Hey fam! Weāre getting SO close to the end of the year (just hours away, at this point!), so todayās email is going to be a quick one.
I hope as you take the time to sit down and celebrate the end of this dumpster fire of a year, youāre able to do some healthy reflection, thinking about what went well and what could have gone better, and looking forward with (wary) optimism for 2021.
Happy New Year, yāall.
āConnie, aka rampantasian
2021 can be yours: The framework to help you accomplish your goals
If 2020 wasnāt the year you were expecting (letās be real, it probably wasnāt for most of us), letās go into 2021 with some FR3$H motivation to make the most of next year!
I came across this great, in-depth article some time ago about the āfirebreak and rapid repairā frameworkāa productivity method that can help us achieve our New Yearās resolutions and goals for 2021.
Read the archived version of the article, since the original website seems to be down at the moment.
The idea behind a firebreak is to schedule a regular check-in with yourself to break yourself out of those bad habits that are counterproductive to your goals. Hence, stopping the āfireā from burning (i.e., the habit from continuing). If you want another idiom, itās like ānipping the budā before it has the chance to bloom into a full-blown problem.
A rapid repair is the follow up to the firebreak, where you build yourself a more sustainable re-entry point into the good habit.
So for example, if you worked out for 15+ mins per day for months, but then went weeks without exercise, youād identify the problem during a firebreak. The rapid repair would be to set a new goal of exercising for 15 mins at least twice per week. Itās much easier to work yourself up through the lower levels of difficulty than it is to jump right back into advanced mode.
Iāve used this periodically in the past year and itās honestly helped me be more objective with the aspects in my life that could use some more attention.
Impastable: A nationwide shortage of a wonderfully-shaped sauce vehicle
Ever heard of bucatini? Think spaghetti, but tube-like with the center hollowed out. Apparently, itās an amazing vehicle for sauces, but thereās a shortage of this beloved (but not-yet mainstream) pasta in the US.
You can read the fascinating deep dive on GrubStreet, but the TL;DR is that bucatini isnāt as well-known (read: popular), and with US-based pasta makers needing to meet the demands of COVID-induced panic-buying, simpler pasta shapes like spaghetti have been prioritized in the manufacturing process.
On top of that, it seems that one of the main bucatini importers has had its product held off by the FDA because it doesnāt meet proper iron levels (apparently in the US we donāt import things called āpastaā hereājust āenriched macaroni productsā).
Fascinating stuff, though Iām a bit doubtful of the story that the āNational Association of Macaroni and Noodle Manufacturers of Americaā (yes, itās a real trade organization that existed and has since been simplified to the āNational Pasta Associationā) lobbied to put those nitpicky standards because they were āāupsetā by the introduction of Nissinās ramen noodles into the countryā. The article states the ramen noodles were introduced āaround World War IIā, but Nissin didnāt establish themselves in the US until the 70s.
In any case, thereās indeed a bucatini shortage currently that will hopefully sort itself out soon.
Speaking of dough: Discord raises a healthy round of $100M, another $40M tbd
Some of us won the jackpot in 2020.
Discord raised a Series H (which means theyāve previously raised some kind of Seed Round, then Series A, B, C, and so onā¦) round of funding, which in startup-speak means, āwe might not be profitable yet (or ever) but weāre banking on the attractiveness of our massive user base and recent explosive growth to get investors to keep giving us $$$ so we can keep our lights onā.
To date, Discord has raised $380M, with another $40M that might still squeeze its way into this round.
All I can say is, thanks Discord (and investment firms) for giving us a less-boring way (e.g., Zoom, Slack) to stay connected with each other.
All right, thatās it for this edition! Next time I grace your inbox, itāll be 2021.
Cheers to a new, better year.
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