A Room of My Own

What My 2025 Journal Taught Me

2026-03-09T20:41:05Z

Last week I exported my entire Day One journal for 2025 (just the text file) and ran it through ChatGPT, mostly out of curiosity.

None of the conclusions were surprising and I could have (and probably did) come to most of them myself. However, it was nice seeing them written out clearly. It was also nice being able to ask follow-up questions, dig a bit deeper into the patterns, and even read some of the insights out loud to my husband.

But seeing it all laid out clearly made a few lessons impossible to ignore.

The Happiest Moments Are Simple (duh!)

When I looked at the entries where I sounded the most content, they all had the same ingredients.

Just simple things:

swimming in the sea
sitting on the beach
walking outside
quiet mornings with coffee
reading
time with my children
small family adventures or road trips

Those entries have a noticeably calmer tone (according to ChatGPT).

It’s a good reminder that the things that regulate me best are actually low-stimulus and simple.

Just being outside and present.

Complexity Drains Me Faster Than I Think (duh!)

Another pattern that appeared again and again in my journal: frustration with complexity and that is small, everyday complexity:

logistics
planning
organising systems
digital tools
social expectations
managing other people’s behaviour

I often catch myself mid-entry realising I’m spending time optimising systems instead of actually living (which i discover over and over, in my journaling and on this blog)

It’s funny because my brain loves building systems (just look at these entries).
But my journal makes it clear they don’t actually make me happier.

I’m Becoming More Aware of Time

One theme runs through almost the entire year: awareness of time passing.

I write about:

my son growing up
noticing my daughter becoming her own person
reflections on aging
wanting to live more fully
frustration about wasting time

More than anything, 2025 feels like a year where I started asking myself (although probably not just 2025 and what am I going to do about it):

Am I actually living the life I want, or just organising it?

My Kids Are the Center of My Story

If there is one clear emotional anchor in my journal, it’s my relationship with my children.

Many of the most meaningful entries revolve around them:

teaching them how to swim in open water
lunch dates with one or both of them
watching them grow more independent
their humour and imagination
small family moments

Even tiny everyday experiences become meaningful when I write about them.

Reading the year back made me realise that parenthood isn’t just part of my life - it’s the emotional core of it.

Travel Brings Me Back to Myself

Another thing that stood out: my tone changes when I travel.

Camping trips.
Road trips.
Travelling back to my home country
Visiting other countries

During those entries I sound more reflective, more observant, and more alive.

Again, duh!

Two Sides of My Personality

My journal also shows a constant push and pull between two sides of myself.

One side is the project manager (at home and at work):

systems
organisation
productivity
digital structure

The other side is the observer and writer:

journaling
reading
writing
noticing small moments
reflecting on life

When the organisational side takes over too much, I start to feel off balance.

My happiest entries happen when structure supports reflection, not when structure replaces it.

One Habit That Changes Everything

One of the clearest patterns in the entire journal actually surprised me.

The strongest predictor of whether my day felt good or bad wasn’t work, productivity, or even journaling.

It was movement.

Especially walking.

On days where I walk, swim, or do yoga, the tone of the entry is noticeably calmer and clearer (again, according to ChatGPT)

On days where I stay indoors on the computer (especially if I end up working from home), I’m far more likely to spiral into overthinking.

Even better is when three things happen together:

movement (walking/yoga)
being outside
low pressure (no digital tasks)

When those align, everything seems to reset.

The Lesson of the Year

Looking across all the entries, one theme keeps appearing.

The life I seem to want most is actually very simple.

It looks something like this:

quiet mornings with coffee and reading

daily movement outside

meaningful work, but not obsessive productivity

small adventures with the kids

travel (and this includes locally) when possible

writing as a natural outlet

And I didn’t need ChatGPT to tell me this, though. I already know it, and yet I keep creating complexity (wanting to control) where my life clearly works better with simplicity (letting go of control).

So summed up, the lesson of 2025 is this:

Not how to improve my systems. But how to protect the breathing room that makes life feel like living.

I only have to make sure I do.

The Journal Project I Can’t Quit

The Art of Organizing (Things That Don’t Need to Be Organized)

Do Fewer Things, Do Them Well

The Cost of Organizing Ideas – But I Keep Doing It Anyway

A Journey Through Journaling, Tracking and Memories with Day One

Committing to the Thinking Life

Why I Stopped Writing Weekly Notes

2026-03-02T17:06:46Z

I really enjoy reading weekly notes on other people’s blogs. There are several that I follow who do this regularly. I’ve always thought it would be such a cool thing to have - a space to explore my thoughts, things that happened, links I found interesting, or articles I read. So this year, on 01 Jan, I decided I would do it too.

I kept it up for exactly six weeks.

But after I wrote my latest post, Living Over Documenting, I realized something about my weekly notes.

They take more time than I’d like. If they’re public, they need to be curated. They’re more moderated than if I were writing just for myself, or for whoever might read my diary/digital log years from now. Even when I try to keep them simple, it still takes at least 45 minutes to publish. And then it started feeling like a burden on Monday to keep up with it.

Of course, I didn’t want to miss a week. I liked starting with “Week 1” and the date and then continuing. I didn’t want to break the sequence. But I was heavily editing what went on there. There were things I wanted to capture that just weren’t right for a public blog, or would have taken too long to explain if someone was reading and didn’t understand the context.

In other words, it got too complicated.

But I did like the idea of having a 52-week record of my year. As I wrote in my memory-keeping post, I still want some kind of artifact that documents the year. As I wrote in that post, I used to go pretty crazy with it - big photo books documenting every single detail of my (or more likely, my kids lives). That also used to take a lot of time (which I no longer want to spend).

What I’d love instead is something that captures the main points of each year, it’s 52 weeks. Something I can later drop into ChatGPT or another AI and query. For example: give me all our trips this year, big or small. Or list the events. Then I can pull that into a family photo book with just a few selected photos.

So I am continuing weekly notes, just in private.

Writing privately means I can include names, dates, addresses, locations, whatever I want, without curating or editing so much.

The concept of weekly notes is still a really good one.

I admire people who share theirs publicly and make them personal. I enjoy reading them. It’s just not me.

RELATED

I Choose Living Over Documenting

My Photo Management and Memory Keeping Workflow

On the Compulsion to Record

I Choose Living Over Documenting

2026-02-11T09:20:05Z

Over the past few weeks, I had a growing feeling that my life has (once again! unfortunately, this is not the first time) become… busy in a very specific way. Not busy with people or experiences or even work, but busy with tools. With systems. With capturing, tracking, logging, and organising.

At some point, and this keeps happening, I start living inside my artifacts.

It doesn’t happen all at once. It creeps in slowly - every new app, every new method, idea, process… disguised as something fun and even productive. I capture thoughts in Day One. I open monthly notes in Bear. Then weekly notes (that become blog posts). Then I add a monthly recap. Then trackers - books, movies, mood, walking, yoga, food.

The purpose is, I tell myself, to consolidate. Reflect. Optimise. Learn something profound about myself, I guess. But most of it was probably because I can, because it gives me a sense of control, like tidying up and minimising my house when my work and life get too busy and too frantic.

The moment of clarity came last week.

I’d just finished my January monthly recap that I added to my monthly Bear notes, a system I am trialling. I’d written it carefully, linked all my blog posts to it, and spent a good 45 minutes on it. And then Bear didn’t sync due to some Bear Web glitch. The whole thing disappeared.

My first reaction was annoyance as I was getting ready to write it all again. And then clarity. I realised I didn’t actually want to do it again. Or even recover it. In fact, I didn’t want to be doing it at all.

I deleted the monthly recaps.

I kept a very simple monthly note, but that may go as well if it doesn’t prove to be useful.

I’m stopping movie tracking entirely. I’ll keep book tracking, but only because that’s where I consolidate notes and highlights, and I like having it in one place.

I still journal in Day One, and my blog will remain my creative outlet - writing when I want to write, not because I put any pressure on myself to write.

And I’m done trying to tie it all together into some grand, optimised life dashboard.

What I really want is to come home and do nothing. Or go for a walk. Or do something small with the kids. Yesterday I went for a walk at lunchtime without my headphones and realised how rare it’s become to just be out of my head. Not recording my thoughts into an app (it’s such a cool app, though; I will share more about it soon).

But that’s the part that’s been bothering me the most - how much time I’ve spent thinking about and analyzing my life instead of living it.

I even caught myself halfway through justifying a new laptop purchase, as if the answer to anything was more tech. I don’t need a new MacBook. I don’t need better tools. I need fewer of them.

So here are some notes to self.

I choose

living over documenting.
to focus on work while I’m at work.
to focus on my kids and my life when I’m not.
presence over optimisation.
tools that support me while I live my life.
to finish things, let things go, and stop carrying half-alive projects in my head.

A Note on Blogging Anonymously

2026-02-04T11:19:38Z

This blog is anonymous. I wrote a bit about that in my blogging journey, how I made the mistake of announcing my first blog to all my friends and family then got self-conscious, and how that really stifled what I wanted to write about. I wrote about it in more detail in another post, but the simple version is this: this space is mine, a Room of My Own.

