Things I did today

 I'm heading out of town this morning to visit some friends and won't be back until tomorrow, so I'll be breaking my daily habit of 15 minutes of flute, piano and PT in order to get some things finished before packing and heading out. Technically, I could bring my flute and keyboard with me, but I'm not thinking my friends want to hear some currently mediocre playing at this time!  A shame that I'll be missing the Productivity Workshop as the get together with friends was made before the workshop date was announced, but I'd much rather spend time with good friends than thousands of strangers on Zoom. I'll update on Sunday for both today and tomorrow on days 6 and 7 for the Productivity Challenge. I hope it stops raining so much, so the drive won't be as treacherous, but I'm not holding my breath. Either way, once I'm there I'm certain we'll have a great time!

 It's been interesting tracking the changes of Chat GPT's voice and formatting as time passes. I asked it the same question from my v2 post June 11, 2023, today, January 5th, 2024. Here is its answer: The history of ChatGPT is closely tied to the development of OpenAI's GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) models. Here's a brief overview: 1. GPT-2 (2019): OpenAI introduced GPT-2 as a large-scale language model in 2019. It gained attention for its ability to generate coherent and contextually relevant text across a wide range of topics. Due to concerns about its potential misuse for generating fake news or malicious content, OpenAI initially withheld the full model but later released it to the public. 2. GPT-3 (2020):  OpenAI unveiled GPT-3, the third iteration of their language model, in June 2020. GPT-3 is a massive model with 175 billion parameters, making it one of the largest language models at the time. It demonstrated impressive capabilities in natural langua...

Today's Productivity work: Revisit your top 5 goals, and consider how you would break each one down to 4 quarterly milestones. Finish my current Data Analyst with Power BI skill track at DataCamp Pass the PL-300 exam Continue with daily PT exercises Achieve intermediate level playing for piano Run a 5k Ah, I see I need to adjust already. For example, it isn't going to take a year to finish the Power BI track, and passing the PL-300 exam relates to it. Let's redo the top 5. Become a certified Power BI Data Analyst Have a similar level of fitness as my exercise partner Achieve intermediate level playing for piano Cook through the 4 Hour Chef Go through the Brent Ozar DBA Training courses Those are yearly goals, so I can break them down to quarterly goals. Become a certified Power BI Data Analyst Quarter 1: Finish Power BI Skill Track and do exercises in The Definitive Guide to DAX Quarter 2: Purchase and do practice tests for PL-300 Quarter 3: Sit for PL-300 Quarter 4: Publis...

 Today's Productivity exercise comes from an alleged story of from Warren Buffet's pilot. Buffet instructs him to write a list of his top 25 goals. Figure out your top five. Separate them, and now you've two lists, one with 5 items and one with 20. The goal is to avoid the 20 until the first 5 are finished. That way you're not 5-10% through 24 goals with one goal having 20% completion. Make sure to devote all your energy to the top 5 and avoid at all costs the other 20. How does it work in practice? I have to write down my top 25 goals for 2024. I admit, I feel a little lazy, as I'm not sure I can come up with 25 goals for this year. Guess I'll start: Achieve intermediate level playing for flute Achieve intermediate level playing for piano Join the Piano playing meetup group Join Winds of Change or a community band Play 10 board games Start and finish one campaign board game Pass the PL-300 exam Pass the DP-900 exam Run a 5k Have excellent balance (how do you qu...

 Ali Abdaal's third day of his Productivity Challenge has us writing out a detailed look at where we want to be in 10 years, an exercise he found helpful from Debbie Millman, who has her students create "The 10 Year Plan for a Remarkable Life". Consider where you'll be in 10 years. Envision your life at its best. What does it look like? Write it down in detail. Next, outline your daily routine, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. Take a half an hour and write as much as you'd like to feel that you've gotten a good grasp on what you want.  Sure. In 10 years, I'll be a relaxed hobby-ist. During the workday, I'll continue my career in something data related (DBA, Data Engineer, BI Report Architect, etc.) After work, on the weekends, on vacation, I'll play around with my various hobbies. I might join some musician groups, or I might be a songwriter going to open mic nights. I might work on creating cookbooks or painting or other ...

 Ali Abdaal sent an email about his 2024 goals, and suggested doing an exercise to consider what goals you may want to do in the next ten years that, when properly prioritized, could have a head start on what to start with for the new year. His prompt: At some point in the next 10 years… What do you want to learn? What do you want to have? Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What do you want to create? What do you want to contribute to? What do you want to experience? What do you want to see? What do you want to try? So, I'll set a ten minute timer and get to it. The learning question is a rough one because I love learning. I have books on Calculus, Statistics, Music Theory, Cooking, Fitness, etc. But, in the next 10 years? What if I imagine myself in 10 years, getting close to ending my 40s, what kind of person do I want to be, or what do I want to do by then? I'd like to be:  semi-professional proficient in playing piano and flute, creati...

 2024 is off to a good start. I pre-ordered Ali Abdaal's book, "Feel Good Productivity" on a whim last month, and enrolled in his 30 day Productivity Challenge. Today's action is to commit to the program for 30 days. I’m committing to the 30 Day Productivity Challenge! Click here -  https://30dayproductivity.com  - if you want to join me I was successful with 15 minutes of playing piano and playing flute - not as much with the PT, but did manage to do some  PT daily since the 29th, so I think I'll continue on with that idea while I read through the Feel Good Productivity book and participate in the program. Later today, I'll be going for a walk, playing piano, flute, doing my PT exercises, writing up a yearly review and playing a board game. Plenty of time for all those things, seeing as it isn't even lunch yet!