Today I began using my Kindle Scribe to write my daily journal. Over the past few days, I’ve been testing how well it handles handwriting-to-text conversion so I can easily post entries online. So far, it’s been smooth—the workflow is simple, and I genuinely enjoy writing with it.
It’s not fast or as efficient as typing, but that’s part of the appeal. After spending 9 to 11 hours a day in front of a computer for work, the last thing I want is more time at a keyboard. Writing on the Scribe feels different, more tactile, more peaceful. It’s thin, light, and the backlight is gentle on my eyes while still bright enough to write outside in the dark. The whole experience is just… pleasant.
Once I’m done writing, I let the device convert my notes to text and email them to myself. From there, it’s easy to copy and paste into my site. Compared to writing on a Surface Pro or Samsung tablet, the Scribe feels more natural. The pen-to-screen resistance is well tuned, something I appreciate as someone who enjoys writing on paper.
For me, writing is a slow, deliberate process. It’s not about speed or efficiency. And that’s perfectly fine.
It is that time of year again where I evaluate my life. What my aspirations and what I need to do to make them a reality. My position in the company I work for has changed. The company has reorganized and I am no longer a manager. I will be going to the premium support branch as a support technician. I am reevaluating if this is where I would like to take my career. I would increase my income moving there, but will not have a manager’s position. There is not a demand for managers in the technology sector right now with all the layoffs. I was transferred there for not doing a good job as a manager but a shift for the company to move towards services in addition to the hardware we sell. There is no guarantee when the branch grows that they will place me back into a management position. So for now I will make the best of the situation and go through the training to know all aspects of the products we make. This will add to my skill set and make me more valuable once the economy bounces back and the job market improves.
So what I am going to do in the mean time? Going forward I want to create a YouTube channel that shows people to resolve issues themselves. Find the most common issue of the week provide the solution. I can use it at work to step customers through the solution and hopefully even lessen the amount of tickets to solve.
As a manager I was pushing to change the culture of the company. I started a weekly game night afterwork which is gaining traction. I am planning to expand other departments to join. Last week I transformed a large meeting room that get little use and make it flexible so it can be used as a multi-purpose room.
I am in the process of changing my routine to include studying for my new position. My manager setup (computer and home office) is now setup for a technician role. I have archived my todo list, calendar, email, projects, interview process, agent reviews, browser favorites, text expander snippets, … to a clean basic setup.
For my personal life I am once again decluttering my life. I have little time to do this now, so I am will be slowly removing unwanted positions throughout the week and donating them to Goodwill at weeks end.
The key to getting all this accomplished is weekly planning and daily reflections in a paper planner. I am moving back to a hybrid planning system where I use paper and digital planning. It consumes more time but I feel the most productive doing it this way. My new 2026 planner is the larger A4 size. It much larger than my normal A4 size but it is so much roomier. It is not as portable, but it fits in my small travel bag and I can take it to work without issue. If I travel out of state, I will just use my Travelers notebook for the duration of the trip.
Well that is about it for tonight. I am tired but feel accomplished all I have done today. Office is cleared out, spent time with my son and daughter sharing experiences. Not just sitting down and watching tv.
I have been feeling tired and overall not feeling health. I am eating right, but feel sick at the same time. Yesterday I was going to take a day off at work but we had 4 people sick, so I had to work through it. Today is an easy day, just a lot of meetings and little actual work. My sleeping habits are the same but I am not getting the rest I need for some reason. I am tired but I am getting my normal 8 hours of sleep. It’s weird.
Over the weekend, I went for a bike ride with my daughter to look for geocaching. We found 24 that day. It was fun, and we had one on one time with each other. Nobody interrupted our conversation. It was really nice.
I met my new neighbours today while going outside to enjoy the sunset in my backyard. They are a very nice couple with an older son. While watching the sunset I thought to myself that I need a break from work. But it isn’t a good time to do so because I am training two new employees and have another employee on perterity leave for two weeks. On top of that I have another employee out sick for the week and another taking a scheduled PTO next week. Just a lot of things happening. Plus, I vowed not to take PTO unless I am physically sick so I can accumilate my PTO hours to take a minimum of 2 weeks off this week in a row. Plus, I have to go to San Diego sometime in the summer to help my father.
Today went well. On the way to work, I could see Mars bright in the clear and dark sky. I wish I still had a telescope to see it better. The roads were icy in some areas. Once on the freeway, the road conditions were fine. I arrived early and used the time to study Portuguese and plan out my day.
The day was beautiful but a bit cold. I spent some time outside next to the fire reading and observing the birds flying by in the clear sky. There is something relaxing being in the cold next to a warm fire with the sun’s rays hitting your face.
Once back inside, me and the kids played board games while the landry was being washed. We all enjoyed playing The Game of Life. We finished the night playing Uno.
Before bedtime, I read a little more before falling asleep and then waking up abruptly when the book hit my chest with a thump. I wonder if that happens to other people?
I went to Leavenworth over the weekend to just walk around and enjoy the scenery. It was cold but beautiful. I believe the last time I was before Covid hit. A lot has changed. They have closed the street that leads into the vilage. A welcomed change. There were just too many pedestrians to have cars going in and out of the area. I can walk with confidence that no one is going to hit me trying to back up. I hope they level the a road with the curent sidewalk so it is all even.
A portion of the time we walked around and window shopped. Most of the things there are things you can find home. Overall the resturants are good and definitely need to check them out if you are ever here.
The next day everyone was tired so we stayed home and relaxed playing games and wathcing tv.
