Life in Full Color

How I spent my recent Sabbatical (with pictures!)

This was something like the 30th sabbatical week that my company has taken since 2017.

After years of these regular, week-long sabbatical breaks, I’ve discovered a few things that help me make the most of my time out of the office.

One of the best ways to get the most out of a sabbatical week is to know the difference between true rest and counterfeit rest.

True rest will leave you recharged with more energy. Thus, you want to find restful activities that give you energy rather than draining it. I love to say that if you work with your head, rest with your hands (such as cooking, woodworking, landscaping, etc.).

And so, here’s the thing: true rest usually takes a little bit of effort.

Things like reading a paperback novel, cooking a meal, going out for a walk, having a conversation with someone, listening to an audiobook with your significant other. Heck, even just sitting down, alone, and not having a phone or screen can take some effort.

And so, during my sabbatical breaks, I focus hard on getting a healthy dose of that restful and creative work.

My aim is usually to have one big project that I can get done during the week in addition to daily anchors such as exercise, getting out on a excursion, having a meal with someone, etc.

I also keep my same sleep schedule. It would be easy to toss discipline into the wind for that week and treat it like full-on vacation mode. But honestly, that leaves me feeling more exhausted and behind at the end.

Anyway, for me, this past Sabbatical that was just last week seemed to be themed around taking pictures and cooking food. I smoked about 40 lbs of beef brisket and I got out several times to make photos with my Leica Q.

One other thing, on April 12 I began posting daily videos to Instagram. You can’t schedule these videos ahead of time, I was on Instagram posting them every day, which definitely led to me spending much more time on social media than I normally would.

My Screen Time Report for last week shows an average of more than 90 minutes / day on Instagram. Ouch. Even though a lot of that was time spent in the app to create my daily videos, it’s still a lot of time on social.

Anyway, if you’re curious what an average Sabbatical week looks like for me, it’s not too far off from how I spent last week’s break. Here’s a rundown:

Monday

Smoked a 12-pound brisket, just for fun. I woke up early on Monday morning to get the brisket on the smoker. Then spent most of the day tending to the food and prepping the sides. And, because we live in Kansas City, of course I separated the point and chopped it to make burnt ends. It was fantastic.

Tuesday

My youngest son was home from school on Tuesday, so he and I got to work together to build new storage shelves in the guest room closet downstairs.

Wednesday

It was a beautiful day for a drive in the CJ-7. I took my sister out to lunch. Made some photos with the Leica Q. And, later in the evening, I lit up the backyard fire pit for dude’s night with a good friend.

Thursday

Finished building the closet shelves.

Friday

Made dinner: Korean rice wraps with bulgogi beef and bulgogi tofu. Not gonna lie, the tofu was on point.

Saturday

Smoked more brisket! Not one, but two (!) briskets for a fundraiser at our church that was happening Sunday. I made them the day before because they needed to be dropped off on Sunday morning and I did not want to be up and down all night tending to the brisket and hoping it would be ready in time on Sunday morning.

I personally did’t get to try the brisket (I delivered it wrapped and uncut), but I heard it turned out great. And, of course, I also made burnt ends and I did taste test those and they turned out just as incredible as the same-day ends I made on Monday.

Sunday

Anna and I have made it a focus in life to go on a date every week. Sometimes we go out, and sometimes our date nights are at home because we want to stay home or maybe we just can’t find a sitter. Sometimes we sit on the back deck or walk around the neighborhood.

It has been an unusually busy month at home for us, and this past Sunday we were actually we able to get out of the house and go on a date. We went to sushi dinner, got ice cream, and enjoyed some beautiful weather walking around downtown area snapping some photos with my Leica Q.

. . . .

As you can see, my week above was a somewhat “normal” week. The only really different thing is that I didn’t go into my office to do any work.

But I still kept to my same basic daily schedule: I go to bed and wake up at the same time as I do on weeks when I am working. I kept my exercise routine and did my normal rowing and lifting workouts. Ultimately, for an average sabbatical week, the biggest change for me is that the 6-8 hours / day that I normally would be working, I instead will spend that time on personal projects — cooking, woodworking, making photos, and extra family time.

