2020 Year in Review — Podcasts

January 1, 2021
2 min read

This wasn’t a good year for podcasts. Previously I was listening to them mostly during commute, of which there was almost nothing left in 2020. I had to unsubscribe from a couple of shows, but also found some new ones — mostly in Polish, just to listen to the language. I will mention three podcasts I enjoyed the most this year, but only one of them started in 2020.

Dithering

I like reading and listening to John Gruber and Ben Thompson, so when they announced they are launching a podcast together I immediately signed up. It is the first paid podcast I subscribed to, but I think it is totally worth it, for just $5 a month (or $50 a year, which I paid for after a couple of months in).

The premise is simple, two people you know, talking for 15 minutes three times a week. They mostly take one subject and discuss that, but sometimes they just have fun.

If you want to understand if it is something you would like — listen to the episode of The Talk Show with Ben Thompson as a guest, or they put out snippets on Twitter.

Cortex

I’m listening to this from the start and this year subscribed to the paid version called Moretex, for some extra content. They talk mostly about productivity, but not in a “life hacks” kind of way. The biggest thing I got from this podcast over the years is the concept of Yearly Themes. Instead of New Year’s resolutions you decide on the yearly theme through which you make decisions throughout the year. They even created a journal for that. I recommend listening to the podcast and trying out the Yearly Theme concept.

Zavtracast

My favourite podcast in Russian (one of the three I listen to) and which immediately goes up the queue. Guys have a great chemistry together and a lot of the time their recommendations are in line with mine. They also somehow score amazing guests from time to time, like a guy from Us Two talking about Assemble with Care and Monument Valley.

Bringing Order to Life

June 12, 2019
7 min read

As I’ve mentioned before, after listening to Cortex, I thought a lot about yearly themes. It’s an idea when you choose a theme for the year and try to do most of the things considering that theme. Looking at some aspects of my life I’ve decided that The Year Of Less would be a great start. Removing unnecessary things from life will become a great foundation for the future years.

There is just too much happening and I wanted to make sense of it and try to tame it down a bit. There was one day when I came home and just lied down and felt like my head is going to explode. The next day I’ve decided not to consume any content. Podcasts, Tweets, Instagram, blogs, news. I’ve just listened to the music. I felt much better after just a day. So that’s why I wanted to get some order in all of the content I’m consuming on the daily basis.

The biggest problem is, I’m a completionist and have big FOMO. I know this is the problem, but I don’t know how to tackle it right now. So I’m trying to first do everything I can to manage the amount of content I consume. 

TV shows

I’ve started watching a lot of TV shows. Mostly after I’ve had an operation and had to stay in bed for two weeks, I’ve watched a lot of TV shows. So I have to catch up with those. In the time when the greatest TV shows are made it’s hard to stop watching, everything is just too good. I track episodes of TV shows I’ve watched on MyShows. Right now, I’m watching those that are finished, so the amount of shows goes down. I’m trying not to start new ones, but sometimes I fail.

I’ve been able to change my mindset about that, as I think of this as not a backlog, but just a wishlist – I gather episodes I want to watch and just try to make the best of it.

Social

This one was hard. I’ve been feeling that social networks take up a lot of time and after all those Facebook scandals I’ve removed the app from my phone and almost don’t check it. I don’t miss much.

After iOS 12 came out and thanks to Screen Time I saw how much time I was spending on Twitter – I was shocked to say the least. I’ve immediately removed Twitter and Tweetbot from my phone and didn’t use Twitter for almost two months. I didn’t miss anything. I’ve recently installed Tweetbot back and am trying to make my feed a bit more useful and not so hateful. It’s hard. 

Instagram – that’s a mixed bag. I’ve tried to make sense of my follow list. Fortunately there is mute for posts and stories now, so I use it a lot. I’m trying to keep Instagram as my happy place and not make it a Facebook replacement.

I’m also posting one photo every day for almost a year now. This helps with practicing photography, which I’ve recently picked up as a hobby.

Blogs and News

Some time ago, when Google Reader still was a thing, I subscribed to tens of websites. I’ve had more then 500 unread items at any point in time. And, as with Twitter, I was a completionist. I used RSS reader to look through the titles and save everything that seemed interesting to Pocket. Which means the list of unread items also grew there. So I’ve unsubscribed from all the tech news sites (except of MacStories) and now I’m subscribed only to a couple of blogs, where the amount of articles is low (some of them save new items straight to the Pocket, so I don’t have to manage it in two places. I use IFTTT for that). 

The goal here is to read less, but of higher quality. I realized that in order to improve my own writing skills I need to practice and also read a lot. That’s why I’m looking for blogs that are enjoyable to read.