Blogging felt like it belonged to a privileged few (a leftover belief from the early 2000s - I binged on those blogs like no other), and it wasn’t until Facebook that writing in public under my own name felt accessible.

I also believed continuation had to be earned - that validation or “success” would give me permission to keep going.

That whole thing around visibility and validation is captured so well in this quote from Baby Reindeer

…because… because fame encompasses judgment, right?

And I… I feared judgment my entire life.

That’s why I wanted fame, because when you’re famous, people see you as that, famous.

They’re not thinking all the other things that I’m scared they’re thinking. Like, “That guy’s a loser or a drip or a fucking fa*ggot.” They think, “It’s the guy from that thing.” “It’s the funny guy.”

And I wanted so badly to be the funny guy.

“Why keep your blog anonymous, why not just journal then?” someone asked me after we emailed about one of my blog posts. And although I do journal privately, writing publicly (even anonymously) does something different. When I know someone might read what I’m saying, I have to distil the idea. Have some clarity. I try to focus. And sometimes what I write resonates with someone else, and we exchange ideas.

Over the last few years, and through my blogging struggle (I hate that it was a struggle: start, stop, change domains, shut down, start again), I’ve also realised that what I want to write about here isn’t something I know many people in real life are interested in.

And even when I do try to have those conversations, I don’t really get anywhere in depth. It almost feels like there’s no real interest in topics that are admittedly a bit niche: do I put my notes in Obsidian or Bear? Where do admin notes live? How do I track the books I read? Or my thoughts on success, scarcity, work, life, and all that.

There are probably people in real life who are interested in productivity and examining life this way, but maybe, like me, they keep the details to themselves.

People love discussing it at a high level, but I want details: where do you put your meeting notes? How do you track your to-dos, personal vs team vs project? Every now and then, I meet someone at work who enthusiastically walks me through their system, how they streamline OneNote with Teams and Outlook (all of which I also use at work). I love picking up little bits and pieces.

And on that note, I secretly admire people who don’t care about any of this and just… get on with it somehow.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t necessarily need people who know me to know what I think about certain topics. Some things just aren’t for your professional life. For me, there’s a clear separation between work and life, and I like to keep it that way. Even though I do make friends at work, as I wrote about in (my very first!) blog post What Happens When Your 9–5 Defines You I still want a professional boundary between what I say here and who I am at work.

I want the freedom to write whatever I want, without worrying whether it’s work-appropriate.

If I want to write about weight loss, menopause, or something else like that, I don’t need everyone (not that everyone would be reading it, but it would feel that way to me) at work or my “real” life knowing about it. If I want to write about relationships, I haven’t really, so far, but I want that option, without wondering who might read it.

My blog has mostly been about my favourite topic in the world: obsessing over tools - how I use them, why I use them - and optimising processes, alongside examining the life topics I tend to fixate on. I want this blog to be a mix of everything I am.

Maybe if I wasn’t working, I’d feel comfortable opening it up at this point. But I haven’t told anyone about this blog at all. And if someone ever read it and worked out it was me, fine. But that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

I know a lot of people use their blog as a professional CV. In some ways, I wish I could do that. I even had a domain with my full name, which has just expired. But I don’t think I’d ever be comfortable with it, and I don’t really need a static personal site. I have LinkedIn for that, and, I suppose, I’m quite Gen X in that way.

What I do want is a blog. Something I can be prolific on, or not, as much as I want. And that freedom, that anonymity, is what makes it possible for me.

On Leaving, Starting Over, and Not Living in Fear

2026-01-29T23:20:00Z

When Your World Feels Small, Walk Away

When I recorded my message for my son’s 16th birthday, (family from all over the world sent short messages, memories, and bits of advice) I surprised myself with what came out. My advice wasn’t about happiness, success, working hard.

It was this: if your world ever starts to feel small, boxed in by a job, a situation, or a relationship - remember that walking away and starting over is always an option. Your world doesn’t have to stay small.

Basically, my advice was to live and to live free.

That came after telling him to take care of family relationships, because in the end, family is what stays. I’ve lived in different countries, moved for work, built and rebuilt communities, and started over more times than I can count.

And yet, the thing I didn’t always do well was letting go. I stayed too long in situations because I was afraid of change, even when walking away would have been kinder to myself.

There’s a fine line between quitting and knowing when you need a change.

I know it’s almost a cliché now, but many years ago I attended a work training called Who Moved My Cheese. It happened, coincidentally, just a few months before a really stressful situation where we had no choice but to accept change…or perish. I’ll always be grateful to that trainer for preparing me to be Sniff and Scurry… well, maybe Haw.

Not everyone has the same choices, of course, and I only have my own experience to draw from. But I do believe that simplicity helps. When you don’t need much, when you don’t build a life that traps you, you keep your freedom.

That’s what I want him to know: protect your family relationships, live simply, and never forget that you can choose a different life.

I told him not to live in fear.

Life is big. The world is large. And sometimes the bravest, healthiest thing you can do is to walk away and start again, even if that means leaving everything behind.

I wanted him to know that no place, no group, no situation has to be forever if it stops being right for him.

The simplicity (I value it, I strive for it) is another form of freedom. When we release the “connoisseur lifestyle” and shed unnecessary attachments, we create space for what truly matters. We live at the Level of F…. you. I love being there.

As I was saying this to him, I was reminded of something I said to my daughter several years ago.

She must have been six or seven at the time. She was stuck in a painful little triangle of a friendship. Three girls, one of them passive, the other two (my daughter being one of them) competing to dominate over her. My daughter came home in tears more than once, confused and hurt and trying to work out what she’d done wrong.

It was painfully familiar. I had lived that exact dynamic as a child. I remembered my own mother sitting with me, trying to help me come up with plans to fix it, to say the right thing, to stay in it and make it work. I never really escaped my triangle, and it followed me through much of primary school (that’s almost eight years of suffering!)

So this time, I said something different to my daughter.

I told my daughter that we could analyse it all we liked and come up with strategies, but I wanted to tell her something I wished someone had told me back then.

Move on.

Leave them both to it.

There are billions of people in the world. Don’t get hung up on two who make you unhappy. Let them be. Find someone else in your class. Start again.

I wasn’t sure she’d take it in. But she did.

She made new friends. Three years later and those two girls are an afterthought. Watching her do that, so simply and without drama was … healing.

I think what traps us, as children and as adults, is a kind of scarcity thinking. We believe this is it. These are the only people. This is the only place. If we leave, we’ll lose everything.

But the world is not small, even when our corner of it feels that way. Walking away isn’t failure. It isn’t giving up. Sometimes it’s choosing yourself.

This applies to friendships, places, jobs, relationships, and entire chapters of life. Not everything needs fixing. Not everything needs endurance. Some things simply need leaving behind.

If there’s one thing I hope my kids carry with them, it’s this: don’t live small out of fear. If something makes your world shrink, you’re allowed to make it big again.

Even if that means walking away.

Reflection

Scarcity thinking keeps us trapped
We cling because we think options are limited
Walking away isn’t failure, it’s choosing yourself/choosing life
This applies to friendships, places, jobs, and whole chapters of life

RELATED:

Living at the Level of F* You

Recognizing the Scarcity Mentality

Don't Become a Connoisseur by JA Westenberg

You’re Always Choosing How You Live

Where Most of My Energy Goes These Days

2026-01-27T19:05:00Z

As I mentioned in my weekly notes from last week, and also in some insights from this week’s note, I noticed how easily I slip into managing everyone’s time and behaviour when I’m physically around (I work from home a lot while the kids are on summer holidays).

It also made me notice, again, where most of my mental energy actually goes outside of work.

One big chunk goes into managing my food and weight.

It genuinely feels like a part-time job some weeks, just thinking about it. I’ve been reflecting on the idea of making clearer rules for myself so I’m not constantly negotiating in my head about what I should or shouldn’t eat.

This quote I once saved from Gretchen Rubin’s book really resonates with me.

“What’s wonderful for me is that in the past, the presence of that ice cream or those Oreos would have been a big distraction. Could I have one, two? One bite, two bites, a tiny bowl, another tiny bowl….and so on. So boring, so draining to battle a craving!

Now that I never eat that stuff, I don’t think about it. It doesn’t tempt me any more than a package of uncooked rice. This means less conflict, because I used to be annoyed when my husband bought ice cream, because while he is a Moderator, I’m not. But now he can buy all the ice cream he wants. Why? I don’t eat sugar!…

One crucial thing to note about cravings is that they grow with the promise of fulfillment.

I eat this way all the time—on vacation, on Christmas Day, on my birthday, at a dinner party at a friend’s house.”

I think she is fully keto or paleo or something which I wouldn’t do but I do agree with the underlying idea of deciding once and removing the ongoing decision fatigue.

Being slightly stricter upfront might actually give me more peace and free up energy.