These regular sabbaticals give me the space and the time to pull back from work. I also love how the sabbatical creates a clear and consistent stopping point for our focused work cycles, that help us to avoid biting off more than we can chew and to get more work done in less time.

How I spent my recent Sabbatical (with pictures!)

Just for the fun of it

Shortly after my first son was born, I realized that I did not like the camera in my phone.

And so, in the fall of 2012, I bought my first “real” camera.

Which means it’s been eight years since I began photography as a hobby. And to be honest, I still feel like a huge noob.

I’ve shot tens of thousands of photos; my house is filled with framed images that I’ve taken; I’ve owned a handful of different cameras and lenses; I’ve paid for photography courses and I even made my own.

But yet… there is still so much for me to learn!

I am constantly finding inspiration in other people’s work and learning from other photographers.

And that is exactly what excites me…

Even though I’ve been making photos for the better part of a decade, I still have many more decades to go.

My grandfather was a prolific painter in his old age. It wasn’t until he was in his late 50s that he even began his painting hobby. And he continued on until his death just shortly after turning 100. And in fact, as he got older, he painted more and more.

There are many areas of my life where I need to ship, create, and perform at a certain level. Areas where I am intently focused on growth.

Photography, however, is one of those things where there is no pressure or expectation.

It’s exciting to think ahead, knowing I still have decades to continue learning and enjoying photography.

Just for the fun of it

Avoiding the black hole, 5 minutes at a time

As has become my new norm over these past few weeks, I am sitting at my kitchen countertop spending the first hour of my day writing.

The coffee this morning is from Yes Plz.

My soundtrack is an early morning rain coming down outside. It’s heavy enough that it’s just a solid wall of sound on the roof, not a pitter patter. It’s creating a white noise of sorts to play in the background as I write.

Living life at home for 7+ weeks now my whole family’s routine has been disrupted.

We have zero obligations outside of work and school at home. Which means that we actually have more time than we normally used to in our previous life.

More time to be around and with my kids during the day.

More time to spend making and eating meals together.

More opportunity to focus on side projects and hobbies in the evenings.

We are not running to and fro with errands, pickups, dropoffs, hangouts, date nights, or anything like that. None of us are traveling anywhere. We are always at home.

And… as a result, I just have more small moments of down time during my day.

Basically, even though life is significantly different with its own set of new challenges — this new normal of life also contains more breathing room in some ways

I’ve noticed some good and bad tendencies arising for myself during these occasional moments of downtime that I have during my days and on the weekends.

Perhaps you also are noticing that, even though life is so different, you also have more breathing room at times.

Today I wanted to share how I am trying to be smarter and more intentional with that time. And what things I am doing which actually help my day to feel more calm and peaceful rather than frantic and gone before I know it.

Let’s dive in…

. . . . .

I believe there are two ways to spend the occasional moments of down time during the day.

  1. You can do something that will “slow down” time and creates a restful pause.
  2. You can do something that will speed time up. Something that gets you lost into a black hole where you emerge on the other side not knowing how long you were out of it.

Here are a few examples of each type.

Let’s start with the latter — these, to me, are the things which should be avoided when possible or at least kept to a maximum.

  • Scrolling social media
  • Checking email
  • Checking the news
  • Watching TV or a movie

I can easily spend 20-percent or more of my waking hours just perusing and triaging my inboxes and news feeds. And when I do that, my time gets sucked up like a black hole and I’m not sure what good was actually accomplished and it went by so fast I didn’t even realize it.

Additionally, I always find that I have less energy (creative and emotional energy) after I’ve spent time scrolling social media or checking my email. I don’t feel better or recharged at all. I don’t feel creative. I feel more bored. Ugh.

On the other hand, there are many things which help time to slow down. Things that create a true “pause” or a restful moment in my day. Things that will leave me feeling rested and recharged.

Some examples:

  • Sitting and thinking (or heck, just sitting)
  • Walking outside
  • Reading a printed book or a magazine
  • Listening to an audio book
  • Talking with a friend on the phone
  • Writing
  • Making photographs
  • Sketching or creating in some way
  • Cleaning or organizing a space
  • Playing cards or a board game
  • Making dinner

Having our whole family living inside these same 4 walls all day ever day, there are definitely moments where we all feel the need to escape — we each need moments to ourselves during the day.

