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.