The second big energy drain is navigating the kids and electronics.

We technically have rules, but rules only matter if they’re enforced, and that’s where things don’t really happen. We all just give in. My son just turned sixteen, and it feels wrong putting consequences in place when he should really be self-regulating.

On some level, I understand that the world has changed and kids live differently now, and that I’m pushing them toward a world that no longer exists; like when I was younger and we played outside and hung out for hours on end (aka a Stranger Things childhood).

Still, I keep coming back to the idea that it’s not just about limiting screen time, but about offering/having high-quality leisure to replace it (as suggested by Cal Newport in his book Digital Minimalism).

To be fair, my son actually does this well with surfing and being outdoors when he has the chance, but it just doesn’t happen as often as I’d (and probably he’d) like.

I had a good, honest conversation with my son about this. I told him that at sixteen, I sometimes feel like my active raising is mostly done and that the choices are increasingly his. He didn’t love how that landed and said it felt like I was giving up on him (which is probably how I sounded - exasperated!). I tend to see him as capable and sensible and assume he shouldn’t need me to impose boundaries anymore, but maybe he really does.

I don’t really have a good answer to any of this yet.

Mostly I’m just noticing where my energy leaks, where I make things harder than they need to be, and where a little more clarity or structure might actually create more freedom. Less negotiating in my head. Fewer battles. More space for the things that actually matter.

More trust.

Trust should be our mantra. It is the secret to the most successful parenting and also the secret to enjoying it. Trust in our child, along with the magic word “wait”, help us to stay our course when friends, family, and unenlightened professionals imply that we’re not doing enough, and/or our child isn’t keeping up. Trust will remind us to let go of personal expectations for our child and to instead recognize and support the expectations she has for herself. Trust, trust, trust. It will never lead us astray.

Janet Lansbury

My Photo Management and Memory Keeping Workflow

2026-01-17T10:40:03Z

Photo management and memory-keeping have been a work in progress for me for a very long time. Honestly, ever since smartphones made it easy to take endless photos, and especially since I had my first child, this has been something of an obsession for me.

My first serious attempt at documenting life was scrapbooking. I went all in. Four massive three-ring binders in a 12x12 format of my pregnancy and my son’s first year of life, documenting absolutely everything. They are huge, heavy, and a bit strange to look at now. I am not particularly artistic, and it shows. But at the time, it felt important. He was not a great sleeper, and I have vivid memories of working on those albums late at night while trying to get him to settle.

Digital memory-keeping came later. Services like Shutterfly, and then Mixbook, completely changed how I approached this. I started creating 12×12 digital photo books, one per year, plus separate books for more significant family trips.

As with scrapbooking, I initially went overboard. Some of those books are absolute monsters. For example, 2012 has four photo books, roughly one every three months, because I could never pare it down and there was also a page limit.

Over time, though, I learned to be more picky about which photos to include. A good example is my daughter’s first-year book. She was born six and a half years after my son, and her book is much more restrained: around 100 pages, easy to leaf through, and one she genuinely loves looking at.

I never went back to redo the older, oversized books and digitize the scrapbook. However, it’s on my to do list. I keep a list of photo books I’d love to make someday, when life is slower. For now, I’m focused on keeping up as I go.

That said, memory-keeping is also something I constantly question. I wonder about the point of making physical photo books, whether anyone really cares, and whether it’s worth the effort. I don’t know anyone in real life who does what I do. And yet, every time I ask my family if I should stop making the photo books, the answer is always no. My kids love them. They are a lot of work, though.

I recently read in The Fun Habit by Mike Rucker something that reinforces what I’ve felt instinctively for years: memories don’t stop mattering once the moment is over. When we intentionally hold on to them, both the good and the hard, they continue to contribute to our well-being long after the fun has passed. Rather than treating experiences as fleeting, Rucker frames remembering as a way of extending their value. By revisiting and reflecting on what we’ve lived through, we give those moments more weight, more meaning, and a longer life.

In that sense, memory-keeping isn’t indulgent or sentimental, it’s a practical habit that helps joy last.

Works for me.

This year, I decided to try something different. Instead of letting everything pile up until the end of the year, I created a recurring monthly photo-management card in Trello. It’s due at the end of each month and has a simple checklist:

Go through all the photos on my phone and sort and delete
Upload that month’s photos and videos to Dropbox, into the relevant monthly folder
Upload the best photos to Mixbook and add anything noteworthy from Day One to complement them
Delete the photos from my phone

The Trello card resets itself once I tick everything off, so the process keeps looping. My hope is that if I stay on top of this monthly, the end of the year will feel manageable instead of overwhelming. I have also started weekly notes on the blog this year. If that sticks, it will help memory keeping as well. We’ll see how it goes.

NOTE: The 2025 photo book is still sitting on my to-do list. All the photos are uploaded to Mixbook, but I still need to actually build the album and weave in little quotes and moments from Day One. I keep snippets of things my kids say there, and they love discovering those tucked into the photo books.

Before I get into the set workflow for 2026, here are a few photos of the photobooks I’ve made so far.

(2018 and 2020 are missing - both years were particularly chaotic, so I didn’t get around to memory-keeping, but they’re on the to-do list too.)

Managing Photographs and Mementos - My Workflow

Tools

iPhone — taking and editing photos
Dropbox — archiving and storage
Day One — daily journaling and memory keeping
Mixbook — digital photo books ⠀

Photos

I edit all photos on the go on my iPhone, deleting as I go.
By the end of each month, I manually upload the edited photos to a designated monthly folder in Dropbox.
I upload the 10-20 of the best photos to Mixbook.
Once the photos are safely in Dropbox, I delete them from my iPhone
I save snippets, screenshots, and things my kids say in Day One for safekeeping.
I use those notes alongside the photos when creating photo books in Mixbook
I create one photo book per year, unless we go on holiday or have a special event - in that case, I make a separate book.

⠀Limits

Aim for no more than 350 photos per year.
Select 10–20 photos per month for Mixbook (more if needed - be flexible).

Note: My iPhone automatically uploads all photos to Dropbox, but this is backup only. I delete those once the edited photos and videos are manually uploaded to their proper folders.

Videos

I keep all videos in one folder per year.
Favourite videos are also saved in Day One.
I plan to eventually create a clearly named “favourites” folder - that’s a future project, not something I worry about now

Letting Go of Old Journals and Mementos

Why Did I Wait So Long to Start Using Day One?

A Journey Through Journaling, Tracking and Memories with Day One

The Journal Project I Can’t Quit

On the Compulsion to Record

My 2026 Direction (Not Goals)

2026-01-12T01:00:56Z

I realised something when I started thinking about my goals for 2026 (as I mentioned I would in my first week notes) - it’s that I don’t really have any.

Not in the way I usually do, anyway. Normally, I like goals. I like SMART goals, systems, structure, clarity, and measurable things. This time, when I genuinely asked myself what I wanted to accomplish this year, nothing specific came up. Apart from losing the three kilos I gained over the last few months, there were no big achievements I wanted to set and measure.

It turns out, I don’t need to do anything this year.

But I want to be.

I want to inhabit my life a little more fully, with a bit more ease and a bit less self-generated pressure.

I think this might be a middle-aged thing. I’m turning forty-nine this year (in May!).

What eventually surfaced for me was a direction rather than goals.

The phrase that resonated with me is “let myself be happier”. I first came across it a long time ago reading an article about The Five Regrets of the Dying. It didn’t resonate at the time at all. I mean, why wouldn’t you let yourself be happier? What kind of weirdness is that?

And yet here I am. I don’t let myself be happier, or even happy, very often. I have a long-standing habit of thinking there’s something else to fix or achieve before I’m allowed to be truly happy. But I do know there isn’t.

So, as I said, instead of goals, I wrote myself a direction and a set of “do less of this” and “do more of that” intentions.

After hours of tweaking, I ended up with a few (4) main areas.

The first is letting myself be content.

Doing less overthinking, less managing everyone, less getting stuck in negative loops or self-imposed rules about how things should be. More fun. More presence. More horizontal relationships instead of always being the responsible one who holds everything together. This one feels deceptively simple and probably the hardest.

The second is moving daily and being kind to my body.

Gentle movement. Daily yoga. Walking. Choosing food that actually supports my energy and how I want to feel. I already know what those foods are. I also had to be honest with myself that there is a weight range where I feel physically better, lighter, more like myself. I don’t love that this is true, especially at this age, when metabolism, lifestyle, and the abundance of food everywhere all make this harder than it used to be. But pretending it doesn’t matter, or that I have to accept weight gain as I age, also doesn’t help.

The third is going with what genuinely feels good in the moment, not what I think should feel good.

Less waiting for the perfect time to enjoy things. More small pleasures now. Taking myself out for walks and coffee. Journaling somewhere I actually enjoy being. Letting myself have solo time without guilt instead of always trying to drag my kids into “adventures” (that may or may not be fun for them) because I hate seeing them glued to screens. More small family trips. More hosting. More bringing people together. And being more intentional about saving for those experiences.

