on GitHub.

How Digital Journaling is Better Than Paper

Yesterday, I wrote about How Digital Journaling Is Worse Than Paper, and today I want to write about how it was better.

I use the Supernote Manta. It’s better than paper for me in these ways:

It’s a lot easier to carry (slim and light). This will be especially true as I build up annual journals in it.
It also has my Kindle, so I don’t need to carry that in addition.
I never run out of ink.
I can make my pen have various thicknesses and shades.
You can undo and edit.

#5 is the reason I can’t give up digital journaling. This was not part of my criteria when I was deciding on this a year ago, but I could not live without it now.

Also, I don’t use this feature, but it has OCR, which makes the journals searchable. I do like that I could use it later.

How Digital Journaling Is Worse Than Paper

In 2025, I used my Manta Supernote, and I didn’t journal in it daily. I always have lulls in my year with less daily journaling, but the lull was bigger this time. I don’t know if it was having an electronic journal or if there was something about the year.

But, I’m willing to try it again. Here are my observations on what was worse about a digital journal:

I have a page for each day and more pages for planning and retros, so the journal is over 400 pages. It’s hard to navigate that (compared to a physical book).
I used a PDF, not the native Supernote format, which makes it impossible to change the structure of the journal. Supernote supports page management and internal linking for its native format.
The Supernote is nice looking, but not as nice looking as my paper journals.
I journal in Black and Red, which isn’t possible on a Supernote.

So, this time

I am going to use the internal Supernote format for the journal. I think you can make custom template pages, which I will look into.
I will need to use internal linking liberally to make the journal easier to navigate.
I will use highlighting more to take the place of the red pen, which is mostly to draw attention to something.
I need to find triggers and sources of motivation to get me to journal more regularly.

Why even do this? Tomorrow, I’ll write about How Digital Journaling is Better Than Paper.

Mimicking Work-like Accountability

I’ve been writing about how I’m implementing 4DX from The 4 Disciplines of Execution [affiliate], but I’m stuck on the 4th discipline, which is to have accountability meetings.

In 2024, when I set out to write Swimming in Tech Debt, I started out thinking that I could have accountability by just talking about it publicly, but quickly realized that that wouldn’t work. To fix that I joined the Useful Authors community and participated in several writing accountability group meetings per week. I still go to them for marketing accountability. This kind of accountability (a group with similar goals) works well for me.

This kind of accountability is what 4DX expects because it’s targeting teams of people that work together. I have mimicked it with my author group and in similar groups like Toastmasters.

Another kind of accountability is to have a coach (which I have done with Crossfit and running). That’s fine when you don’t have your own plan and just want a coach to provide one. This is kind of like working for a boss or customer who decides what we’re doing and I just need to execute. When I am clueless, this works well for me.

My problem is that my fitness plan for 2026 is very specific, and I don’t want a coach (yet). But a group of like-minded lifters will be hard to find. I don’t have a good solution.

2026 4DX: Third Discipline

This is the third post in series of how I am implementing The 4 Disciplines of Execution [affiliate] for 2026 towards one goal each in my business, fitness, and personal life. I discussed the first [1st DX] and second [2nd DX] disciplines in previous posts.

Business: [1st DX] Make Amazon Ads for my book break even. [2nd DX] Find readers, ask for reviews.
Fitness: [1st DX] Improve 5 lifts by TBD. [2nd DX] Lift 3x/week.
Personal Growth: [1st DX] Get to CEFR level TBD in Spanish. [2nd DX] Focussed and repeat listening to beginner Spanish podcasts.

In the third discipline, we design scoreboards to tell us if we are winning. The idea here to make it impossible to not know where the leading indicators are. The ideal is like a sports scoreboard—easy to glance and focussed on the one thing we are trying to do (score points).

My leading indicators for my business goal are the count of known readers and a count of known reviewers. Behind that I will have the list of names, but the scoreboard should just show the count. I will also make a goal that I can track against.

I already have the scoreboard for my fitness goal, which is just a spreadsheet tracking my lifts. I only need to track my last rep count and weight.

For the Spanish goal, I need to pick some number of repetitions that I think it will take to be able to listen to a podcast with full comprehension. I will have to just try over the next couple of weeks. Once I have that, I just need to track that number each week.

The fourth discipline is to build in some accountability. This is easier for the book’s intended use, which is for teams. The 4th DX is just to have a dedicated meeting where they make sure that the leading indicators are moving and that they seem to be resulting in the WIG. I will need some time to think about this, so I’ll probably take a detour in future posts and get back to it in a week.

2026 4DX: Second Discipline

Yesterday, I wrote about the first discipline from The 4 Disciplines of Execution [affiliate]. In that post I set up three ideas for Wildly Important Goals for 2026.

By the end of the year:

Business: Get my book to a stage where Amazon ads are break-even.
Fitness: Improve 5 lifts by X pounds (TBD), while maintaining my body weight.
Personal: Get to CEFR level (TBD) in Spanish.

