Sunday, December 20, 2020

What a roller coaster ride 2020 has been.

It’s been a doozy hasn’t it?

The year actually started off rather well, although we did have a glimpse that the World Health Organization and the Communist party of China were keeping the whispers of some kind of virus emanating from Wuhan a real well kept secret from the global media. Yes they were basically lying; those entities are good at the lying game eh.

And then splat; the shit hit the fan.
We all basically shut shop for around three months; well we did in my neck of Canada. It was all kind of surreal at first wasn’t it? And then the reality checks came one after the other.

Regardless of how the whole thing came at use like an out of control train; we seemed to handle the national shutdown rather well here in Canada.

We all basically couldn’t go the factory, store or office to work and remote working schedules became the norm for some white collar workers at least.

It did seem that opportunities dried up, and as fellow colleagues within the knowledge management field cried like me; where the hell has our clients gone? Of course the covid scenario affected everyone; blue and white collar alike, we all were affected and stopped in our tracks by the so called virus.

Some of us became depressed and shrunk back into ourselves, sought help from therapy that became solely an online service all of a sudden, and many simply shrugged it off and became a tad more inventive.

Now if depression and stress has been your journey, I wish you well hoping you have sought out professional help to get back on track to becoming more positive and productive for you and your families.

If you’re the number of people who shrugged it off and viewed the shut down that forced the reality of remote and virtual as more inventive ways of making a living; I salute you.

For me; I must admit I did get a tad down in the dumps for a short time. Then my wife kicked my arse into gear and encouraged me in her own special way to pick myself up and reset the ways I may seek out meaningful connections and opportunities.

I began by looking at the landscape of horrible, terrible, awful wrecks of businesses that had folded pretty much a month after the lock down. I looked in awe at the carnage this out of control train called covid has caused to many of my former close colleagues business models.

Of course the reality check for me was that my contracts were for the most part remote to begin with and I did still have some residual income heading my way due to my relationships with quite a few corporate survivors.
Yet the underlying question I was asking myself was, “why did my colleagues fold so easily a month into the lock down”?

The answers became very real to me when I connected with a few of my colleagues to ask WTF happened to their business models?

One after another they all stated they didn’t have a system in place that would have guaranteed their sustainability. The system I speak of is one of assuring their business processes were available both as hard copies and of business local and cloud based too in a systematic format.

At that time I was investigation a curious cloud app called Notion and entertaining an interest in an even more curious web app called Roam Research.
I chose to dive into Notion as I was in dire need to get myself into gear and become more savvy regarding creating a framework that would maybe become the new model for me.

And so I dived into Notion. Now as I blab here I am currently 8 months deep into using and abusing Notion. I’ve met some very interesting and motivational thought leaders in the process and have become a little more than a tad changed due to my exposure to Notion and some thought leaders within the Notion Universe.

Offices have been my preferred mode of operation for processing my work, connecting with clients and meeting potentials. That kind of halted when the lock down happened, and as I write, the office is gone (maybe forever).

I employed people, I personally interacted with people one on one and I really enjoyed that aspect of business. That too has ended for the most part and I don’t see any of this returning to the personal touch any time soon.

Ah! Back to Notion.
At first I looked at this new curious product/service and thought “Oh another cloud app that promises it’ll be your one thing”.
Strangely enough it has almost become my one thing as far as creating, managing and exchanging (sharing) potentials and probabilities of my business models.

It has indeed been an enlightening journey staring with Notion.
Yes it was a journey and to say it was a smooth ride would be lying through my teeth. It was and has been one of the most frustrating and angst driven journeys that has caused me to consider seeking out an anger management therapist......again (yes again).

Frustrating was an understatement to be frank; learning Notion, whilst worth every minute spent angrily screaming at the product and myself (yes anger management); I finally found via the Notion universe two thought leaders who became mentors to me and countless other by way of their video YouTube training of Notion.

These two brilliant people are Marie Poulin and August Bradley; their Twitter handles are @mariepoulin and @augustbradley respectfully. There have been others too that I have consulted with, yet these two are indeed thought leaders of the highest calibre who took the time to mentor and encourage me to have more patience regarding what turns out to be an ever evolving Notion Framework.
I encourage you to seek them out at Twitter too; as well as many other leaders within the Notion Universe such as Danny Hatcher @DannyHatcher, Ali Abdaal @AliAbdaa.

Databases, kanban boards, Knowledge management at a higher level and team consultations were what I have accomplished with Notion to date. Are there other products that perform and offer like functions? Yes of course there are, they’re all pretty good but Notion has of all products I have surveyed thus far the best customization functions and capabilities and they’re expanding and improving almost weekly.

So here I am at the end of my blithering to tell you that you too can experience my most frustrating journey to date in my long business life; that if you dare, and I do dare you to. You will simply thank me after you experience the same as I have.
Notion has for the most part become my virtual office, and I find it hard to admit this as my virtual office for many years has been TheBrain.

Go grab Notion it’s free for personal use and super affordable if you wish to buy into it. Go for it and allow Notion to assist you to develop into the knowledge worker you deserve to be; in control and assured of knowledge success.






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