Now | February 2025 - Coffee Journeys

This is my “now” page inspired by Derek Sievers. It answers “what I’m doing now?“. My life, projects and priorities. I post an update here every 1-3 months.

What’s up as of February 2025?

The past couple of months have been a whirlwind of family adventures, creative experiments, and personal growth. From enjoying magical Christmas lights at Waddesdon Manor to consolidating my knowledge into a smarter, AI-powered note-taking system, and reflecting on the hidden challenges of management debt, it’s been a time of discovery, learning, and meaningful connections.

Admiring The Light Show at Waddesdon Manor ✨

We recently visited Waddesdon Manor in Aylesbury and had a truly magical experience filled with Christmas enchantment. The beautifully illuminated Manor façade, along with the dazzling Winter Light Trail, created an unforgettable festive atmosphere. The combination of intricate light projections, glowing sculptures, and sparkling pathways made it feel like stepping into a winter wonderland. From the festive aromas of mulled wine to the charming Christmas Fair, every corner of Waddesdon was alive with holiday spirit.

The Christmas Lights Show at Waddesdon Manor is one of the most popular festive attractions in the UK, attracting over 150,000 visitors annually. The event usually takes place from mid-November to early January and showcases enchanting light displays inspired by classic stories and treasures from Waddesdon's collection. Highlights include the Manor's facade transformed by theatrical light projections, a magical Winter Light Trail with interactive features, and more than 100,000 fairy lights decorating the grounds. Visitors can also browse a Christmas Fair with over 80 artisan stalls and admire the lavishly decorated rooms inside the Manor.

Here's what we saw during our visit:

A stunning light projection show on the Manor's South Front inspired by classic stories.
The Winter Light Trail, featuring a tunnel of lights, glowing rose sculptures in the Rose Garden, and aurora-style overhead illuminations.
A festive Christmas Fair filled with artisan stalls offering unique gifts and treats.
Lavishly decorated rooms inside the Manor, each designed with theatrical flair.
Family-friendly art installations at The Stables created by local schoolchildren.

It was a magical day out that perfectly captured the joy and wonder of the holiday season!

Employing AI into my Note-Taking System 🦾

After a conversation with my podcast guest, an old friend Alvin, I worked on an exciting experiment to consolidate all my scattered notes from platforms like Drafts, Evernote, and others into Obsidian, a powerful markdown-based note-taking app. In addition, I established a local instance of Ollama and integrated the Smart Second Brain plugin.

This setup has completely transformed how I interact with my notes, enabling me to communicate directly with them. The experience has been truly revolutionary – Obsidian's backlinking and graph view features make it simple to connect ideas, while the AI integration powered by Ollama ensures privacy and offline functionality. It's like having a personal assistant that comprehends my knowledge base and effortlessly helps me retrieve or generate insights.

Here are some key facts about this setup:

Obsidian stores notes as plain text Markdown files locally, ensuring full control over data and seamless portability.
The Smart Second Brain plugin embeds notes into vectors using a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipeline, enabling context-aware AI responses based on my notes.
Ollama, running locally, provides a secure environment for large language models (LLMs) like Llama 2 or Mistral, ensuring that no sensitive data leaves my device.
This integration allows for tasks like summarizing notes, generating new ideas, extracting insights, and even brainstorming—all without relying on cloud services.

During this experiment, I explored several features:

Consolidated all notes into an Obsidian vault with interconnected backlinks and visualized them using the graph view.
Used the Smart Second Brain plugin to query my notes for summaries and references to original sources.
Leveraged Ollama’s local LLMs for private and efficient AI interactions, such as generating content ideas or extracting key points from documents.
Excluded sensitive files from indexing while maintaining a streamlined workflow.

This new system has not only improved my productivity but also deepened my understanding of how AI can enhance personal knowledge management. It truly feels like having a "second brain" at my fingertips!

Exploring the Concept of the Management Debt

Management debt is a lesser-known but equally critical organizational issue, often overshadowed by discussions about technical debt. It refers to the accumulation of unresolved leadership and team management problems—the organizational equivalent of sweeping issues under the rug, hoping they’ll vanish on their own. Spoiler alert: they won’t.

Here are some common forms of management debt:

People Issues: Unresolved conflicts or interpersonal tensions can fester and create a toxic work environment. It’s like ignoring a small crack in your windshield—over time, it spreads and compromises the entire structure.
Feedback Delays: Postponing one-on-one meetings or delaying performance feedback leaves team members feeling directionless and undervalued. Timely feedback is like oil for an engine—without it, friction builds, and things grind to a halt.
Avoiding Difficult Conversations: Whether it’s addressing poor performance or discussing a failed project, avoiding tough conversations only compounds the problem. Tackling these issues head-on is essential for growth and accountability.
Skill Gaps: When managers lack critical skills like mentoring or coaching, team development stagnates. This is particularly risky in fast-evolving industries like tech, where adaptability is key.
Resisting Change: Clinging to outdated management practices or resisting new methodologies can leave teams ill-prepared to face modern challenges.

The effects of management debt may seem subtle at first but can become devastating over time. It erodes trust, stifles innovation, and often leads to high turnover as employees grow frustrated and seek better opportunities. In my latest episode, I delve into real-world examples of management debt and share practical strategies for identifying and addressing it before it spirals out of control.

#blog

This page is inspired by Derek Sivers “now page” movement.

Updated: 06 Feb 2025