The last piece is staying focused at work and continuing to grow professionally.

Protecting thinking time. Capturing lessons and mistakes so I actually learn from them. Staying sharp and curious. And careful about getting too busy.

It took me much longer than I expected to distill these “goals” into something simple. I had pages of notes, overlapping ideas, and half-formed intentions.

At one point I ran the whole thing past my husband, partly to sanity-check myself and partly because he’s very good at cutting through my overthinking. That conversation helped me shorten and clarify what actually mattered, rather than keeping every idea just because I’d spent time thinking about it (and writing it down).

Interestingly, he didn’t even think I needed the “stay focused at work and keep growing professionally” piece. His view was that I already do that naturally. I kept it in anyway, because I know how easily time (and focus/attention!) gets eaten by noise and busyness if I don’t actively protect them.

At this stage of my life, direction, as opposed to specific goals, feels kinder and more realistic.

If I genuinely let myself be happier (more grateful for what I already have?), not later, not once everything is sorted, but inside ordinary days, that will be enough.

If my energy goes a little more into living and a little less into managing, optimising, and worrying, that will be good enough.

My Actual 2026 Direction (as written in and stored in my Bear Notes)

"Let myself be happier"

A year of trusting the flow of life and choosing what genuinely feels good/fun— physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Let Myself Be Content

Do less:

Less fretting about what the kids are doing or how they “should” spend their time.
Less trying to manage or optimise everyone else.
Less complaining and negative narrative loops.
Less overthinking.
Less self-imposed rules.

Do more:

More separation of tasks and horizontal relationships [[core ideas in The Courage to Be Disliked]]
More fun - do what’s fun, do what I want to do in the moment.
More contentment — being happy with what I already have

Move daily and be kind to my body

Do less:

Eating food that doesn’t make me feel good or support my energy/wellbeing.
Ignoring movement when I’m tired or busy.

Do more:

Daily yoga practice (my year-long commitment) [[Keeping a daily yoga practice for a year]].
Regular walking and gentle movement.
Choosing food that supports how I want to feel (wfpb).

Weight: 65-69 kg range (where I feel my best)

Go with what feels good in the moment

Do less:

Doing what I think I “should” - what others are doing.
Waiting for the perfect moment to enjoy life.

Do more:

Solo time (e.g. coffee by myself in the mornings while writing, walking, solo lunches even)
Remember that what is fun and fullfilling for me doesn’t have to be “productive”.
Small adventures with family or just with Quentin: day trips, weekend road trips.
Hosting gatherings and bringing people together.
More time with Anna while she still wants the time - shared rituals and little traditions.
Beach time
Save intentionally for bigger travel goals.

Focus at work, keep growing professionally

Do less:

Taking work home mentally and physically.

Do more:

Deep focus while working.
Protect daily thinking time
Keep my idea system alive.
Capture lessons learned and mistakes.
Revisit my five-year direction.
Keep learning and staying sharp professionally. [[actions to take from How to Become CEO]]

On the Compulsion to Record

2026-01-09T17:49:00Z

“When I gave such importance to archiving my life, it felt as if I was already dead,” said Karen Kingston, as if the moment we begin prioritising the archive, we step slightly out of life itself. The need to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs.
The compulsion to write every thought down.

These ideas keep circling me.

I came across an Anaïs Nin quote again recently:

“I am lying on a hammock, on the terrace of my room at the Hotel Mirador, the diary open on my knees, the sun shining on the diary, and I have no desire to write. The sun, the leaves, the shade, the warmth, are so alive that they lull the senses, calm the imagination. This is perfection. There is no need to portray, to preserve. It is eternal, it overwhelms you, it is complete.”

Why can’t I, too, feel that there is no need to preserve?
Why does it feel almost impossible to let a moment exist without turning it into words, photos, notes, some kind of proof that it mattered?

Anaïs Nin wrote this long before phones, notes apps, and digital storage, before all that enables us to document our lives as evidence (although I did this compulsively in binders and notebooks before, even as a child; I was cataloguing life).

I don’t only record happy moments. I record feelings. Thoughts. Confusion.

RELATED: My Writing Life so Far

I don’t think this means we should stop writing or remembering. But I do think it asks a difficult question:

When does recording become a way of avoiding presence?
When does organising life become a substitute for living it?

And yet, on the flip side, in The Fun Habit by Mike Rucker, which I read recently, he talks about how memories, both good and bad, continue to shape our wellbeing long after the moment itself has passed. When you have something tangible, like a scrapbook or a journal, you don’t just remember the moment; you get to relive it. There’s real joy in that kind of time travel.

So many of life’s peak moments are brief and surprisingly rare. Reminiscing lets us stretch those moments out far beyond their original window. We all experience this when we catch up with friends we haven’t seen in years, especially when there’s shared history, and suddenly you’re laughing about old stories like no time has passed at all.

Curation plays a role too, says Rucker. Memory keeping isn’t about documenting everything equally; it’s about highlighting the good, and also gently shaping how we hold the harder moments. I try to do this intentionally in my own memory keeping.

That thought gives me comfort, and a bit of reassurance that all this effort isn’t for nothing. It’s helping me carry joy, meaning, and connection forward, not just archive the past.

Maybe the real practice isn’t to give it all up (as I truly love better systems, better archives, better memory-keeping), but knowing when to stop. When to close the journal. When to trust that a moment doesn’t need to be saved to be real. Maybe one day I’ll sit somewhere warm and quiet, and feel, genuinely, that there is no need to portray, to preserve.

Just to be…

RELATED:

Letting Go of Old Journals and Mementos

The Cost of Organizing Ideas – But I Keep Doing It Anyway

The Journal Project I Can’t Quit

Letting Go of the Fear of Losing Data

The Art of Organizing (Things That Don’t Need to Be Organized)

If You Want to Capture Ideas, You Are Lost

You’re Always Choosing How You Live

2026-01-08T22:34:58Z

The Courage to Be Disliked (and Why It’s Shaping My 2026)

I recently finished reading a book that took me a really long time to get through: The Courage to Be Disliked.

I highlight regularly when I read, and this one still stood out for the number of passages I wanted to keep.

The reason it took me so long, though, is the way it’s written, as a dialogue between a student and a philosopher. I found that format a bit hard to follow at times, and it slowed me down. It’s probably much longer than it needs to be.

Still, the gems of Adlerian psychology (its individual psychology and opposition to any kind of dualistic value system that treats the mind as separate from the body) really shine through, distilled for a wider audience and translated into ideas that are easy to follow and relate to. I kept all my highlights, but I’ve also been condensing them into notes so I can easily come back to the ideas that really landed for me. I already know this is a book I’ll revisit (I read it on Kindle, but I also have the physical copy, which I’m eager to highlight with a pen in hand)

Two ideas in particular stood out for me at this stage of my life.

The first is the idea of separation of tasks. The core idea is that most relationship problems come from interfering in other people’s tasks, their thoughts, choices, and responsibilities - or letting them interfere in ours. It sounds simple, but it’s not easy to live out, especially in close relationships.

Right now, I’m really noticing this in my relationship with my teenager and how he chooses to spend his free time. It’s uncomfortable to sit with the boundary between what’s genuinely my responsibility and what actually belongs to him. I can feel how quickly concern turns into control, or how easily care becomes interference. This idea keeps nudging me to step back and ask: whose task is this, really?

I even wrote it down for myself as a note:

His task → How he chooses to spend his free time.
My task → Creating healthy and clear boundaries, consistency, and values/structure in the home.

The second idea that really resonated is building horizontal relationships - relationships where we relate to each other as equals, rather than through hierarchy, control, or superiority. It’s about moving away from power dynamics and toward mutual respect, responsibility, and trust. Not just with friends or colleagues, but in families too.

In relation to my teenager, I am guiding, not controlling.

Together, these two ideas feel quietly radical (even though I think we all intuitively know this is how it should be).

They challenge a lot of the ways we’re taught to manage, fix, and influence the people around us. They ask for more personal responsibility, more emotional maturity, and more trust in others - and in ourselves.

My mum is staying with us at the moment, and I definitely have opinions about how she spends her time (and she has opinions about mine too, although she’s become less judgmental as she’s gotten older). We’ve talked about these ideas from the book, and now when I catch myself wanting to criticise, I’ll say something like: “I want to tell you to go for a walk instead of playing so much mahjong on your phone because you need to stay fit, but that’s your task, not mine.” We usually laugh. But honestly, it’s not easy. I notice older, more mature people often seem much better at this, more accepting of other people’s tasks, and more focused on simply doing their own (and gently guiding).

I wanted to capture these ideas in my notes so I can come back to them regularly.

I think they’re going to shape the direction I’m taking in 2026. Or at least, that’s the hope.

I also sprinkled some quotes from the book throughout.

The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi , Fumitake Koga

Your life is not determined by your past, your trauma, or your emotions. You are always choosing your way of living right now. Change is possible at any moment—but it requires courage.

