It’s a Death Cab kinda Friday whilst I work 🎶👨‍💻

All I want for Christmas is to hear Mariah Carey’s secret grunge album 🤘

Another week where the work/life balance is slightly out of whack but this should hopefully start to get better now some major works is out of the way. it’s been busy for the whole family in one way or another with a lot going on.

Anyway, what do we want to note down this week?

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• ⌨️ My Keychron K2 HE survey came in and I should hopefully get it around November. Can’t wait!

• 🚂 I had planned to go to Southampton on Saturday, but every train was replaced with a bus service that was twice as long and twice as complicated. It’s such a shame that UK trains in general are bad. But South Western Rail who manage my area are doubly as terrible. Maybe it’s time to look at a second hand car to stretch my wings a little.

• Got my post out about bidding farewell to “Productivity Pron” and just going down my own much more simple path. 1 If you’re in the Apple ecosystem and you haven’t bothered trying the default apps for a while, I encourage you to give it a little test pilot.

• With work/life and balance I’m still trying to practice staying in my lane and not over-extending my responsibilities. It’s hard when you’re a certified people pleaser. I have got the “Subtle art of not giving a fuck” on audiobook.

I did quite like this Sarah Knight video about how to give your fucks as well.

I’m much better now than I was years back at saying no and creating boundaries. I feel like I’m in a good place generally. But I often feel I give of myself professionally at great cost to my personal, in a way that other people don’t seem to 2. I still have a path to walk to nudge that over into my favour. If that makes…any sort of sense? 3

• 🧑‍💻 I’ve never been much of a coder, but I absolutely will be tackling this HTML For People course to see if it helps me tweak the blog a bit.

• 📷 Got another Every 100ths of a Second posted on schedule. Really enjoyed it again but had to rush it slightly just due to how busy I’ve been. I truly enjoy washing my amateur eye over the amazing photos I come across online. Be nice if I could get a bit more balance from Micro.Blog in the submissions, but searching photos here is tough. Unless I directly follow a person already, I’m curating an already curated feed that just doesn’t have much on it at the moment… 4

• 🤳 Not had that much time for my own photography AGAIN! I did take some shots on a walk this morning that I’ll probably post later today or tomorrow. Got a good few articles and videos on iPhone 16 photos/features to digest as well.

🎶 Music

The Cure have released 2 tracks from their album. And they’re SO GOOD. Cannot wait for this.

Pom Pom Squad song Street Fighter is a bop.

Nero’s “Into the unknown” has been giving me energy when I need it.

🎮 Games

🧝‍♀️ Still playing through Zelda : Echos Of Wisdom and really enjoying it. Few other games in the background but this is my primary jam at the moment.

📺 Watching

• 🕵️ Finished Slow Horses. Masterful as always. Just keeps getting better.

• 🦾 Terminator:Zero on Netflix has caught my interest as well. 4 episodes in and I like what they’re doing with the formula.

📕 Reading

• The Mercy Of Gods as an Audiobook.

• The Subtle Art Of Not Giving a Fuck also as an Audiobook

1. “My dear boy. Why don’t you try just writing things down?” ↩

2. And nor should they! this is a “Me” problem with how much of myself I give more than anything. ↩

3. I think I just need to get better at just fucking chilling to be honest. ↩

4. I will concede it’s gotten a bit better recently with frequency. ↩

🍏🎵 Apples 100 best albums list (and mix) are really neat to explore! Finding some stuff I’ve never got around to listening to as well as rediscovering some old favourites

Really fun to poke around and discover.

🎶 And I don’t feel any different…

Well, a new year is here and it’s time to get contemplative about the year that’s passed as well as divine a strategy for the year ahead. A blog without an end of year post is no sort of blog at all right???

The year that’s past

It’s been an odd year as we’ve continued to battle through the pandemic, energy prices, witnessed the breakouts of war and climate change, making for a turmultuous world that’s out of our control on top of the more personal stresses we all deal with as well.

Sadly, I don’t think next year is going to be much easier for a lot of people either. We’ll continue to “roll with the punches” and be charitable to the issues we care about as and when we can.

Work

2022 was my new start career wise. Near the end of 2021 I burned out, took some time off and made some significant changes to my working life. I’ll post about that process soon and put a link to it here.

I’m happy to say this year has been precisely what I needed when I made the decision to downsize my career. I’m in a radically different work environment, I’m part of a great supportive team and I’ve been promoted twice in 12 months. I’m proud of the job I do and I feel privileged to be involved in a job that supports the NHS and its clinicians to provide care and support to the local community.

