@amit Your work on Micro.threads is amazing!

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Searching for hobbies

Searching for Hobbies

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

It’s very easy to spend time focusing on work. It has a tangible reward - income! It provides an emotional response - we might love it or hate it (or even just feel meh about it). And, for many, it defines who we are.1

I’ve been taking stock, and have realised that I need to add some more variety to my days. I do my work, I look after my kids, and despite us sometimes being ships passing in the night, I share time with my wife. What has gone missing though, is a third interest. What else can I do? How else can I bring some interest, variety and further meaning to my life?

I don’t want to be passing time here on our earth, responsibly moving projects and tasks forward without having some fun and spontaneity along the way.

It’s clear what my answer must be - I need to find some hobbies!

Ideally, these hobbies will stretch me out of my comfort zone. While I have always been enjoyed technology and basketball, I should move outside these domains to see if I can find something else that is fun and different.

I’ve drafted a list of ideas, with ideas ranging from board games to cooking. I plan on experimenting across a range of areas to see if anything grabs me. And because you can’t manage what you don’t measure, I will try to keep a journal in Day One to track any major hobby events and record my thoughts and impressions of things I try.

I hope I find a new and interesting activity to engage with, but even if I don’t, it will be an interesting life experiment.

  1. This concept of work defining who we are is particularly weird. The work we produce is a product, not a state of being. By defining ourselves by our work we are limiting our potential. The work we do should be a combined result of our skills, traits and personality. The work is achieved because of who we are; it is not who we are.

    Have I just buried the lede in this footnote? ↩

A great quote from a post about web bloat:

You know how building wider roads doesn’t improve commute times, as it simply encourages people to drive more? It’s that, but with bytes and bandwidth instead of cars and lanes.

The Bullshit Web

Boojamin.

I’ve bought an annual subscription for WhenWorks. Already today my meeting scheduling has been so much easier. They just need to support UTC dates on their website.

I’ve just updated my /now page.

@smokey I just added your script to my functions.php file. Let’s see if this message reaches you…

@manton Do micro.blog hosted blogs offer ‘pages’ as well, that aren’t specifically a blog? It seems like your page has them - is that standard?

My next adventure in workflow optimisation: I’ve installed SaneBox. I don’t get copious email so not sure I need it, but that’s what trials are for, right?

After hearing from my micro.blog friends, I’ve decided to go ahead and upgrade to the TextExpander subscription service.

Back on board with TextExpander. I’m still running the non-subscription version, and I see no compelling reason to “upgrade”.

✈️ time. From Perth to Canberra. From mild to freezing cold. Here we go!

I have a hip labral injury. Physio and strength conditioning underway; and I’m back at the standing desk.

It’s go time.

This is insightful, and again Jobs was well ahead of the curve. daringfireball.net

I’ve been trialing WhenWorks for scheduling meetings and have been quite impressed. I think I prefer it over Calendly. Now I just need to convince my employer to pay for my subscription.

I’m falling into the trap of spending more time figuring out how best to automate OmniFocus - using Workflow, Drafts, Taskpaper, scripting, etc - than I am spending actually doing the work specified by the OmniFocus tasks.

I’m impressed with my wife’s ability to make this “zombie” birthday cake for our boy’s 7th. It was a hit with all the kids.

I just got my first Internet connected LIFX lightbulbs. I’m addicted. 💡