1. Teleology, Not Trauma

Adlerian psychology rejects the idea that the past causes who you are (etiology).
Instead, it says we act toward goals (teleology).
Emotions like anger, anxiety, or fear are tools we use to achieve goals (e.g., avoiding responsibility, asserting power, not changing).
Past experiences don’t define you; the meaning you give them does.

2. People Don’t Change Because It’s Scary

Personality is a chosen lifestyle, not something fixed.
People say they want to change, but often choose not to because the current way of living is familiar and predictable—even if painful.
Change means uncertainty, criticism, and possible failure.
Unhappiness comes from a lack of courage, not a lack of ability. ⠀

“PHILOSOPHER: Don’t you see? In a word, anger is a tool that can be taken out as needed. It can be put away the moment the phone rings, and pulled out again after one hangs up. The mother isn’t yelling in anger she cannot control. She is simply using the anger to overpower her daughter with a loud voice and thereby assert her opinions.”

3. All Problems Are Interpersonal

Every problem ultimately involves relationships with others.
Feelings of inferiority only exist because we compare ourselves to others.
Superiority complexes (boasting, victimhood, self-pity) are just inverted inferiority.
Life becomes painful when it turns into a competition.

“YOUTH: So I am making up flaws in other people just so that I can avoid my life tasks, and furthermore, so I can avoid interpersonal relationships? And I am running away by thinking of other people as my enemies?

PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Adler called the state of coming up with all manner of pretexts in order to avoid the life tasks the “life-lie.”

4. Stop Competing

Life isn’t about winning or losing.
Healthy inferiority is comparing yourself to your ideal self, not to others.
True freedom comes from withdrawing from comparison altogether.

“PHILOSOPHER: Look, no matter how much you want to be Y, you cannot be reborn as him. You are not Y. It’s okay for you to be you. However, I am not saying it’s fine to be “just as you are.” If you are unable to really feel happy, then it’s clear that things aren’t right just as they are. You’ve got to put one foot in front of the other, and not stop.”

5. Separate Tasks

Most relationship problems come from interfering in other people’s tasks or letting them interfere in yours.
You are responsible for your actions, not how others react.
Let others judge, approve, or dislike you - that’s their task.
Trying to control others (even “for their own good”) is manipulation

“Separating one’s tasks is not an egocentric thing. Intervening in other people’s tasks is essentially an egocentric way of thinking, however. Parents force their children to study; they meddle in their life and marriage choices. That is nothing other than an egocentric way of thinking.”

6. Drop the Need for Recognition

Wanting approval makes you unfree.
Living to meet others’ expectations means living their life, not yours.
Freedom means accepting that some people won’t like you.
Being disliked is not failure—it’s proof you’re living authentically.

“Many people think that the interpersonal relationship cards are held by the other person. That is why they wonder, How does that person feel about me? and end up living in such a way as to satisfy the wishes of other people. But if they can grasp the separation of tasks, they will notice that they are holding all the cards. This is a new way of thinking.”

7. Build Horizontal Relationships

No praising, no rebuking—both are forms of control.
Treat others as equals (“equal but not the same”).
You’re not trying to dominate, impress, win approval, or avoid being judged.
Encouragement replaces judgment.
Gratitude builds connection; praise undermines confidence.

Horizontal relationships support:

Self-acceptance (you don’t need to rank yourself)
Healthy boundaries (not over-responsible for others)
Courage (you act based on values, not fear of judgment)
Real connection (less performance, more authenticity)

“It is fine to just let go of it. Living in fear of one’s relationships falling apart is an unfree way to live, in which one is living for other people.”

8. Self-Acceptance, Not Self-Esteem

You don’t need to “love yourself” or affirm yourself.
Accept what you can’t change; focus on what you can.
Worth comes from feeling useful to others, not from being special.
Contribution, not recognition, is the source of confidence and courage. ⠀

“PHILOSOPHER: You’re wrong. You notice only your shortcomings because you’ve resolved to not start liking yourself. In order to not like yourself, you don’t see your strong points and focus only on your shortcomings. First, understand this point.

YOUTH: I have resolved to not start liking myself?

PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. To you, not liking yourself is a virtue.”

9. Belonging Comes From Contribution

You’re not the center of the world; you’re part of a community.
A sense of belonging is earned by contributing, not demanded.
Shift from self-focus (“How am I seen?”) to social interest (“How can I help?”).

“Do not cling to the small community right in front of you. There will always be more ‘you and I,’ and more ‘everyone,’ and larger communities that exist.”

“It is about having concern for others, building horizontal relationships, and taking the approach of encouragement. All these things connect to the deep life awareness of “I am of use to someone,” and in turn, to your courage to live.”

10. Live in the Here and Now

Life is not a straight line or a story, it’s a series of moments.
Past and future are excuses we use to avoid living fully now.
The greatest life-lie is postponing life.
A life lived earnestly in each moment is already complete.

“PHILOSOPHER: The greatest life-lie of all is to not live here and now. It is to look at the past and the future, cast a dim light on one’s entire life, and believe that one has been able to see something. Until now, you have turned away from the here and now and shone a light only on invented pasts and futures. You have told a great lie to your life, to these irreplaceable moments.”

“As long as we postpone life, we can never go anywhere and will pass our days only one after the next in dull monotony, because we think of here and now as just a preparatory period, as a time for patience. But a “here and now” in which one is studying for an entrance examination in the distant future, for example, is the real thing.”

11. Meaning Is Not Found, It’s Chosen

Life has no inherent meaning.
You give it meaning through contribution to others.
That contribution is the “guiding star” for a free and happy life.

“life in general has no meaning whatsoever. But you can assign meaning to that life. And you are the only one who can assign meaning to your”

Apparently I’ve Been “Interstitial” Journaling All Along

2026-01-06T19:46:00Z

I recently came across a blog post about interstitial journaling.

Interstitial journaling apparently combines notes, to-do and time tracking in one. It’s funny how these things become “all the rage” when someone names them and popularises them, when in reality, many of us who cling to our journals have probably been doing some version of it for years.

I know I have.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a journal; not always in a structured way, but more as a place to talk to myself. I never thought of it as a technique; it was just something I did. I’d jot down the time and date, write about what was happening, berate myself over mistakes, work through challenges, and plan my next steps. It wasn’t about recording my life in a traditional diary sense - it was a way to process things in real-time, to be my own sounding board. Or something to fall back on when things get tough.

That being said, giving something a name can make it more accessible, helping more people discover and benefit from it.

These days, I use Day One for this kind of journaling, especially at work. I keep the web version open throughout the day, using it to vent, clarify my thoughts, and track how I spend my time. It helps me see patterns in my work, keep myself accountable, and avoid the stress of last-minute deadlines.

I also use voice journaling when out and about, when I want to jot down a thought while walking or driving, and then add the transcript to Day One, my single source of truth.

I kind of miss my physical journal because it was always my faithful companion, going everywhere with me. I was always a one-notebook girl, using one notebook for work and personal journaling, to-dos, and everything else until I finished it. At the height of my journaling, and before smartphones, I would go through a notebook in 3–4 months (that’s a project waiting for some free time for me to digitise all those notebooks in Day One and, if I am brave enough, let go of the physical copies that take up a significant part of my wardrobe cupboard).

I tried to revive the physical, take-everywhere-with-me notebook, but while I still journal on paper every now and then and have long writing sessions, lugging a notebook around is no longer conducive to my lifestyle. I am often out and about with only my phone in my pocket and no handbag of any kind. At work, I am in front of my computer and it is just easier to jot things down there. Or dictate on my phone.

But I still do have a small, cute notebook (A5) in my work bag, and it does sit on my desk when I work, because… well… every now and then I need to think on paper.

It turns out I’ve been practicing interstitial journaling all along—I just called it … well.. journaling.

Why Did I Wait So Long to Start Using Day One?

The Journal Project I Can’t Quit

Where I Keep My “Bookmarks”

2026-01-04T18:26:00Z

I recently got an email from a reader my blog (thank you for reading and reaching out!) who asked me how I keep track of my bookmarks. The short answer is: I don’t. Not in the traditional sense. I don’t really “bookmark” anything anymore.

What I actually keep is a pile of short(ish) notes on all sorts of subjects, and those all live in Bear, tagged as topics with relevant nested tags.

RELATED: One Year With Bear

I used to be one of those people who clipped full web articles into Evernote and bookmarked every website I ever liked. Articles, quotes, screenshots, recipes, all of it went in there.

At some point I realised I was hoarding information I’d never look at again, although it is now fun to occasionally find a full article someone once wrote on a blog that’s long gone, still sitting there in my Evernote backup.

These days I keep far less, but even with that shift I still have over 2,000 notes in Bear. They’ve built up over the years: little observations, bits of learning, snippets from books, random thoughts I didn’t want to lose.

How I Organise Things

Everything gets tagged by topic. That’s my whole system.
If something feels worth keeping, I’ll drop it into Bear, tidy it up a little, and add the tag or tags it belongs with. Occasionally I’ll add backlinks to connect related notes, but I don’t force it. Some topics get deep enough that I end up with a dedicated tag I keep adding to until the “obsession” fades.