Sometimes I have 5 or 10 minutes before the boys come inside for dinner. Sometimes it’s an hour before everyone wakes up. Or it’s half an hour before I go to bed.

In those moments, I’m trying to just be careful that I’m not always defaulting to spending that time on Twitter or email or news.

But of course, there is balance.

I haven’t abandoned all the mindless and fun things altogether. I don’t force myself to always do something that is “productive” or restful.

I am definitely okay with Netflix, Nintendo, YouTube, and RSS. I love these things! But I don’t want them to be the ever-present defaults for all my moments of down time.

I think it was Greg McKeown who I first heard suggest the following:

  • Have a minimum amount of time set aside for the good, the deep, and the essential things.

  • And a maximum amount of time set aside for those things which are shallow and not essential.

Yeah. I like that approach.

Side note for further reading: this piece I wrote about how I use time blocks and planning to identify work focus and rest focus each day.

Avoiding the black hole, 5 minutes at a time

Thank you for a great April

This April 2020 was our best April ever, and it was our 7th best month of all time in terms of net business revenue.

Thank you!

In these uncertain times, my team and I are incredibly grateful to have such amazing readers and customers like you who show up, share our work, buy our courses, and are enabling us to keep going with Tools & Toys, The Focus Course, and The Sweet Setup.

Because of your support we are able to continue focusing on what we know and do best. Which means we have a lot of new and exciting things in store for you…

Thank you for a great April

6am Magic

The 6am writing timeblock has been working well for me.

As I shared in my previous post, I have recently begun getting up around 6am to spend the first hour of my day writing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, my iPad, and Ulysses.

By 7:15 all the boys are up, and so we have breakfast with the family.

Then, I head down to my home office around 8:30 to do more work. Followed by a workout before lunch. And then a few more hours of work before wrapping up around 4pm or so.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, this is a new writing routine for me that came out of my need to re-evaluate how I’ve been spending my work days.

I will admit that I fell out of this early morning writing routine a little bit last week because it was our sabbatical week. Last week I let myself sleep in that extra hour instead of getting up early to write, and I let myself stay up a bit later to do some woodworking in the garage — building a beautiful Quarantine Coffee Table that I will never forget.

But this morning… I was back at my early morning writing. And this time I had a new typing tool at my fingertips!

My iPad Magic keyboard arrived late last week.

On Thursday evening, to be exact. While I was out with my boys to get curbside pickup of BBQ from our favorite spot: Joe’s KC.

(Let’s just say that when we got back with our BBQ dinner ready to eat and I discovered an iPad Magic Keyboard sitting on the front porch ready to be unboxed… it was a dilemma. But I was hungry and so I was somehow able to let the keyboard wait until after the boys had gone to bed.)

Anyway…

Long-time readers of this website may be all-too familiar with some of my previous in-depth, winded, opinionated, articles about keyboards.

I love a good keyboard. And I love my iPad.

So you’d think that if Apple came out with an amazing keyboard for the iPad, it’d be my New Favorite Thing.

Well. I’m not entirely sure if it is my New Favorite Thing or not.

I’ve read the Magic Keyboard reviews. Watched the videos. And I have loved reading everyone’s opinion about this thing, because it’s a HUGE step forward for Apple (and the iPad) on many, many levels.

In 2018 we got the epic reinvention of the iPad Pro, followed by iPadOS in 2019, followed by amazing trackpad support last month, followed by this Magic Keyboard…

Apple is saying over and over again that the iPad has a bright, professional, awesome future.

But as for me and this Magic Keyboard…

I’m still not sure if I like it. Or, at least, I’m not sure how much I like it for day to day use around my house an in my home office.

But don’t read into things too much. Really. I’m 50/50 on this… it’s too early to tell.

Because I also have to say that now that I’ve been using the Magic Keyboard for several days I’m not sure I could go back to that Smart Keyboard Folio.

Today I spent just about my entire workday working from just the iPad and the Magic Keyboard. (Usually I spend about half my day on the iMac and half my day with the iPad.)

