Quick update from me!
I’ve not got a big thesis or a grand narrative this time round, just a few things I’ve been up to since March.
Planting the Garden
I mentioned in my last ramble that I wanted a place for all those smaller ideas that don’t warrant a full blog post. Well, I went and built it: a garden section on the site.
I had all these little seedlings rattling around in my notes - recommendations, half-formed opinions, lists of things I like - and they were just sitting there doing nothing and filling up my backlog. The garden gives them somewhere to live and breathe without the pressure of being a Proper Post™.
Some of them might grow into full blog posts eventually, some are just a paragraph that I wanted to get out of my head. Some are literally just an excuse to show a photo I took, or a link I can reference and send to someone on a topic in Slack DM.
All ideas are valid in the garden.
It’s been surprisingly satisfying for such a simple idea, scratching that itch of wanting to write something down without building an entire blog post around it.
I’m trying to punch through that overthinking trap and just “Get Stuff Done” and this makes it super easy.
Claude Skills as a Blog Editor
Ah yes, the innevitable mention of GenAI in any blog post made from 2025 onwards…
I’ve been experimenting with using Claude Code’s Skills feature to help with the blogging process. Specifically, I’ve set up a couple of custom skills that act as editorial reviewers for my posts - one for technical content and one for personal/non-tech posts.
I’ve already used it to review one of my recent posts, and it was worked suprisngly well. It caught some silly mistakes I’d missed, but also gave some more thoughtful structural feedback that made me reconsider how I’d framed a few sections. You can see the actual PR where I applied the feedback if you’re curious.
A little preview taster of the skills - going to blog more about them later!
Bundling everything up as a skill within the blog, with all the context, intent and abilitiy to look at previous blog posts is what really pushed this from my experience with trying to just clumsily paste blogs into ChatGPT and see what it said.
Also, to avoid the issues I had with sapping the fun and creative part of AI when blogging, using it as a proofreader and editor feels very different from using it as a writer. A second pair of eyes seems like the best way to make sure the voice is still mine, but still getting a nudge on the bits where I’ve been sloppy or unclear.
It’s early days so far, but it feels like a much healthier use of the tools than the GenAI scope-creep spiral I fell into back in February.
Touching Grass and Catching Big Fish
Honestly? I’ve not got much else to blog about because I’ve been “touching grass” a whole lot more. And that’s a good thing!
Getting back into reading for pleasure, mental health walks, watching movies, thinking about things outside of the tech and doomscroll bubble.
David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity has been an example of the sort of shorter, more personal books that have really helped.
It’s a bunch of short paragraphs about his craft, his motivations and the people he’s worked with. I was stuck on a train, I’d brought it along with me, train got delayed, finished it in an hour!
Was a nice warm feeling on a morning commute, and it helped me cross off something from my pile of shame, so was a nice double-dip of dopamine bursts.
Plus I’m a big softie and the final page was this:
He got me hook, line, and sinker on that.
Like a fish one could say!
That’s It, Really
Told you it was a quick one….
Garden’s growing, AI’s editing, grass is being touched, books are being read, brain is getting nourished.
See you in the next one!