RELATED: Refuse to Choose: Too Many Interests to Pick Just One?

I’ve tried a bunch of “proper” bookmarking tools over the years. Pocket. Readwise Reader. Raindrop. Also my web browser. Without fail, they all turned into giant holding bins of things I meant to read “one day.”

However, the time to read an article truly is the moment you encounter it or the moment you search for it. Everything else is not relevant now and will probably never be read again. It just adds to mental and digital clutter and overwhelm.

Over the years, I learned to delete everything I saved to read later. And now, even when I still send articles to Readwise Reader, I am 99% sure I’ll end up deleting them later, unread.

Saved links without context just become clutter. If something grabs me enough to keep, I’d rather save the idea in my notes, with the URL for credit.

That works for me because it feels like I’m tending to something, not piling things up. A note has to earn its place. If it’s not worth the small effort of processing and tagging, I probably don’t need it.

That said, I completely understand the appeal to save and bookmark, esp. that tools like Reader or Raindrop make it so easy to do that.

Been there, done that.

Admittedly, I still have a “links” tag as a nested tag under the main #resources tag in Bear, where I save links to websites on various topics that I’d like to explore at some point. There are 38 notes under that tag as of today, and today was the first time I checked it in a year. When I need something or a website to access, I just search it.

What I have instead

I still read a few newsletters that go straight into my Yahoo “Subscribed” folder.

RELATED: Beware of This Online Time Suck (Examine Your Subscriptions)

I also subscribe to a lot of personal blogs like mine via RSS Feeder, and while I don’t read everything all the time, Feeder lets me quickly scan and dip into whatever catches my attention. It feels nice and low-pressure. Take it or leave it. And it’s free. If I read something I want to save, I do it right away by adding it to Bear and processing it there.

RELATED: My Digital Workflow (Jan 2026 Edition)

I think I’ll take some time to round up all my newsletters and my current RSS subscriptions in a blog post. Seeing everything in one place gives it a bit more context and a sense of quantity.

I actively unsubscribe from everything I don’t need or am no longer interested in.

And I don’t “bookmark.” Not really. Not anymore.

Old-School Career Advice That Still Works

2026-01-03T20:12:58Z

Re-Reading How to Become a CEO by Jeffrey J. Fox in 2025

I first read this in 2023 and reviewed it as another second-hand book sale find. I loved it, especially the counterintuitive (and somewhat gendered) advice.

I re-read it in 2025 and found it even more relevant though it’s probably not advice Gen Z would naturally resonate with (and yes, that’s anecdotal and yes, I know I am generalising).

I’m Gen X (Xennial), and I still believe in organisational loyalty (even though I know the reverse isn’t necessarily true), working hard and smart, and a work–life balance that’s a bit more blurred.

The book is structured as a collection of short, direct rules or lessons, each just a page long, based on Fox’s observations of what successful executives actually do differently. It’s not about office politics or luck, but about consistent, visible performance and smart career management.

This little booklet is a real gem. I’m not going to follow all of the advice exactly as my career stands right now, but a lot of it is still highly relevant and genuinely useful.

I read a physical copy, so most of the notes below were taken manually. And while I was writing them out, I was reminded how nice it is to slow down and work through a book this way, rather than relying on Kindle highlights and Readwise, which is what I usually do. (I did check whether anyone had already copied and posted all of the advice before doing this, and I couldn’t find anything).

I’m posting it here because it might be useful for others too.

I’ve added some of my own notes and clearly marked them as mine. Everything else is either quoted or paraphrased directly from the book.

Core themes:

Results over effort: Focus on outcomes, not hours/busy work. Deliver measurable value and make your performance visible.

Professional presence: Look, act, and communicate like an executive before you become one. Credibility and perception matter.

Decision-making: Don’t avoid responsibility. CEOs are decisive and accountable.

Networking and relationships: Build strong relationships up, down, and across the organisation. Learn how to make your boss look good.

Learning and discipline: Constantly learn about the business, finances, and competitors. Read widely, manage your time rigorously, and keep improving.

Integrity and reputation: Be known for reliability, trustworthiness, and discretion.

Fox’s style is blunt, simple, and motivating.

Each rule reads like advice from a seasoned, no- nonsense mentor.

How to Become CEO by Jeffrey J. Fox (1998)

1. Always take the job that offers the most money

So number one, always take the job that offers the most money.

After you’ve decided what you want to do, go to work for the company that offers you the most money.

If you have not decided what kind of career or industry is for you, then take the job that offers the most money. If you’re in a corporation, always take the transfer, promotion or assignment that pays the most money. There are several important reasons why you go for the money. First of all, your benefits, prerequisite bonuses and subsequent raises will be based on your salary.

Second, the higher paid you are, the more visible to the top management you will be. Third, the more money you’re paid, the more contribution will be expected of you. This means you will be given more responsibility, tasks and problems to solve, and a chance to perform is an invitation to success. Fourth, if two people are candidates for a promotion to a job that pays 50,000, one person makes 30k and the other 40k, the higher paid person always gets the job. The higher paid person gets the job regardless of talent, contribution or anything else. Corporations usually take the easy way out, and it is easier to promote the higher paid than the lower.

Finally, in business, money is the scoreboard: the more you make, the better you’re doing. Simple.

🟢My take: This is probably counterintuitive to Gen Z. People sometimes turn down higher-paid jobs because they don’t want the extra responsibility, change of lifestyle and I deeply admire that. Work-life balance seems matters now more than it did in 1998. Still, when I started my first job in 30 years ago at 18, this logic made sense. If you want to climb higher, following the money still stands.

2. Avoid staff jobs, seek line jobs

Line jobs make more money for your corporation. Line jobs bring in money or have a direct relationship with profits and loss.

Line and staff distinction is sometimes blurred in corporations, but line jobs are where the action is, salespeople, sales managers, product managers, plant managers, marketing directors, foremen, supervisors, and general managers. Staff jobs are lawyers, planners, data processing people, research and development scientists, administrators of all types.

I had to look up “Staff" vs “Line” jobs for a clear distinction. Here’s the breakdown:

Line Jobs

Definition: Roles directly responsible for achieving the core objectives of the business (production, sales, service delivery, etc.).
Authority: Line managers have direct authority over subordinates in the chain of command.
Example: In a factory → production supervisors and workers. In a university → lecturers or student-facing staff.

Staff Jobs

Definition: Roles that provide support, advice, or specialist services to help line jobs succeed. They don’t usually have direct authority over operations.
Authority: More advisory than directive — they influence through expertise, not direct command.
Example: HR, legal, finance, IT support. They provide the tools, policies, and support needed for line staff to deliver.

Key Differences

Purpose:
- Line = “do the work that achieves the mission.”
- Staff = “support the line so they can do the work.”
Authority:
- Line = direct command in the hierarchy.
- Staff = advisory, specialist, enabling role.

⠀👉 A quick way to think of it: Line = the frontline of delivering the core business. Staff = the backstage crew that keeps things running smoothly.

🟢My take: This is where I sometimes felt stuck. I spent years in support roles, and while valuable, they don’t have the same visibility or impact.

3. Don’t expect the personnel department to plan your career

🟢My take: This one is pretty straightforward, and I agree.

4. Get and keep customers

Dealing with customers is tough. Customers reject. Sellers negotiate. They make harsh demands. They expect their needs to be filled, and they can be fickle.

Also, dealing with administrative function is an easier, impersonal and safe task.

True executives reorganize companies, eliminate jobs, and excuse the chaos by saying they are two or three levels closer to the customers. There are no barriers between anyone in the corporation and the customers. You must deal with today’s customers and tomorrow’s customers. They provide the ideas for new products and new applications. So be there with your customers.

5. Keep physically fit

90% of all people climbing the corporate ladder are out of shape. You will be able to start earlier, pause less often, and end your day with the wind sprint.

🟢My take: I don’t think (anecdotally) this statistic holds today, but the principle is right. The healthier you are, the more stamina you have to do the work. Again though, being able to do more work is probably not why we would want to keep fit though.

6. Do something hard and lonely regularly

Practice something Spartan and individualistic. Do something very few others are willing to do. This gives you toughness and mental strength. Examples: studying late at night for a graduate degree, running long distances in the cold, splitting wood, reading King Lear alone.

🟢My take: I absolutely agree. I did three degrees in four years - long, lonely hours of work. Same with blogging and writing. Those solitary efforts gave me strength and courage to take on roles I once thought were out of my reach.

7. Never write a nasty memo

Never write a memo that criticizes, belittles, or is hurtful. Never write in anger or frustration. Business is small—people move, merge, and reappear. Don’t leave a smoking gun. Spend your energy on positive things.

🟢My take: I agree 100%. This is crucial. And yet so many of us fall for the heat of the moment.