And the typing experience on the Magic Keyboard is far superior to that of the Smart Keyboard. I mean, of course it is. This is a real keyboard. With backlights. And it’s not some plastic-wrapped thingamajig. But with my 11-inch iPad, the keyboard does feel more cramped. I have typos galore, and I am having a hard time adjusting to the way that the iPad itself sort-of blocks access to the top row of number keys.

And the trackpad. This. This thing is quikly becoming so nice and useful and something I may never be able to go back to even though it is still early adoption within iPadOS and many of the apps. (Things 3 in particular really shines with it’s keyboard and trackpad support.)

I know there are many more iPad apps that will be supporting trackpad and keyboard support. And I bet we’re going to see an increase in professional-grade apps as well. So that’s another way this keyboard will be improving the iPad experience.

Down the road when our lives begin to return to some sort of normal, and travel is something that we can do again, the iPad Magic Keyboard will be the ideal travel accessory for the iPad Pro.

But for now, it’s stuck with me here at home. And I have more thoughts and specifics that I may get into later about exactly how this Magic Keyboard works for me at home.

But! At the very least, this keyboard will be my new 6am writing companion.

And if it can help me write and create more on a daily basis then that is a huge win.

6am Magic

6am Writing

This past week I have been trying something new in the mornings.

We have 3 boys at home. And if I ever write a book on parenting it will have one chapter. And in that one chapter it will have one sentence. And the one sentence would be this:

“Buy an OK-To-Wake Clock.”

That’s it. That’d be the whole parenting book.

So this week, as I said, I have been trying something new.

I still wake up a little after 6am, which is when I normally wake up anyway. And that means I get an entire hour to myself before the boys wake up. (Thanks to their ok-to-wake clocks, they all stay in their rooms, quiet, until 7:15am. Every single day. (I know, right!?))

And I have been spending the first quiet hour of my day writing.

I wake up. Put on sweats. Make a cup of coffee. Sit down at the kitchen counter. And write for 30 or 45 minutes.

I’m here right now. The house is quiet. The sun is just beginning to rise. And there is the dim early morning light warming up the windows. And I am writing.

During the past month, I’d been noticing that I was struggling with my morning writing time. There are not one but two articles I am supposed to have already written for The Sweet Setup that are still in my drafts folder. And so I knew something needed to change.

During my work day, I have been more distracted — doing more busywork — than normal. I had to create a separate task list that is just all the “busywork ideas” I have. It’s a list of the little things I suddenly want to do around my house and around my office now that I am just here all day every day. And they’re all good things to do, but they also are distractions from what I need to be doing. (Writing it down on its own list helps me to stay focused.)

So, in order to combat my newfound work-from-home distractions, I’m trying a new writing routine to help me be more focused on this single most important task of the day.

Of course, all the “distraction talk” is not to say that my whole day has gone to the birds.

We Blancs are on day 35 of life and work and school from home. We certainly have our good days and our bad days. And in the midst of everything — the inside monotony and outside pressures of life — our routines have become all the more important.

A few things I have stayed vigilant with are:

  • Protecting my time to rest and think during my day.

  • Using routines and systems to make things easier on myself.

In another article I’ll have to write up the nitty gritty things of my routines and systems that have helped keep my day on track.

But first I want to share a “bigger idea”. Which is the simple idea of having big chunks of your day blocked out.

Here. Check this out.

It’s a copy of Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule.

This simple schedule of Benjamin Franklin’s has been an inspiration to me for years!

What I like is how open and simple it is. (And how he had “diversions” as part of his daily routine.)

If you look at it, you’ll see that he had only 6 blocks of time scheduled each day:

  1. Morning Routine: 3 hours for getting ready, shower, breakfast, personal study, and prepare for work
  2. Work: 4 hours
  3. Afternoon break: 2 hours for eating, reading, and admin
  4. Work: 4 hours
  5. Evening Routine: 4 hours for dinner, relaxing, diversions, and wrapping up the day
  6. Sleep: 7 hours

This, dear reader, is timeblocking. And it’s marvelously effective.

