Steve Ledlow
IT Director
Welcome to the eleventh edition of Async Chats! This letter is all about candid conversations with people like yourself. If you’d like some more context see this letter. Otherwise, let’s get into this.
Steve is a Director in IT. He and his team focus on enterprise data solutions. He was born and raised in Miami and lives in Central Florida now. He has been a remote worker since the start of the pandemic.
Why remote?
Proudly a remote worker since the pandemic, and there’s no going back for me. I had a long commute for the 13 years prior to March 2020, and the mental shift to spending more time with family and not wasting many hours in a car is a huge silver lining for me from this unfortunate set of circumstances that initiated it.
What are your interests outside of work?
My standard bio is “I father. I write. I drink coffee.” That’s the highly distilled version, but it holds very true. I am the proud father of 6 kids and have an amazing wife that supports not only our family’s unique flavor of chaos, but supports my coffee tinkering and passion for design and engineering.
What are some of your favorite digital or physical tools?
Digital: MacBook Pro/iPad Pro and iPhone 13 Mini. Also dig my Kobo Libra H2O e-reader and the family Nintendo Switch. All of those are physical, but I consider them part of my “digital life” more than anything. As far as truly digital tools, I’d say my current jam is a mix of Figma for designing/prototyping, Obsidian and iA Writer for writing and Shortcuts for trying to enhance my workflows without being on the endless productivity hamster wheel.
Physical: A far too large collection of hand tools (some are hand-me-downs from my dad and others I’ve found on the side of the road or purchased). I am a tinkerer by genetics and to a fault, so I like having the right tool to do the job. Outside of that, I enjoy my conical burr coffee grinder, Hairo V60, Fellow matte black EKG kettle and my modded Keychain K6 mechanical keyboard. I also have a pile of awesome books I’m trying to get through that I consider tools.
Do you prefer to work/ communicate asynchronously or synchronously? Why?
While I have refined a set of social and professional skills out of necessity, I’m an introvert in my natural state. Asynchronous communication is something I not only embrace, but am aggressively trying to propagate within my team and company. No matter how large a company or its budgets are, there should be a respect and appreciation for the finite resource of time that every person possesses. To squander that precious resource with wasteful, inefficient and often ineffective synchronous communication practices/culture is a cardinal sin in my book.
Questions of the week:
Based on this edition of The Gray Area.
What is your point of view/ opinion of minimalism?
I’d define minimalism in the most minimal way possible as to not restrict its value:
“Minimalism is the pursuit of less in combination with defining the essential.”
If you eliminate things that are essential to you (in any sense), you’re checking a box but not achieving the goal of “less, but better”.
Distilling belongings, relationships, ideals, emotions, etc. to the essential components that are needed to foster a full and deliberate life that brings joy to yourself and those in your life is the key.
So, I think it’s an amazing way to distill life and the experience of living it.
Can having fewer things allow for a more fulfilling life?
Absolutely. Having fewer things can be manifested in materials goods, obligations/commitments or just less noise when it comes to how one curates what information they consume.
Do you see minimalism affecting things beyond the physical?
Certainly. Someone can limit themselves to very few physical items and still have far too many things to do or people to please, ultimately leading to an unhappy, while traditional, minimalist.
In your opinion, are there any downsides to minimalism?
There’s downsides to almost everything, including minimalism.
The easiest one would be if you eliminate the things in your life that bring you joy and fulfill you, simply in the pursuit of being able to say you have less. It isn’t a mantra of sacrifice, it’s a framework for simplifying the complex consumerism and hustle culture lifestyles we are bombarded with as shining lights of so-called “success”.
What is something few people know about you?
I’ve never seen snow! ❄️ It’s on my list of things to accomplish during year 40.
Anything new or important you’d like to mention to the readers?
I’ve launched my first newsletter called Triangle of the Mind (abbreviated as 📐 of the 🧠). It’s a weekly “3 things” format that I hope adds value to people’s live’s without taking much time as the trade off. You can subscribe or preview it at http://letter.steveledlow.com. All my online efforts can be found at my landing page https://steveledlow.com and to see what I’m up to now, visit my now page at https://steveledlow.com/now.
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