8. Think for one hour every day

Spend one uninterrupted hour a day planning, dreaming, scheming, and reviewing goals. Write down ideas. Do it at a desk, not while jogging or shaving. Keep notes in your idea notebook.

🟢My take: This is essential, and I don’t do it enough. I crave it.

RELATED: Committing to the Thinking Life

9. Keep and use a special idea notebook

Buy a notebook you like and write down all ideas, goals, and dreams. Use it as the source for your lists.

🟢My take: I had one in Notion, but it became too cluttered. I now have one in Bear.

RELATED: One Year With Bear

10. Don’t have a drink with the gang

After-work drinks are a waste of time. Don’t drink at lunch or before dinners. Never get tipsy - it shows weakness.

🟢My take: Counterintuitive, because I’ve built relationships at conferences and work events. But I never drank alcohol, and I always kept control. I see his point: your work should speak for itself.

11. Don’t smoke

Not much to add.

🟢My take: I used to smoke, and nothing good came from it except a “smokers’ gang.” (which admittedly I loved).

12. Skip all office parties

Office parties aren’t social—they’re business. If you must go, stay 45 minutes, drink soda, thank the boss, and leave.

🟢My take: In past jobs where colleagues became real friends (I moved with my job and work-life balance didn’t exist). But under normal circumstances, and now, this is more or less right. Also, for me, FOMO (fear of missing out) used to get the better if me - now I feel more confident but sometimes I still do for the social side.

13. Friday is “How are you doing?” day

Every Friday, take someone you rely on (but not in your department) to lunch. Build allies across the company.

14. Make allies of your peers and subordinates

Peers are rivals, but their support matters. If they speak well of you, others will too.

🟢My take: True in every workplace.

15. Know everybody by their first name

Learn people’s names and roles. Acknowledge them. It makes them feel valued.

🟢My take: I do this already, though I could improve by remembering more details. Maybe I should start writing things down.

16. Organize one-line “Good Job” tours

Every once in a while, get the highest-ranking person you can to tour and visit your department. Before the tour, write out a single three-by-five index card for every person. On the card, write a one- or two-line report of some achievement or contribution, business or personal, that the person made. Use the cards as cue cards for the top guys so that he can personally, specifically thank and compliment each person.

🟢My take: This is a really great way to do it. I should actually write these things down for myself with people I work with.

17. Make one more call

This is about being the salesperson who makes one more call, the copywriter who does one more draft, the carpenter who nails one more board. Just go one step further than everybody else.

🟢My take: I really tend to agree with this. Again, going back to work-life balance in the current generation, I do find that going the extra mile is sometimes lacking. I do try to go the extra mile myself.

18. Arrive 45 minutes early and leave 15 minutes late

This is a regular one: show up early, leave late. In those 15 minutes, organize your next day and clean your desk. You will be leaving after 95% of the employees anyway, so a reputation as a hard worker stays intact.

🟢My take: With work-from-home and flexible hours nowadays, I’m not sure this is as relevant. I do agree with using time at the end of the day to get organized. In the past, some people showed off by sending weekend or late-night emails; now it’s not a good thing to show you are working overtime (we schdule emails and even instant messages). Still, the reality is we often put in those extra hours when we need to.

19. Don’t take work home from the office

If you always have to take work home, you are not managing your time properly, you are boring, wasting your precious non-work hours—or all of the above.

A very busy advertising executive was always bringing home tons of papers. (Fox says executives may take home reading of unimportant memos and monthly reports, but no real work should be done at home.) Your senior management may note you don’t take work home, even if you carry a briefcase, and decide to give you more projects and responsibility - and that’s good.

🟢My take: I do try not to take work home most of the time, but sometimes it’s inevitable, especially when a lot of work hours are lost in meetings.

20. Earn your invitation credentials

In every corporation there is at the top a “Cosa Nostra,” an inner special family. This is the group that ultimately decides who becomes CEO and for how long. You must be invited into this inner group. You cannot simply work your way in with talent alone; you must have the same credentials as those in the circle.

In some corporations, the top people were all salespeople, or all engineers, or all from a favored division, or a founding family, or some other shared credential. If you can’t get those credentials, maybe you can be the “token outsider.” If not, you may need to move to another corporation where you can. You can become CEO without the credentials, but you won’t last.

🟢My take: I’ve never been high enough “at the top” to know how this works, but it rings true.

21. Avoid superiors when you travel

Most people leap at the chance to travel with top executives, thinking they can impress them. Don’t do it. Good managers judge results, not clever conversations.

🟢My take: In the past I thought traveling with leaders was a way up, but it’s not. Counterintuitive, but wise advice.

22. Eat in your hotel room

Because you should be traveling alone, and because you spend your days with customers or business, your evenings should be free to work. If you do have a dinner, have a clear objective. Otherwise, use the time to write, read, finish reports, do expenses, etc.

🟢My take: I learned this when my son was four months old and I had to attend a week-long conference. I skipped networking most nights because I was too exhausted and went to my room to sleep instead. Nothing bad happened. Now I see the wisdom of it: use that time for yourself.

23. Work, don’t read paperbacks on the airplane

Airplane travel is crowded and tiring, but it’s one of the few places with no interruptions. Plan work you can do aloft.

🟢My take: I agree. Long flights are perfect for catching up on work or personal tasks.

24. Keep a people file

Get a big address book or notebook (or use a computer). Keep a file of all the people you meet and what they do. Update it regularly. Send a note every six months to those you don’t see often. Ask for business cards, now you’re in their file too. Keep a backup. Use this file your entire career.

🟢My take: I used to literally keep this kind of file. I don’t anymore, but I probably should. Connections are important.

25. Send handwritten notes

Mainly about sending personal notes—thank you, praise, congratulations, condolences.

🟢My take: Maybe not always handwritten anymore, but even an email can go a long way.

26. Don’t get buddy-buddy with your superiors

You and your superiors are business associates, not friends. The same goes for subordinates. Don’t blur the line.

🟢My take: If both sides have emotional intelligence, it’s possible to be friendly. But in general, boundaries are safer. I’ve seen it go wrong many times.

27. Don’t hide an elephant

Big problems always surface. If you know of a mistake, tell your boss right away. The longer you wait, the worse it gets.

🟢My take: I’ve always done this. We all make mistakes, but it’s better to face them and fix them (and get help fixing them) early.

28. Be visible

Practice WACADAD: Words Are Cheap And Deeds Are Dear. Promote yourself by working on visible projects. Don’t just talk—prove yourself through actions.

🟢My take: Visibility is vital (unfortunatelly also, visibility seems to equate to success). Don’t assume your work will be noticed without you putting it out there.

29. Always take vacations

Always use your vacation time, and don’t use it to work.

🟢My take: This is very 21st-century advice, and I agree - work-life balance matters.

30. Always say yes to a senior executive request

If a senior executive asks for something, say yes. Refusing can hurt your career.

🟢My take: I can’t imagine outright refusing. If I ever did, I’d know it would affect me.

31. Never surprise your boss

🟢My take: Well, duh.

32. Make your boss look good and your boss’s boss look better

Getting real promotions usually requires a vacancy up the ladder. Your best chance is to succeed your boss. But she can’t get promoted unless there is someone to replace her. Making her look good improves her promotability, and because you make her look good, she will want you to stay around. You are now promotable.

🟢My take: Makes perfect sense, helping your boss succeed makes you look better/promotable too.

33. Never let a good boss make a mistake

One of the best things that can happen to help your ascendancy in a corporation is to work for a good boss. A good boss trains you to take her place, and when she ultimately gets promoted, you have a chance to progress. Don’t let your good boss make a mistake that could hurt her promotability, because that directly hurts your promotion chances. Don’t let your good boss make a mistake that could hurt your company, because that makes it harder for the company to flourish, and the better your company performs, the more resources are available for rewards.

If your boss needs more facts to make a decision, do her homework. If your boss is ill-prepared for a meeting, give her a heads-up briefing. If your boss has a weak presentation, beef it up. Don’t link the potential mistake with your boss personally. Don’t say “you’re making a mistake.” Handle it like this: “Mary, there may be a problem in this budget. It looks like the cost numbers are understated…”

Tell everyone who works for you, inside and outside the organization, that they must never let you make a mistake. Be sure your boss knows you have that rule.

🟢My take: I like this principle. I also like the idea of telling your own team: don’t ever let me make a mistake.

34. Go to the library one day a month

Leave the office and take one workday a month, or every three weeks, and go to a local public or university library. Take a big work table and organize all your to-do projects. Knock off the detailed stuff. Get the administrative trivia finished. Organize your big projects into small, digestible pieces. Get your people file up to date, organize your idea book, write all your follow-up memos, customer letters, and thank-you notes.

🟢My take: Nowadays it’s less about a physical table, but the idea of stepping away to organize and clear admin tasks still makes a lot of sense.

35. Add one big new thing to your life each year

To be qualified to be a chief executive officer of a corporation, you must be broad-gauged, widely read, and have diverse interests. You need to see solutions to problems in other cultures, nature, music—anything. You also need focus and discipline. Adding one new, big, permanent fact to your life each year will prepare you for leadership. Learn a language, write a book, take up cooking or photography, breed canaries—anything.

