Yup you missed me last weekend. I road the Terry Hard ride for Terry Fox which is a 24 hour bike event that left me little time for writing last week as I finished prep.
TLDR plus details
I've taken to this method of writing twice for years. I write a summary of the important parts my boss needs to understand and then a section I title something fun like "For Nerds" with all the details if any future nerd needs to read through the Github Issue, or whatever document we're working with.
If my boss reads through the nerd stuff and wants more explanation we usually talk about it during our meeting time. Otherwise he just leaves it and gets the information he needs.
Self-monitoring into a cage
This is an example of self-monitoring — the act of evaluating and adjusting your behavior based on how you think others perceive you. In small doses, it functions as a useful social compass. In large doses, it becomes a cage. A 2019 study determined that people who are high in self-monitoring performed significantly worse on cognitive tasks. The mental energy spent managing their image left less energy for the task itself. - The hidden cost of taking yourself too seriously
I no longer remember where I read this, but the gist was that when you see someone that's happy and seems to be having more fun than you have...they are. They're experiencing life in a way that's fun and they're not worrying about what others are thinking about their activities.
I have a unicorn cycling jersey that sometimes gets negative comments because how can a 46 year old man wear something like that. My usual response is, my wife and kids like it and I like so why would I spend any time worrying about what you think of it.
Life should be about joy, and we should take every opportunity we can to get some joy in life.
Writers standing out from AI
Tracy makes some suggestions to stand out from AI writing. I use AI as an advanced search for my site and notes, when I know I've written about something but standard search techniques are failing me as I search for it. I use it to find holes in my arguments by asking it what a reader who wanted to find fault would say, and then to help find other supports in my notes that shore up my arguments.
It also does some spelling and grammar checking because I'm bad at that. So bad I once made it in a blog post because Twitter had me ranked as the number one person talking about web desing, not web design. Other people didn't fat finger the word, and I did many times.
So the ideas are mine, and AI helps me refine them and spell the words properly. That doesn't answer the connection issue though.
For that I try to respond to those that email me and respond to people on Mastodon to put in that personal touch and make connection. But of course with enough training and future advancements AI could likely do both of those things credibly enough that no one could tell I stopped engaging.
How do you pick the writers you read and make a connection with them?