For my day, I have big “blocks” like what you see on Benjamin Franklin’s schedule. And I also will time block within those . . . mapping my day’s most important tasks to a time on my calendar.

Having a simple way to schedule your day can be especially important if you find yourself in the middle of a transition — such as trying to figure out how to work from home with additional distractions you wouldn’t have at the office.

Timeblocking can help you regain control of your day and make sure you are spending your time effectively on the things that are important.

I regularly come back to my own daily schedule to re-evaluate it and see if it is serving me as well as it should be.

Hence, this week’s early-morning writing experiment. I simply shifted around two blocks of time to see if it would improve my day. And it has!

Now, I don’t know if this is early wake and write will be my new normal. But it’s working right now and that is what matters.

6am Writing

Tiny Moments

Coffee on a desk

It’s now been a month since my family and I began self-isolating at home.

Here at the Blanc house things have somewhat begun to settle into a new normal. Well, as normal as things can be considering the circumstances.

This past week, Kansas City had a few beautiful and warm days that allowed us to eat our meals in the backyard, do some work outside, and ride bikes around the neighborhood.

Over the past month, here are few of the rituals and tiny moments that are helping me to get through this:

  • Building furniture
  • Taking walks around the neighborhood with my wife in the evenings
  • Clearing, cleaning, simplifying, and redesigning my workspace
  • Prayer
  • Coffee in the afternoon
  • Board games with my kids (Settlers and Skip-Bo are the current favorites)
  • Daily exercise
  • Journaling in Day One
  • Spontaneous phone calls with friends
Tiny Moments

If you work with your head, rest with your hands

It’s amazing how much intentional destruction you can do to a piece of hardwood when you’ve got some 60-grit sandpaper and an orbital sander.

I have been spending my weekends in my garage workshop, bulding two new woodworking projects.

Last weekend I built my first picture frame for a painting that my sister made. While I definitely made some rookie mistakes along the way, it turned out pretty great in the end.

The photos here are ones I took last night after sanding down a new coffee table I am making for the downstairs.

I am spending hours each day, staring at a screen, having meetings, and making decisions about how to best navigate my business through this season. It is refreshing to step away from all of that and into the workshop, put on my gloves, and get to work.

These photos were taken on my Leica Q and edited on my iPad.

If you work with your head, rest with your hands

Music for Working From Home

Good music is instrumental (ha!) for me to do focused work. Especially when I am working at home with kids in the house.

I almost always have a single, go-to album that I put on when it is time to work. This helps quite a bit as part of my routine for getting into the zone.

It can be difficult to transition from feeling at home to feeling at work. But, by having the same playlist or album that I put on when it is time to work, then that music becomes pavlovian — it tells my brain “now it’s time to work”.

And, over time, as I become used to the music, it turns into background noise that is so familiar it is not distracting at all.

Another reason I like having one specific album that is my go-to for background music is that it removes the decision of what do I want to listen to right now?

The less choices I can make before starting my work day the better. I prefer to save as much of that mental energy as I can for actually doing the work.

Anyway! Enough chit-chat…

Here are a few fantastic albums and playlists for helping drown out the background noise so you can do some work. Enjoy!

  • Imagine Gold, by Frameworks is my current favorite. His other albums, Tides and Kings have all been on repeat pretty much ever since I discovered them a few months ago.

  • The Pure Focus playlist in Apple Music is excellent. It is updated regularly, and I often find new artists there.

  • The Monument Valley Soundtrack has long been my go-to. I have listened to this album well over 1,000 times. Possibly a few thousand times.

  • For additional good jams for deep, focused work. Check out this roundup over on The Focus Course blog.

And, of course, for when you are done with work and it’s time to wind down for the day, may I recommend the BEATsrumental playlist? I love to turn this one up while making dinner.

Music for Working From Home

Photos From Indoors

Here in Kansas City, we have a rainy season every spring and it is my favorite thing about living here.

During the rainy season we’ll get massive thunderstorms with huge downpours. It seems like they always happen in the middle of the night (why is that?) — but we do also get them in the late evenings or early mornings.

And I love to lie in bed and just listen to the rain and watch the sky light up with the lighting.

