Thing #1 that I did with my iPad Pro: Drew short animations for this blog (March iPad Journal)
I thought it’d be good to try writing out the iPad Journal segments as blog posts so that I can plan things out in pieces. So I’ll just start them as text blog posts with some drawings. My current outline…
Things I did with my iPad in March
- Made short animations for my blog (That’s what this post is)
- Switched it up from the 2018 11” to the 2020 12.9″
- Used it while on the treadmill (the quarantine emergency purchase): the iPad/iPhone writing while walking combo
- Made a GoodNotes template in Figma (desktop browser support + mouse support)
- Wrote on the treadmill… on the couch.. in portrait mode (different accessories – MX Master 3, vertical stand)…
Bonus: when all else failed…
- … used it to hold the phone while playing Starcraft
Oh yeah the animations
- I’ve been using Procreate—Can’t overstate how much of a value Procreate is. Plenty of drawing apps but I keep coming back to it and now that it’s so popular there are just so many more videos of people showing how to do things on it than there are for the other apps.
- You can set a background layer and a foreground layer—I think this is something new with the latest version of Procreate. I used to go through a pretty tedious process making copies of notecards under each frame and merging them.
- Two animations for the price of one—When you make the frame by frame animation you also still have the time-lapse animation. Also worth noting that you always get the timelapse animation. Which is why I draw in Procreate primarily. There’s always time-lapses I can pull from when I need an animation. And I don’t need to remember to turn it on before drawing or anything like that.
- I set the radial menu up for animation—Actually it’s pretty much just one change. I add “Duplicate layer” so that I can make the next frame quickly without needing to tap on it in the timeline. It’s a small change but it offloads cognitive load each time I look at the frame time bar and try to think about which one is the current one and try to tap the (relatively) tiny rectangle.
That’s that. Here’s an animation I made with the older Procreate where I added individual frames as background frames.
And this is one I made when I thought that drawing on photos I took was going to be like, the thing that I was going to do with my free time. I forget exactly why I got away from that. But now that I’m on day 13 of not leaving the apartment, it’s starting to seem like a good thing to pick back up.
The plan now is that I’ll write 4 more of these posts and each of them will be turned into a one minute video segment that I compile into a 5-7 minute iPad Journal video.
Short retro on my unfinished iPad Journal video
Right now I’m about to close a ScreenFlow file in progress because I need to take a break from editing this. Lots of false starts this morning.
What went well?
I mean, I think it’s good that I at least got started and dedicated some time to making the video and recording it.
What went poorly (and how can you improve it next time)?
- Tried to do the meta thing again. This happens pretty much every time I get a new iPad and want to make a video with it. I start recording using it but I start documenting the making of that same video. It just ends up with me going in circles in a lot of ways. To improve on this next time, I’ll make a video about a non-iPad topic and just document creating that.
- Didn’t follow through on doing it in 1-minute chunks. Before starting, I knew it’d be really important to just do it in 1-minute pieces and have each of those pieces in a finished state so that the final edit is just compiling the pieces together. They should be able to mostly stand alone without me referencing things in other clips. The reason for this is getting toward a sustainable and consistent process with videos. Taking a break with video and jumping back into it is difficult for me. By probably a magnitude compared to other things I make (podcasts and blog posts). I’m guessing it’s because it’s a combination of audio and video and different pieces are in different states. It’s not obvious opening a video file what is complete or not. To improve on this next time, I’ll make the video in one minute chunks by recording one minute presentations in Keynote.
- Didn’t really have an end in mind. I outlined a few times but didn’t settle on one. I recorded audio a few times and each time it was too long and I didn’t plan out what the visual would be for each one. To improve on this next time, I’ll have a single outline with each one-minute chunk titled. I’ll also set a timer for making each topic section.
I spent a few hours making a video and all I got was this blog post…
… and this GIF of me typing so maybe it’s worth it!
Notes to self: Trimming silence in Logic Pro X
I do this every once in a while and forget how to do it each time I try doing it.
Trim silence
- Select region (cmd+A to select the clip)
- Ctrl+X to open the menu up
These settings seem to work okay
Then the clips should be selected still
- Option + [
Brings them together
Then Cmd + B to export the clip.
There’s currently a kettlebell shortage.
Writing a post earlier today, I remembered an episode of The Pat Flynn Show where he talks about building a minimal home gym.
His recommendation:
- His $1 book about kettlebells
- A pull-up bar
- An ab wheel
- And a 16kg kettlebell
On a later episode, Dan John gives his answer as well. I’ll need to dig up what he picked but it was similar to Pat’s recommendations.
Here’s what I currently have at home.
- Kettlebells 16kg, 20kg
- Ab wheel
- Pull-up bar
- A bunch of bands
- A treadmill <— Recent addition, quarantine purchase
A few days ago I wanted to add a 28kg kettlebell to add to the setup. Onnit, Kettlebell Kings, Rogue, Dicks… sold out for most sizes.
(Finally found one at Rep Fitness if you happen to be looking at the moment.)
Just picked up The Great Mental Models 2
Check out the full notes for “The Great Mental Models, Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology” by Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish
I just picked up the Volume 2 of The Knowledge Project’s “The Great Mental Models”. The hardcover is on the way but I just saw that the Kindle version is available so I got it to check it out now. When I was a kid, my parents bought a World Book Encyclopedia set (decades later I learned that door-to-door encyclopedia sales are adjacent to door-to-door knives sales).
I used to think these books were some sort of source of truth for the world.
That core set of books also came with other book sets. All my friends also had encyclopedia sets but they either had more extra sets or just the core sets. Likely based on how convincing the upsell pitch was to their parents.
One of the extra sets was a science one that I would open once in a while but it always seemed too advanced. Then there was another science set with red spines that had the same topics but the books had more illustrations and were more fun to read.
That’s how “The Great Mental Models” feels: easy to read while learning new concepts.
(A level below that was another set called Childcraft which had a “Mathemagic” book with a logic puzzle at the start which probably had some influence on eventually one day learning to program.)
A different mental model book I return to often is “Superthinking” by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann. I enjoy both. Superthinking is more skimmable, with each model getting 1-2 pages. (“The Great Mental Models” dedicates a full chapter to each mental model so it’s a deeper dive into each with multiple stories.) Superthinking also helped me understand that there isn’t a formal, authoritative list of mental models. They’re the concepts pulled out of disciplines that are most applicable across disciplines.
Creativity often stems from applying a concept from discipline to another.