This reframe has made me take the time to share compliments more often with friends, colleagues, shopkeepers, the person who always has a cheery smile in the morning, the person who organised the event, my kids, my wife, and pretty much everyone. And life seems a better place. Do it!
Compliments are gifts - not sharing one is like keeping a gift in your pocket: with one person complimenting another and it feeling like receiving a gift
Compliments Are Gifts is a lovely metaphor for making the world brighter.
Though I've lost where, I once read:
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it” - William Arthur Ward
Pyrrhic victory: a victory so costly that it feels almost like a defeat.
Pyrrhic saving: spending more to save money you wouldn’t otherwise have spent.
This week’s podcast: Antipodes — points on the opposite side of the Earth.
Along the way, hear about:
- The deepest hole ever dug
- Which countries have antipodes you can visit, and why most places don’t
- Why Earth isn’t perfectly spherical
On podcast platforms or here: youtu.be/rRQvZI9EPRo
Volcanic eruptions are both awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time. They all seem enormous, but some are much more enormous than others. Here’s the scale used to measure them — from gentle lava flows to planet-altering explosions.
It struck me recently that talking with/to an AI is often just very effective rubberducking.
I explain why in the latest paid subscribers post on Substack:
open.substack.com/pub/sketchpl...
Everyday life sketch created for the VERDI project which is developing learning resources for everyday mathematics, particularly for people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) irimad.com/verdi-prosje...
Mathematics is vital to making everyday life a little easier, fairer, and more enjoyable.
I was surprised when I thought about all the times that knowing maths helps us in our everyday lives. I'm sure you can think of many more.
Wait, the closer you look, the longer it gets??
New episode on the Coastline Paradox this week. On podcast apps and here:
youtu.be/DP2ZOeMuMR4?...
When everyone is trying to get rich in the sensational way, the people who reliably do well are those who sell to the people trying to get rich.
Or maybe I'm just jealous ;o)
Just watching the spectacular and entertaining opening ceremony to the Winter Olympics
In case you were curious about the remarkable flag:
podcast.sketchplanations.com/olympic-flag...
A well-designed classroom can act as the third teacher, shaping behaviour, sparking curiosity, and encouraging exploration.
I once had a mentor who said he could tell how a project was going just by observing the state of the project room—proof that our environments influence more than we realise.
In Reggio Emilia’s approach:
• The first teacher is the parent or classroom teacher.
• The second teacher is the student’s peers.
• The third teacher is the learning environment itself.
The meaning of the third teacher as the environment from Reggio Emilia together with teachers/parents and peers
I love Reggio Emilia’s concept of the environment as the third teacher. This idea works just as well in early childhood education as it does in a primary school classroom—or even an office. A thoughtfully designed environment can support learning, foster good habits, and boost overall wellbeing.
Some writing tips for the web and lists. Not for your novel.
Types of clouds chart showing cloud names, shapes and heights, including cirrus, altostratus, cumulus and stratus, for learning how to identify clouds with pictures.
Know your clouds: How to identify common cloud types
How to identify some common types of clouds.
Mostly it's about shape and height.
Stratus: layers AND Cumulus: heaps
Modify each with the height that you see them and add Cirrus at the very top and you’re a long way already.
Only dead fish go with the flow
A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
James Clear, in his latest 3-2-1 newsletter, may have found for me the source of this “Only dead fish go with the flow”
My previous attribution was “a sign in a pub in Wales” =)
Laplace's Demon
For an all-seeing, all-knowing being, the future is as clear as the past
From Pierre-Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities
The Mercator projection map and its effect on Greenland
Seems like a reasonable time to share our friend Mercator and its effect on Greenland.
Excerpt from Big Ideas Little Pictures
I released some new pieces recently. Something calming and peace-ful to listen to in case, like me, you're in need of it.
You can listen on all platforms and here:
ditto.fm/foundling-re...
Hope you like it!
Never look at dunes in the same way again.
And other fun geography-related sketches.
"Got a pile of books by the bed? Stack of unreads staring at you from the shelves? This is one of my favourite 'when there’s a word for something very specific' cases: tsundoku"
sketchplanations.substack.com/p/tsundoku-a...
Inspiration from the brilliant: @tomgauld.bsky.social
That’s brilliant!
Here’s the one I was shown once:
sketchplanations.com/draw-a-basic...
What is contentment? Happiness, wellbeing and contentment is what you have relative to what you want, from Morgan Housel’s The Art of Spending Money.
Contentment is what you have relative to what you want.
— @morganhousel.bsky.social
From his book The Art of Spending Money
I meant to say, there’s this one for the Southern Hemisphere
sketchplanations.com/use-the-sout...
Plan ahead illustration: A painter with passers-by contemplate the lack of planning ahead on a billboard that says Plan Ahead without the D fitting on.
Plan ahead
Plan ahead and avoid mistakes like this.
Writing a card? Try air-writing first.
'Plan ahead' is also a nice example of a pleonasm.
And I've lost count of how many times I've found this technique useful to draw a bike.
Some thoughts and prompts for goal-setting and reflection at the start of the year.
More about SMART goals in this week's newsletter.
Wishing you a smashing 2026.
Jono
As someone with a background in product development and engineering, I've always cared more about the product than about letting people know that the product exists. But it's an uncomfortable truth that there's no point in having a better product if no one knows about it.