All of these goals are easy to assess, but they aren’t a plan. In the 2nd discipline we try to define a leading indicator that we can work on at any time.

To accomplish my business goal, I need to improve my Amazon listing and find the right price such that it’s breaks even with the ad cost. To start, I will need to do a small ad spend just to see what my conversion rate is.

The easiest way to improve my listing is to get more reviews (aside: if you bought my book, please review it on Amazon). The best way to get a review is to ask readers directly, and to do that, I need to know who my readers are. So, the action I need to do is to write personal emails or LinkedIn DMs to people that have told me they bought the book and ask them to review the book. I will also use all my other marketing channels (e.g. this blog, my mailing list, Linked In, networking) to try to find my readers.

My fitness goal is just to follow Radically Simple Strength [affiliate]. I am doing the beginner plan and I have some time before this stops working. The leading indicator is my current max weight for 5 reps at a lift. I am doing the 3x/week plan, which cycles through the lifts. I should also make a nutrition plan to go along with this, but generally I have tried to eat cleaner and enough to support muscle growth.

For my personal goal, I need to just spend more time studying. I do DuoLingo, Fluent Forever, Mango, and my own Anki deck at various frequencies. But, I think that the main thing I could do to improve immediately is to listen to long-form beginner Spanish audio (like Dreaming Spanish) more seriously. I think my leading indicator would be to listen to one of these several times per week (the same one), at first with a transcript, and then over and over. The first few listens need to be focussed and undistracted (getting 100% comprehension), but later listens could be on walks, during errands, while lifting, etc.

Tomorrow, I will use these leading indicators in the 3rd discipline, which is to build a compelling scoreboard that tells you if you’re winning.

2026 4DX: First Discipline

This is the first post in a four post series that will show how I implement The 4 Disciplines of Execution [affiliate] (4DX) for my aspirational goals.

The first discipline is to identify your Wildly Important Goal (WIG). In the book, the authors make a distinction between the “whirlwind” of activity that you must do to keep the lights on and a WIG that will in some way transform your business (or life, or whatever). I use their method to set a WIG in three segregated parts of my life: business, personal, and fitness. To find this goal, I use the suggestion of The ONE Thing [affiliate], which has you identify the ONE goal that makes all other goals easy or unnecessary.

A WIG is similar to a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) or an OKR (Objective and Key Result). It should be easy to assess if you have achieved them. For a sports team, a WIG is winning the championship, which is a binary outcome on a specific date, but not a plan. For a battalion, it might be blowing up a bridge. We might change plans all year to achieve these goals, but hopefully, the goal is stable.

For the past month, and until the end of the year, I am doing experiments that will help me finalize them. Here are my ideas so far.

For my business, I want my book, Swimming in Tech Debt, to have reached its next stage of growth. Right now, I am not concerned with maximizing profit, because the book is in the seed marketing stage, where my goal is to get readers that will be future recommenders (following the techniques in Write Useful Books [affiliate]). My 2026 WIG is to have left the seed marketing stage and to move into a stage where ads are break-even.

For fitness, my WIG will be based around strength. I started a training program in November and it seems to be working, but that’s normal for untrained people—early gains are easy. I will finalize the exact goal at the end of the year, but it’s something like X pounds of gain on five lifts (Bench, Press, Row, Pull Down, Squat) while maintaining my body weight.

For personal growth, I have a lifelong plan to learn Spanish. I haven’t settled on a WIG. The easiest thing would be to pick a CEFR level and then find an assessment. DuoLingo uses this, but I’d like to find a different source to assess myself.

Tomorrow, I’ll go through the 2nd discipline which has you find a leading indicator that you can work on each day and will build up to your WIG.

Experiments for 2026

Near the end of the year, I start thinking of some aspirational goals for the next year. Rather than wait for January, I usually just start working on them now. I start experiments to see if I really want to do them.

For fitness, I’ve decided to really try to do a strength program. I found Radically Simple Strength [affiliate] by Paul Horn and read it on a flight. I started doing his beginner plan in November, and so far it’s going great. He has a simple way to measure progress—small increments of weight. It’s the perfect leading indicator (in the 4DX sense). My lagging indicator is my body fat percentage, which I measured with a DEXA scan and will check in on in 6 months or so. I think I’ll be able to just see the effect, though. I am also monitoring my weight. My goal is to be able to lift more weight, but weigh the same.

For my business, my goal is to sell copies of Swimming in Tech Debt, and my plan is to do one book marketing action each day. If I can’t keep a good enough selling pace, I will have to change that plan. In November, my experiment was to blog every day, which helps me reach my RSS subscribers. It also generates LinkedIn Post, substack, and email marketing ideas. So far, it’s been good enough to keep doing this in December.

For my personal improvement, I am embarking on a multi-year plan to become fluent in Spanish. I started six months ago with DuoLingo and my own flashcards. I do some studying every day, but in 2026, this will have to become more serious. This month, I will have to try to develop that plan, probably from looking through Fluent Forever.