Podcasts

The one thing I think I got a lot better at are podcasts. I’ve had more than 200 unlistened episodes in Overcast and this number didn’t get any lower over time. So I unsubscribed from a couple of shows, started to triangulate more. Fast forwarded the parts that didn’t interest me. Skipped interviews with people I wasn’t interested in. And started to listen at 2x speed. As a not native English speaker, I’m pretty proud of myself. Although as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve went back to the normal listening speed, now that I’m pretty happy with the amount of shows I’m listening to.

I’m also trying to diversify my listening. There are podcasts in three languages in my list – English, Russian and Polish. I’m also trying to find shows other then tech related.

Photography

I’ve been interested in photography for a long time, but I’ve never had a camera. My parents had simple point and shoot that I’ve used sometimes. The first thing that was close to being my camera was iPhone 4. In combination with Instagram it was my first experience of sharing photos to the world (or probably 10 followers who saw them).

That is why starting with iPhone 6S Plus I’ve always bought the latest iPhones as soon as they came out – this was my main and only camera (or at least that’s how I’ve justified it to my budget).

A couple of months ago I’ve bought myself a real camera – Olympus OM-D Mark 3 and now I try to find every moment to use it and improve my skills. As a novice I take a lot of photos and I’m trying to leave only the best ones. At first I was hesitant to delete a lot of photos, but later I’ve realized – it’s much better if you have just a couple of great photos you can open and look at, than thousands of mediocre ones that you never see.

Games

The biggest time sink for me is FIFA and not even the latest one, but the 18. I’m just playing online World Cup over and over again. I’ve started to limit it (the correct move would be to delete it, but sometimes it’s nice to have such a mindless game to distract myself). Lately I’ve been playing more interesting games, like Read Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Games you can enjoy like a great TV show or a movie. Games with the story and with the ending. I’ve finished Spider-Man and got every trophy and I’ve enjoyed it more than a lot of the movies I’ve watched.

Stress

I’m trying to remove stress from my life in a couple of different ways. I’m using to-do and calendar apps more, so I don’t forget something and don’t stress out about remembering all of the time. 

I’m also more mindful, I’m trying to notice when I’m mad or irritated and analyze – what is the reason and what can I do in the future to avoid that. This is very slow process, but it’s enjoyable. Through such thoughts I feel like I’m learning more about myself and already making a change in my temper.

Overall, looking at the year I’m having so far, I’m satisfied how it’s going. I’m reducing the noise all over the place and I’m adding only those things I really care about. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but I have another half a year to work with.

The Year of Less

May 30, 2019
3 min read

I’ve had a moment recently when I realized that there is too much stuff going on and I can’t keep up with everything. For example, when I was studying I’ve had a lot more free time, commuting took a lot more, so I’ve started listening to a lot of podcasts, following a lot of people on Twitter and Instagram, reading a lot of news (mostly tech related) and saving a lot of articles to the Pocket, watching all the most popular TV shows. This was fine, until I’ve had full-time job and a serious relationship.

One of the biggest problems was – I’ve always been a completionist, so just cutting everything out was hard. So I’ve started bit by bit, for example, I’ve started with podcast episode curation, not unsubscribing from the podcast, but just deleting the episodes that I wasn’t interested in.

I’m much more likely to unsubscribe from someone on Twitter or Instagram. If someone posts too much or I don’t enjoy photos they take, I will unsubscribe, regardless of our relationship. I also use Mute function on both social media. I’ve muted everything related to Trump on Twitter – it’s just too much negativity, without any upside.

I’ve accepted the fact that I won’t be able to watch every episode of every TV show in a timely manner, so I’ve picked some favorites that I watch when they get out (mostly to avoid spoilers) and I try to watch TV shows that were discontinued first, so the number of shows I watch decrease.

I’m also realizing that I won’t able to read and watch everything that I save for later soon, so I just know, that when I have some free time, I can open Pocket and find something to read or watch, I can even choose something appropriate for the amount of time I have free.

All of this, ironically, was inspired by a podcast – Cortex. On this show I’ve heard about a great idea – yearly themes. So I’ve decided to make this one – The Year of Less. I’m going further now and cleaning up the physical and digital mess I’ve made over the years. I’m going through my password manager and deleting accounts on sites I’ve used ones or don’t even remember exist. I’m going through the apps on my phone and deleting those that I’ve never used and probably will never use. I’m also thinking about places where I put my files, most importantly photos – I’ve deleted them from a couple of services, including Google Photos.

What started as an attempt to leave a more healthy life, psychologically, ended up being a pretty major change in my life and my thinking. I feel like this theme will be the one I’ll focus more in future posts.