Phil Bowell

On my lunch break today as I sat reading some RSS feeds, I came across a [Daily Blogging Challenge] that started on the first of March. As I clicked through to the organising site to find out more I discovered that each day they are sharing a prompt word that everyone taking part should use to kickstart their post for the day. I'm not going to commit to taking part everyday, but I liked the prompt from 1st March, [routine].

Routines have always been a bit of a comfort to me, mostly they just happen and I realise that I've settled in to one without considering what I'm doing. My morning routine for example is one that I've realised I've settled in to without really considering.

I wake up with my alarm around 07:00 and spend the next 45 minutes or so waking up. That involves a bit of snoozing, a bit of morning messaging, and a bit of bumbling around on the internet. Then I get out of bed and head towards the shower.

I'm usually dressed and ready to start my day by around 08:20. The next step is a glass of juice and my meds, followed by a sit down in my chair and a bit of time to have a quiet time with whatever reading plan I'm using in the Youversion app at the moment.

Around 08:40 I'll turn on my Mac and head to the kitchen to make coffee and sort out some food for myself before I settle at my desk to contrive the days business.

I didn't realise this was a routine I'd fallen in to until I came across Pablo Picasso's daily schedule and it started me on path looking in to the routines of other famous creators, something I'll be looking into and sharing here.

Always with the accidental screenshots when trying to turn up the volume on my iPhone 😖

The painting continues to progress, lots of repainting things but it’s slowly starting to look a little like me 😂🎨

Realised that I can now post from Gluon instead of the official Micro.Blog app. It’s a little nicer to use on the iPhone and has some features not in the official client.

Really enjoyed this episode of Thouroughly Considered debating the future of the Mac and iPad. I’m not sure where I stand on the debate, but I’m looking forward to finding out what happens.

It’s starting to feel like spring is coming, the sky is blue and clear, the sun is shining, plants are starting to come into bud. It’s a beautiful reminder that God sustains the world and despite all that’s happening in it, His creation keeps on regardless.

Speaking to my parents earlier we realised it’s a year since Mum’s cancer diagnosis. Feels like a lot longer ago than that.

In the spirit of showing my work, the self portrait is progressing. I’m very rusty and it’s starting to look a little bit like the Joker 😂 🎨

Another day of work today as I try to use up my annual leave before the end of March. I’ve dug out my paints and plan to try and make some progress on a self portrait I started last week. It’s been so long since I did any painting, I forgot how hard it is.

I’ve recently made some changes to the hosting for my blog and other websites as part of the consolidation of my many websites in to one. I had been aiming to have one website to rule them all integrating my portfolio and my blog into one site.

I’m in the process of creating a new theme to help accomplish that, but I realised that for a long time I’ve not wanted to post the short status posts and images on to this site. I used to use Twitter for that, and whilst I’m still on the site I rarely use it. I’ve also been a member of [Micro.Blog] since the kickstarter days, but lately I’ve found myself just observing with only the occasional reply and not actually contributing. So I’ve decided to give something a try.

I’ve setup a hosted Micro Blog, which will use one of my spare personal domains, and I’m going to try posting to there with the short status posts and images as I would’ve done on Twitter and Instagram. I’ll likely use it to share things links and things along the way. In contrast I plan to keep this blog as somewhere to post longer posts and in time to add my portfolio as well.

To simplify things, I’m thinking about using my Micro Blog and this blog as ways of generating some [Stock and Flow]. As Robin Sloan put it:

Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that reminds people you exist.
Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what people discover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time.
I’ve realised I’ve lost those concepts in my creative work. I no longer tweet and I don’t blog regularly, so if I can start to correct that I hope that the two blog formats can inform one another with more content.

As an extension of that I’ve also been thinking a lot about Austin Kleon’s book [Show Your Work], something which I’ve also not been doing much of lately. My hope is that I’ll be able to combine these two sites and ways of posting with showing some of my work. Be it personal or professional (when appropriate). We’ll see how it goes.