It’s still early in the season right now and so we haven’t yet had any major storms. But we have been getting some rain over the past week.

These photos were made around my house during a recent rainy day. And, of course, I edited them and published them from home as well.

Heck. You’re probably reading this from your home right now. Good for you.

In some ways, it may feel as if every day is a rainy day.

But we are all in this together.

For most of us alive today, there has never been a time like this in our lives when every person on the planet was being impacted and touched by the same issue all at the same time.

In the midst of this crisis, one thing I am witnessing are so many people who are going above and beyond to be generous and kind.

Now is a fantastic time to create. People are sharing more, giving more, and connecting more.

From famous Italian musicians playing live music for their neighbors, to designers making stay-at-home coloring books for kids who aren’t in school, to companies giving away money to creators in need, and so much more.

Even in the midst of the quarantines, the isolation, and the trauma — there is still community. There is hope and light.

Photos From Indoors

Three Things for Right Now

The past few days I have been spending a lot more time than normal reading the news and checking social media. (Pretty sure we all have!)

There is so much happening so fast.

While I don’t personally feel any fear or panicked anxiety about the COVID-19 virus and its implications, I do feel very drawn to social media, the news, and to watch what is happening through these live feeds.

A few things that I am focusing on in light of the current events:

  1. Batch processing news and social media to avoid becoming anxious or paralyzed from the firehose.
  2. Prepare for the worst and begin to take action now.
  3. Create and publish more.

. . . . .

As we all step toward physical isolation, a lot of my social feeds and group text threads have become alive and active in a new way and I am so thankful for the connectedness that we all are able to participate in.

Which is why I feel an an increased focus to create, make, and share more — even though it may feel trite in context to the crisis in our midst.

Yes, it is difficult to focus on just about anything else right now.

But…

I believe creating and doing what you do best has two positive byproducts:

For one, creating and making will help you stay positive.

Moreover, what you create and share will be helpful for all of us who are around you. We need your art, your ideas, and your thoughts now more than ever.

Right now we are feeling just how small the world is and how connected we all are to one another.

That feeling of connectedness is a wonderful thing (even though it is being driven by a global crisis).

So, instead of shying away from creating because it doesn’t seem right, I believe it is all the more necessary that we create and share.

One way I am going to start is simply by trying to share more of my photography and more stories here on my personal website. What about you?

Three Things for Right Now

Our Emergency Food List

For years, my wife and I have kept a 5-day emergency supply of non-perishable food items in our home.

We recently expanded those reserves to a 3-week supply of non-perishables that our family could survive on (with a rationed change to our diet of course).

The reason we are stocked up is so that we can avoid any unnecessary trips to the store in the weeks or months to come. And so we can be prepared in case shopping becomes dangerous or even restricted.

We know things are about to get bad, but we don’t know how bad.

Which is why we want to take as much action now so we can be as prepared as possible.

Anyway…

If, like me, you’re curious about what things people are stocking up on, here are the items we have in our storage closet or freezer:

Coffee (duh!), rice, beans, protein bars, canned soups, lentils, pasta, mayonnaise, oatmeal, canned tuna, frozen fruits and vegetables, frozen meat, dried mango, almond milk, bottled water, chicken broth, and, of course, chocolate.

Our Emergency Food List

How to Take Great Holiday Photos  →

Erin Brooks is one of my favorite photographers.

She is constantly capturing amazing, candid shots of her two daughters. Her iPhone photos have been featured by Apple. And she has a style to her photos that is really unique.

The reason Erin has been an inspiration to me is because of how well she tells stories and stays vulnerable in her photography. Not to mention the fact that she is constantly finding new and creative ways to make amazing photos right in her own home.

Last year, Erin wrote a guide for The Sweet Setup on how to take great holiday photos. I have definitely been taking her advice and finding inspiration in the photos that she shares.

Here are a few of my own holiday photos from the past couple of years…

(Looks like my photo skills still have a long ways to go!)

As we head into Thanksgiving, I asked Erin if she would update her guide for 2019. She added some new ideas and tactics, plus new photos as well.

Here are a few tips and tricks for how you can take better photos of your family. Happy holidays, and happy shooting!

How to Take Great Holiday Photos