Update

This blog post is a small update of what I did in the past 5 days.

Perhaps all my posts should be about this?

Nice upgrades to my setup

Switching to AstroVim

I switched from my own flavor of Neovim to LunarVim.

And then, I switched to AstroVim.

In the end, AstroVim is what works the best for me. It’s easy to customize, already working great out of the box (especially with Rust, where LunarVim was really slow).

It took a bit of time to understand how to make modifications (in particular, how to make a terminal open when I press CTRL+J).

But in the end, it was worth it, and I’m satisfied of the result.

(maybe I should add spell checking, now…)

(edit: added the spell checking; I think it was necessary… I can’t believe the amount of spelling mistakes I’m making in such a little amount of lines…)

I think that AstroVim has a lot of good defaults; line numbers are relative, the default theme is okay (even though I like lighter themes, so I changed that.)

Pros:

• Rust is fast
• Easy to install new language servers
• Easy to customize

Cons:

• I feel like a noob, having to install an existing distribution
• Maybe the documentation could be improved a little, because it took me a lot of time to figure out how to install my own plugins and customize it (but I eventually figured out the secret: it’s all lua!)

Adding terminal persistence

I configured VIM to pop open a floating terminal when I press CTRL+J.

The pro: I get a floating terminal The con: this terminal get reset each time I close Vim.

To fix it, I created a new command, that takes the current directory’s name and uses it to create or attach to a tmux session.

It looks like this:

alias dtmux='tmux new-session -A -s $(basename $(pwd))'

Obviously, I used AI to do it because I have AI brain rot now.

I tweaked ToggleTerm (the plugin that provides nice terminals in Neovim) to use this command when creating a new terminal:

require("toggleterm").setup {
  open_mapping = [[<c-j>]],
  insert_mappings = true,
  direction = "float", -- 'vertical' | 'horizontal' | 'tab' | 'float'
  shell = "tmux new-session -A -s $(basename $(pwd))",
}

(I added this in polish.lua)

Overall, I’m excited to be using AstroVim; I feel like I finally found something that fits with my values but could still allow me to be productive.

Work

I got almost nothing done. It’s crazy how hard it is to work when my girl is around.

I think it’s because I’m staying at home; I should find a place where I can work and stick with it.

There is a nice place upstairs in the building, I should go there and stay more often…

But even then… there are meetings there that are disturbing me.

Anyway, I’ll include some strategies here

Do the administrative work in bulk

I have a bunch of Beeminder goals that I have to tend to.

(I consider that administrative work even though it’s sometimes not, like calling my mom or my grandma)

I also have to prepare VISAs, take plane flights, book accommodations, pay rent, etc. …

Instead of doing a little bit everyday, which is disturbing me too much, I decided to just trash some days. Usually, when my Beeminder goals are in the red, it means that it’s time to take a break from “hard work” and instead do some “soft work”.

In these days, I should try and do as much as possible in advance so that I don’t have to get interrupted.

I decided to categorize my days in three types:

Regarding quantities, I think that I should have:

• 1 soft day every week minimum
• 1 off day every week minimum
• 3 hard days per week minimum

That should be enough to get something good going on.

Ideally, I could have 5 hard days per week 🤔.

Anyway!

Being connected

I’ve been using Discord more, and I’ve been more responsive to texts.

I’m continuing to get better; I was like this in the past, really responsive, hard working, getting things done…

But I burned out.

I think my girlfriend really helped me getting better by forcing me to take care of myself, going out…

Turns out, doing dishes can be great for the mind… Who said otherwise didn’t do it enough to get it.

What I want to have done by next update

I want to have:

1. … a working prototype for my $BIG_TECH presentation that’s coming soon
2. … a working presentation for my $BIG_TECH … presentation … that’s coming soon
3. … prepared a nice holiday for my girlfriend and me!

I want to have worked hard, but I’m not sure if I can do it :(