The Year of Setup

January 27, 2021
2 min read

For the last couple of years I try to create a theme for the year and most importantly stick to it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always go as planned, especially last year, because of the pandemic. In the middle of the year I had a pretty bad burnout, which made me more mindful about the things I do and inspired for a theme for this year.

I want to rethink everything I do. 2021 will be the year I gather data about myself and build the foundation for the future growth. It is maybe a bit late for a foundation as I turned 30 last year, but I compare it to the moment when a start-up becomes a grown-up company — you make procedures, create culture and become more organised.

At first, it felt more like a half-year theme, but now I think there is not much time even in one year to go over everything.

And I mean everything — how I track financials, what apps I use for to-do’s, notes, writing. What hobbies I have. How I use the Internet. What apps are installed on my phone, iPad. What hardware I use. How I keep track of movies, books, music. How I spend my time.

We are also moving to a new house, so there will be a lot of setup there.

I actually started with one thing last year — time tracking. It is an amazing thing. After less than a month I saw how I actually spend my time at work and I made some changes — automating some tasks and delegating other.

What mindfulness has to do with it? I realised that over the years I start using things just because someone recommends, or they are new. I don’t think about how it is different from what I use now, or how it integrates into my process. I think that is one of the reasons why I don’t stick with to-do apps for more than a week. So, what I want to do is to find a perfect tool for every thing I do. It can be not the most popular or hip at the moment, but it will be a tool I like and enjoy using.

I hope that after a Year of Setup I will be able to branch out next year to some new things.

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.