Putting on some headphones is a pretty universal sign to others that you’re working, or at least that you don’t want to be disturbed. But what do you play in said headphones when you’re trying to focus?
If I am doing chores around the house or running errands, I am probably listening to a podcast. If I am working out, probably some combination of 80’s power ballads and shitty pop music. But if I am working, recently I have been listening to noise, not music.
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I do some of my best thinking on walks while listening to some combination of silly pop music and songs from my son’s favorite movies and tv shows. Something about that scenario gives me the mental space to think clearly and deeply about creative projects.
Sometimes on these walks, I can write a whole script for a video in my head; other times, I generate a few unstructured fragments that need to be worked into something better. My favorite tool for building out those fragments is a mind map.
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I love podcasts. I listen to so many that I look forward to long road trips so I can catch up on my backlog.
However, I have never been on oneā¦ until now!
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Surprisingly, no one I have ever worked with has canceled a meeting unless there was a significant attendance issue. Meetings have inertia that people seem afraid to impede as if the default position of the working universe is to have meetings.
I argue that the opposite is true.
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Spear phishing is when you get a researched, prepared, and targeted email specifically crafted to fool you, the addressee. This is not a Nigerian prince type email; this is a focused attack by an artist. Receiving one is a bad sign. It means a bad person has taken significant time out of multiple days to ruin yours. They will typically impersonate someone important and either scare or entice you into clicking on a malicious link or attachment.
On September 6th, 2022, I thought I was under just this type of digital attack.
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