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.

X

January 2, 2018
4 min read

There is no shortage of reviews of the iPhone X, some very traditional (loved how The Verge portrayed Face ID working), some looking in the future, others a bit in the past. Now that I’ve had my iPhone X for almost two months, I have some short thoughts I’ve wanted to share.

When Apple presented the iPhone I didn’t like the notch, I thought the screen was good, not something groundbreaking and liked the camera improvements a lot (designated chip for the photo processing and OIS on both cameras were both great additions). I’ve had my iPhone 7 and was ready to keep it for another year, but I was reading more about it and looking at pictures and videos, so my wife persuaded me to order one. And here I was on day one of the sales with the brand new iPhone X.

I immediately fell in love with the X. First time I’ve set up Face ID, it looked like magic and I’ve had a smile on my face just from unlocking the phone, it still holds up, I think Face ID is great, except in the morning, when it doesn’t recognise my sleepy face. The phone itself, I loved the Plus size phones (it was when Apple introduced big screens, I’ve made a switch back from Android), but the X lies perfectly in the hand and the weight of it, makes it feel substantial and even luxury. I love how black it is, love how the edges look and feel, how it’s less slippery than 7 Plus (I’ve had matte black finish). 

The home indicator is weird for about five minutes, after that it just feels natural, you mostly wish it wasn’t there all the time, gestures are easy to learn and discover. The one thing that is borderline unusable is Control Centre, I think Apple will change the position of it in one of the next versions of iOS, but as of now, I’ve noticed how I almost don’t use the Control Centre anymore.
The screen is gorgeous, you don’t notice the notch while using it, because you mostly look at the centre of the screen, it is considerably worse for video watching than the Plus sized phone, because both choices – embracing the notch or letterboxing the videos don’t look good – one hides some part of the picture and another one makes videos small.

As this new iPhone is all glass, I’m constantly worrying that I might shatter it and got Apple Leather Case as a present, but I still prefer to use it case-less, not only because it feels great in the hand, but because the screen looks better if there is no frame of the case around it. This may sound silly, but the screen just looks better when the iPhone is naked.

When Samsung first introduced the Galaxy S8 and I’ve seen Casey Neistat review of it, I’ve tweeted how iPhone looked dated compared to it. 

iPhone looks dated as fuck, especially in this shot. pic.twitter.com/mdUVGWafRG

Now, with the iPhone X, I think Apple is ahead, the notch is clearly the great idea, considering choices. It looks more like an all-screen front than Samsung and it looks very recognisable, while Samsung looks like a very generic Android phone (thank god there is no space to put Samsung logo on the front of the device anymore).

In my opinion, iPhone X is a great device, showing us where the future of smartphones is heading. It’s very pricey, you can buy a MacBook for the same price, but you’ll just have to consider, how much the phone is worth to you, I think most people use phone considerably more than a laptop nowadays.

500 Words Every Day Challenge: #18 Distractions

September 18, 2014
3 min read

Today I’ve decided to use prompt from 500 Words Every Day Challenge on Lift.do. I’ve been writing at least 500 words for 17 days already and it’s the longest I’ve managed to do that and the theme of todays prompt Distractions – is very important part of this process.

Just now, as I was writing this post, I’ve reached for my phone and started reading Twitter, so it shows, how hard it is to stay focused while writing, but the problem of distractions arises even before you begin typing your first words. You have to choose time and place to write your post. I’m usually planning to write just after lunch. After working all morning, it’s a good way to clear my thoughts and focus on something different and also, if I didn’t have time all day, I still have evening to write something last minute, just before bed. In terms of place, I usually write at coffee shops or at home. It’s easier to focus at coffee shops, since there are less things asking for your attention, but if I’m referencing something a lot, I prefer writing at home, since there is big monitor, which makes working with multiple windows a lot easier.

The biggest distraction for me are messages, Twitter and Pocket queue. First two are on my phone and the last one is on my laptop. When I’m referencing something, it’s hard not to go to Pocket and read something not related, but also very interesting. And I have to stop myself from grabbing my phone and checking Twitter every couple of minutes (it doesn’t help, that I like to read every single tweet). I also like to answer messages right away, so I’m pretty much given up trying to remove this distraction. As I’ve already mentioned, I couldn’t resist checking Twitter even writing post about how bad the distractions are and regarding articles saved in Pocket, this time I’m not distracted by them, because I don’t use the browser writing this post, so it’s harder for me to slip.

I’ve tried to use couple of distraction free text editors on my laptop, but they didn’t stick. The one good application I did like, was Evernote for Windows 8.1. (Metro version). It’s the Evernote client for the tablet side of Windows, but it works great on a laptop, even without touchscreen. It’s the same old Evernote, but it occupies the whole screen. So that’s a plus. Recently, I’ve been writing all those posts in Word. I have Office 365 subscription, I love this version of an office suite, and it saves all my documents to OneDrive, which I now use instead of Dropbox, because of this great integration.

Sometime distractions, even help, when you write your post, then change your attention to Twitter and then return to your post, read it and have some new thoughts, you just have to be aware and don’t make those distractions too long or often. If you are not a heart surgeon, all those messages and notifications car probably wait a couple of minutes. It doesn’t take too long to write 500 words, so try to enjoy yourself. Just figure out, what works for you.