I feel like my ability to take a step back from work and separate it from my personal life has improved. I’ve always been a perfectionist when it comes to my attitude to work, and it’s taken a conscious effort table to grow my ability to put work in a box at the end of the day and leave it alone. My work is less of what makes up ‘me’ and I’ve recently reached the point where I feel like I can start to discover myself a bit more.

Burnout is no joke, and the effects and recovery are a marathon, not a sprint. Over a year later I still feel like this is early days, and I still struggle with anxiety and stress, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made this year.

Home

Sadly, and the reason this post didn’t go up as early as I anticipated is because we’ve got problems with our home… Namely a leaking roof/chimney that we now need to get sorted. The high winds and heavy rains we’re experiencing year on year as well as having a 100+ year old house are taking their toll.

Let me tell you, having a leak at the time of year, planning festivities as well as dealing with a busy work period isn’t a great deal of fun! Especially when the leak is coming into the kitchen you just had re-done…

This has triggered my anxieties big time. Your home is supposed to be where you feel safe, secure and can re-charge for the day ahead, and when there’s problems at home as well as thinking about work… Well it’s like fighting a battle on two fronts. I’m trying to keep stoic and work through the issues and organise repairs, and I’m well aware there’s much much worse things that people have to deal with, but this boy is this really mentally exhausting and challenging way to begin 2023.

My amazing wife Jenny, and my two boys as always have been incredible throughout and I have to just keep at the front of my mind that these things are fixable…

Health

I’m sure this year I’ve generally become a nicer, less grumpy person to be around, and We’ve just come off the back of a wonderful Christmas that the house problems didn’t manage to dampen.

What I haven’t taken care of in 2022 is my physical health. I’ve let my workout routines fall by the side and I haven’t been watching what I consume at all. This has to be a priority for next year. My keystones have to be

• Getting back into intermittent fasting and HUEL
• Using Apple fitness HIIT/Yoga/Core/Strength training
• Walking and being active on a weekend. I love hiking and I wan’t to plan some nature walks this year.
• Cutting alcohol intake
• Prioritising my mental health as well as my physical health

There’s nothing complicated about this. It’s just willpower and making it a priority. I’m of an age now where this is becoming more important, so I have to make it a priority. Physical health is most definitely a much needed touchstone towards improving my mental health and working towards everything else I want to achieve in 2023 as well.

Hobbies

Take Photos! Having just got my son a SLR for Christmas, I’d love to make more time for photography myself. Especially as we have a trip to Japan we’ve planning for in August. I didn’t take nearly enough photos over the past two years, and I need to flex my creative muscles a bit more.

Travel One of the things we did during lockdown was discover a lot of travel Youtubers, and a lot of these were based around Japan. I’ve always had a fascination with the country so we’ve decided to go all out before the kids get too old to want to go on holiday with us anymore. I do plan to do some micro/weekend trips around the UK as well. COVID is still very much here, but as things have opened up more I’m excited in expanding my knowledge with travel. I’d also like to travel up North and visit old friends if I get the chance.

Writing! I enjoy long form writing like this. I’ve had my micro.blog for years now but have been inconsistent about uploading. I want to find the time this year to write for me.

Health (Again!) I really want to integrate my health wishes as a hobby as well. I want my workout plan to be enjoyable. Not something I feel is a chore. I really do enjoy Yoga and love what it does for my sense of self. I want to cycle in the summer, I want to hike through the beautiful county where I live.

I did take the time this year to learn how to touch type correctly. I was a very (very) fast two finger pecker for most of my life, and I’ve now learned the correct way to type, and my speeds are coming up to the level of my old undisciplined typing.

I cannot reccomend Typing Club enough for this purpose.

2023 Davey Awards in no particular order

Best new Album 🎶

[Get In Losers, We’re Going To Eternal Damnation By Forests] (https://music.apple.com/gb/album/get-in-losers-were-going-to-eternal-damnation/1621418102)

Runners Up
Disco 4 Part II By HEALTH
Stumpwork by Dry Cleaning

Best Game I Played This Year 🎮

Ghostwire Tokyo

Runners Up
Vampire Survivors
Kirby And The Forgotten Land

TV Shows 📺

What can I say. All three are Apple TV bangers!
Severance

Runners Up

Slow Horses
Bad Sisters