It has been a worlwind of a week so far. I am making a lot of changes on my team and how I do things at work. I am also training people and making purchasing decisions for the company. This week, I am hosting interviews for new positions. I need to get everything on my plate taken care of by the end of the week. This will place me in a good position next week and get me back to a normal work routine and not being over worked.
At home I am learning to pain with my daughter. She is much better at it than I am and I’m learning a lot from her. We are planning to take a bike trip to locate a whole bunch of geocaches this weekend. We are building a trailer for the trip to carry her and supplies behind my bike. It should be a fun day. It’s part of my more experiences agenda for this year. Last year, I felt we didn’t do much.
I have consistently been working out. Nothing crazy, but spending 30 – 45 minutes doing phyical activity, like walking with 2 x 20lbs dumbels. Or walking with a backpack with 30 pounds of waits. I incorporated push up and sit ups. I need to mix it up with meditation or just go for a walk at the park. Something I can do and not think. Everyday I am making decissions and constandly thing of processess. My mind needs to relax. I should plan a trip camping once a month for a day. Just to be by myself and relax.
Yesterday was allot of changes to the team structure and schedule. Everyone was fine with it and didn’t complain, which surprised me. People don’t like change of any sort and always pushed back on it. It wasn’t unreasonable change just a lot of small changes and set expectations. Today I have to redo the everyone schedule and publish them. I am using Ticktick to schedule all my task for the day and it helps a lot. I use to use Microsoft Todo for years, and it worked well but it lacked a calendar integration. I hope Ticktick integration with a smart watch is good. I just need it to remind me of upcoming meeting and events. Adding things to the list isn’t important to me. I prefer doing that at my desk or if I am out and about use my phone.
This month is getting everyone on board on all the changes that are being made and getting through the challenges that may derive from it.
My personal life is going well. I am changing some of my focus to health and personal development. I work out and am studying a new language 5 days a week. The only thing that breaks the routine is something more important pops up. They are rare so I am happy with my progress.
This year I am putting the family on a tight budget so we can do something special once a month. This month we are going snow tubing. The whole family is real excited about it. Afterwards we will hit up a restaurant and head home. We were not able to do this for a few years because we didn’t have a reliable car and had to wait well over a year to receive our new car. We have it now and it is now time to travel like we use to do. Our first trip in the car was a drive from Seattle to San Diego. The car handled great and the views from the drive was amazing.
Wednesdays are one of my most busiest days at work. I have meetings all day with eveyone. My one on ones, team meeting I host, and talk to other managers. During all this, I have to check up on everyone that I am responsible for to ensure they are working. Did I mention I also host interviews. I had one yesterday and have another one tomorrow. On top of that, I am training a new person for my team (2 month process) and helping to train a new manager for a different team. Next week, I start another training session with an employee from a different department for my team. I just got notice about that yesterday. I also have a project that needs to be completed by the end of month.
There is alot of changes going on right now and is hard keeping track of everything. I started to use Ticktick for planning and even project management. I like it so far, I am still migrating over from Microsoft Todo. Mostly assigning all the repetetive todo to the correct time slot in the day. This week I will be recieving my Samsung Galaxy watch FE. It’s basic and Ticktick work on it. I don’t care for smart watches, but I will need it to remind me of appointments in my calendar. I am pretty mobile in the office and sometime forget or stay in a meeting for too long and then late for the next meeting. It should help me, to remind myself to take breaks and lunch. I need to do it and want to. But time slips by and I either cram my lunch down or miss it completely. Once it arrives I am changing the watch strap with a leather one. I don’t care for the rubber one they come with.
After work I spend time with the kids and do things arround the house. The normal things like cooking, cleaning, washing clothes … The normal family things. I go to bed early for most people. Arround 7:30 pm and read for a bit before i go to sleep. I am up at 4:15 am to start the day. I like this schedule. I am not in a hurry and have time to nock out the important things before anyone is up. Going grocery shopping right when it is open is very quick. It save me 30 minutes. No traffic, plenty of parking when I arrive, and no customers except for me in the checkout lines. In, out and back home in no time. These little time saving things add up pretty quickly. I can use the time to hang with the kids or do the importent thing I want to do in my life.
I haven’t done a journal entry for a very long time. About a year, I believe. I stopped doing online journaling for a few reasons that I mentioned in previous entries. Since moving to Blueskies, I am thinking of starting it up again. This year, I will be studying once more to expand my career. I have been a manager for almost two years, and I want to step it up to the next level. There are things I need to do to make my team more successful and give them more opportunity to move up in the company. I feel most of them want better pay for doing the most minimum of work possible. No company will give you a nice pay increase by doing less than average work.
For me I want to become a better manager, this will require some studying. I need to make myself more valuable to the company so I will get a higher pay adjustment this year. My focus it to get the whole team to a profesional level. I have only one team member that is consistantly at this level. I am working with another memeber and he is almost there. I just need to constanly push him to get there.
The biggest hurtle accross the board is time management. Team members morning routines consist of the first hour getting coffee, breakfast and thumbing through social media for the first hour. To make up for lost productivity they cram everything in at the end of the day. The quility of work is terible and it shows. I need to change this habit. If they want to spend an hour doing this, it will have to be before they clock into work. Get a cup of coffee and start work, sure, it takes a few minutes and shouldn’t effect you work output. No need to rush it at the end of the day. Slow starts is just part of the issue. I should make an article for habits that efffect your productivity. Most of these are things I have done myself and after reflection I corrected them and improved. For the company I work for, I started from entry level at the company and promoted up year after year to where I am at today. Everyone in the company starts out at entry level, even the CEO.
It’s almost time to get into work . I wrote more than I thought I was. Going forward you will see more updated to this blog.
Life in the Pacific NW 