CUIBEEE

This week has been filled with anxiety and struggle, mainly stemming from life.

In Life:

1. I did something very important for my current stage of life: I decided to change cities. Escaping from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou seems to be the slogan of young people today. Middle-aged people don't have the qualifications to escape because they have a family to support. In their lives, the self has become a small part, and they need to consider a family more. The reason for changing cities is simple: I want to settle down. This is something unimaginable for me. Although I haven't formed a family in the traditional sense, I have two cats. One is almost 7 years old, and the other is almost 6 years old. I don't want to continue this nomadic lifestyle because it causes stress for them when they travel. But who would have thought that my wish when I was younger was to wander around the world, work and live in cities I like for a few years, and then move on to the next city until I find the city I love. Imagination is always full, reality is not a bucket of cold water, reality is not a sharp blade, it is sandpaper, slowly grinding away some of the ideals in my heart. In the end, I became the kind of person I used to hate - ordinary. New first-tier cities, third-tier salary levels, approaching first-tier housing prices, this difference exists in all cities in China. I have been weighing it these days, calculating whether the salary difference between living in two cities can be filled by the cost of living. After some calculations, changing cities not only does not increase the weight in my pocket, but also increases my pressure. There was a moment of hesitation, because after I had the intention to leave, life became lovely. We often have this feeling, the most exciting time for something is when we either haven't obtained it or have lost it.
2. I made the decision to leave. The most difficult part of changing cities is packing and moving the cats. Packing and moving tests me, and moving the cats tests the cats. The two cities are more than 1000 kilometers apart. After comparing, I decided to use train transportation, but I still had worries in my heart. A 13-hour journey, plus having to handle the shipment at the station 3 hours in advance, and the time spent on the road. Such a long-distance move is undoubtedly a challenge for them, but flying them is more dangerous, and driving would also require a 14-hour drive without counting rest time. Pet transportation costs are basically over 3500, and I am more worried in the car, where safety cannot be guaranteed. But compared to that, on the train, I can visit the cats during stops, and I can only rely on Gabapentin.
3. Recently, I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by looking for a house. Renting a house in an unfamiliar city still has some information barriers. But my time is tight, I must find a house and move within 20 days.
4. Lost 7 pounds, not sure if it's because of coffee or stress.

In Learning:

1. The asynchronous collaboration model of Zoplay has attracted me, but I haven't practiced this kind of work model in my experience. So I searched for some articles about asynchronous collaboration, and one of them, # What the heck is asynchronous communication anyway?, has benefited me a lot and given me some understanding of the concept, but I'm still not clear about the actual practice. I am more curious about whether this model can be applied to the advertising industry where I work. From a time perspective, it may not be suitable for us, as we mainly focus on timeliness. However, Zoplay's Asynchronous Collaboration Handbook has made me reflect on it to some extent. Among them, there is a section about the axioms of asynchronous collaboration:

   1. All asynchronous collaboration relies on communication tools as the medium for transmitting information. Information is injected by the sender's software and hardware and presented by the receiver's software and hardware.

   2. In asynchronous collaboration, you can send messages at any time, but you cannot control when collaborators will process and reply to the information.

   3. Asynchronous collaborators cannot reply to each other's messages while facing the output of individual business capabilities in terms of production materials.

   And the part about thoughtful feedback resonated with me the most:

   High-quality individual output is the premise of collective business success.

   Even in remote asynchronous collaboration, we cannot discuss specific issues with individuals while facing the output of individual business capabilities such as writing code, designing interfaces, and creating prototypes.

   We should cleverly use the powerful real-time collaboration capabilities of productivity tools to protect creators' blocks of focused time in order to ensure high-quality individual output.

   In order to be exempt from the anxiety of being on standby and responding as soon as possible, we form a collective awareness of conducting collaboration in rhythm with project stages and cycle periods at the macro level, and at the micro level, we establish an async review mechanism that deliberately slows down the rate of communication.

   In an advertising company, collaboration is the most common, so synchronous communication time is greatly increased, and the disadvantages of synchronous communication are as follows:

• Constant interruptions. Research shows that after an interruption, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus on a task, and even when we do, we experience a decrease in productivity. Therefore, a single zoom meeting or Slack message can break up an entire afternoon into two fragments, each too small to do anything substantial.

• Hasty discussions and ill-informed decisions. When we expect an immediate response, there is no time to think through the problem, so we often end up relying on our intuition. While synchronous discussions can lead to faster decision-making, is it the right decision?

• Information silos. Missed a meeting? If you're lucky, your team may have documented their decisions in meeting minutes, but you still don't have the full picture. Too busy with an urgent task to participate in a Slack discussion? If you missed the opportunity to contribute, then an important decision can be made without you.

This often leads to the need for deep thinking and exploration of content. However, most companies now eliminate the position of Account Executive (AE) to save costs, turning it into a combination of account management and strategy. This results in more time spent dealing with clients and less time for thinking about solutions. Just when I have an idea, it is interrupted by a series of meetings. After the meeting, I need more time to get back into the thinking process. The most extreme work experience was when a company had 5 hours of meetings in one day, with 3 separate meetings. This is fatal for a job that requires deep thinking. In order to speed up, it was thought that efficiency could be improved, but in the end, it may result in 80% of an employee's original productivity not being demonstrated. However, I still need to learn more about whether asynchronous work can be practiced in the advertising industry.

Review of Last Week's Plans

1. Added a reading page to the blog I tried, the content can be loaded, but because the third-party API for book covers from Douban couldn't be displayed or downloaded, I removed it for now.
2. Finished reading two books Didn't achieve it, can only continue reading after moving.
3. Adjusted my daily routine This also failed, work and house hunting took up most of the night.
4. Increased physical activity This one did increase.

Plans for Next Week

1. Ideally, I would like to have a job and a house settled within 4 days. If the job cannot be finalized, I still need to find a house.
2. Obtain quarantine certificates for the cats.

Summary:
Life is about constantly letting go, and the answers are never in the present.