🟢My take: This is absolutely true. I used to run away from having lots of interests, but now I embrace it. Blogging, study, hobbies - I try to add new things without guilt.

36. Study these books

Obvious Adams by Robert Updegraff, Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell, the Bible, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, On War by Carl von Clausewitz, The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Webster’s Third Unabridged Dictionary, The Forbes Book of Business Quotations edited by Ted Goodman, the complete works of Shakespeare, Ogilvy on Advertising, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, anything by Thomas Jefferson.

🟢My take: Very Americanized, but many are worth checking out.

37. Dress for a dance

If you play football, dress for football. If you go to a dance, dress for a dance. Buy a book on how to dress in business.

🟢My take: Easier to figure out today than it was back then, but still true.

38. Over-invest in people

Hire the best people. Attract, motivate, train, and reward the best. Companies that only hire “what they can afford” are headed for mediocrity. Better to hire one exceptional person at 60K than two average people at 25K each. Over-invest with emotional currency as well: trust, independence, praise, freedom, encouragement.

🟢My take: Absolutely - it’s all about people, whether some like it or not.

39. Overpay your people

If a person should be paid five an hour, she knows it. If you pay her 4.75, it will cost you 100 times the savings in sabotage. She will feel cheated. She won’t work the extra hour, she will find a way to punish you for paying her unfairly. If everyone knows the going rate is five, pay her 5.75. You will get much more production because she’ll strive to justify your confidence.

🟢My take: Completely agree. Fairness and generosity pay back many times over.

40. Stop, look and listen

Presidents reflect. They don’t shoot from the lip. They think, consider, ponder, observe, probe, and listen. Listening is very difficult, especially for aggressive, energetic, bright people. You must train yourself to always be on high receive. Hear the unsaid. Listen to what the eyes, hands, and frowns are saying. Listen to customers, suppliers, colleagues, competitors … everybody. Listening can be learned and practiced.

🟢My take: Something I need to work on - slow down, stop, and really listen.

RELATED: Powerful Questions for Better Listening Skills

41. Be a flag-waving company patriot

You must commit yourself totally to your company and to its products and services.

42. Find and fill the data gaps in business

When someone says “I think” or “we believe” or “it’s my opinion,” that means they don’t know. Identify what you don’t know and what your organization doesn’t know. Don’t be misled by clever talkers who never leave the office. Get the facts - talk to customers and people who know.

🟢My take: Yes. Opinions aren’t enough - data and facts matter.

43. Homework, homework, homework

Most people look busy but don’t do real work. They manufacture busyness - reports, meetings, memos, forms. That’s the rocking-chair syndrome: lots of motion, no progress. Hard workers spend the same time but use it intensely. They find facts, work out details, consider all options. Success comes from homework.

🟢My take: Very true. Busy work is easier, but it’s not the same as doing the hard prep that actually matters.

RELATED: Delete Your To-Dos

44. Never panic or lose your temper

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as remaining cool under all circumstances (Thomas Jefferson). Tantrums, snap decisions, finger pointing, cowardice—these are signs of panic. Good presidents stay calm.

🟢My take: I used to lose my temper (I started working full time at 18 and I was just so young and passionate about everything), but not anymore. Staying calm is powerful. The winery story in this chapter really proves the point.

45. Learn to speak and write in plain English

Poor communication wastes more time and money than anything else. Communication must be precise, complete, and comprehensible. Especially job directions: if people don’t understand, they can’t do it.

46. Treat all people as special

Excellent managers make people feel that they are asked, not ordered; overpaid, not underpaid; measured, not monitored; needed, not ignored; contributors, not costs.

47. Be a credit maker, not a credit taker

Give everybody 100% credit for the work they do. If you have five people reporting to you and each gets 100%, you get 500%. That’s how it works.

🟢My take: I’ve always done this naturally - give credit freely. It will always be a good thing.

48. Give informal surprise bonuses

49. Please be polite with everyone

Use good manners with everyone. Be gracious. Never pull rank.

🟢My take: Politeness costs nothing and pays a lot.

50. Ten things to say that make people feel good

Practice and remember to say the following:

Please
Thank you
You remember Larry Kessler in our Accounts Payable department
That was a first-class job you did
I appreciate your effort
I hear nothing but good words about you
I’m glad you’re on the team
I need your help
You’ve certainly earned and deserve this
Congratulations

51. The glory and the glamour come after the grunt work

It’s the grunt work that counts and begets the glory. It’s the homework, the early mornings, the weekend travel away from home, the checking and rechecking, the trial and error, and the endless hours of inch-by-inch progress that the glamour masks. If you begrudge the groundwork, you will not get the glory.

52. Tinker, tailor, try

In business, failure costs so much money that almost every company with more than 1,000 employees avoids the risk of innovation. Perhaps 97% of all people in all organizations are afraid of change and innovation. But new ideas and new products are what create new customers and are the wellspring for a company’s vitality and survival.

Nurture the good idea. Spend a little, not a lot. Don’t risk big money in the embryonic stage. Get feedback. Tinker with the concept. Tailor it to fill the needs of the target audience. Most importantly, try something. Try this, try that. Don’t talk, don’t have meetings, don’t write memos - do something. Make an ad concept, build a prototype, put out samples. Then tinker some more, tailor it, and try again. If it’s a bad idea, you’ll know. Drop it. If it’s good, you’ll be able to sell it to the corporation. Manage the risk and manage the investment escalation.

53. Haste makes waste

One business myth is that it’s admirable to be the aggressive, rapid-fire manager who makes one quick decision after another. This style might be okay if decisions can be reversed or if there’s a crisis like a factory fire.

But decisions made just for speed’s sake are risky, especially irrevocable ones. You must always think fast and study fast to be able to decide fast.

54. Pour the coals to a good thing

If you find a good thing, no matter how old or prosaic, pour the coals to it. Not every success comes from a breakthrough. The financial objective is to provide a return to shareholders by profitably filling customer needs. If customers like it, don’t change it. Don’t change the label, the ingredients, the name, the price, the advertising, or anything else. Don’t change the formula for success. Enhance it.

55. Put the importance on the bright idea, not the source of the idea

Always be on the lookout for ideas. Be indiscriminate about the source: customers, children, competitors, cab drivers. It doesn’t matter who thought of the idea, what matters is who implements it.

56. Stay out of office politics

Don’t waste your time. Spend it creating and accomplishing. Let your actions be your politics. In good companies, contributions count. Be the last to know. Don’t get sucked in. Don’t gossip.

If someone says “it’s confidential,” don’t ask, don’t answer. Just work.

57. Look sharp and be sharp

A little vanity is good. Look after yourself and maintain an attractive appearance. Stay trim. Get a proper haircut. Dress with quality. Stay healthy - exercise, eat properly, and take care of yourself.

58. Emulate, study, and cherish the great boss

Seek these people out early in your career. Work for them as much as possible. Watch how they handle criticism and problems, note how they manage people, and learn their way.

59. Don’t go over budget

Get your job done on time and within budget. Senior managers promote people who deliver what’s expected.

60. Never underestimate an opponent

Opponents can be competitors, rival managers, or buying committees. They come in every form -young, old, nerdy, charismatic. Never underestimate their intelligence, time, skill, or capacity for duplicity. If you underestimate them, you may get knocked down. If you overestimate them, you may be pleasantly surprised.

61. Assassinate the character assassin with a single phrase

The character assassin attacks everyone. That’s his vulnerability. When conversation turns to him, simply say: “Of course, with Mr. X, no one is spared.”

Colleagues who’ve been targets too will get the point.

62. Become a member of the “shouldn’t have” club

The “should have” club is full of non-doers: I should have done that, I could have done that. They never take risks, never win.

The “shouldn’t have” club is the winner’s circle. Each time you say “I shouldn’t have done that,” there will be ten other times where you’ll be glad you did.

No guts, no glory.

63. The concept doesn’t have to be perfect, but execution does

If you wait for the perfect time or perfect product, you’ll never start. If the concept is better than what’s on the market, do it. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of better. Execute meticulously—leave nothing undone.

64. Record and collect your mistakes with care and pride

Mistakes are milestones. They show action and teach lessons. Keep track of them. Record what went wrong, why, and what you’d do differently. Acknowledging mistakes shows security and confidence. Mistakes are the “exhaust” of active people and often the memorabilia of successful ones.

🟢Note to self: Do this immediately. And thouroughly.

65. Live for today, plan for tomorrow, forget about yesterday

Have fun. Laugh. If you make other people’s jobs more fun, they’ll work harder, be more creative, and feel more satisfied. A constant atmosphere of pressure and seriousness is stressful and inefficient.

67. Treat your family as your number one client

You need their support to succeed. Your spouse and family must be allies in your plans. Put them on your calendar.

68. No goals, no glory

You must set goals for yourself. Goals shape plans, direct energy, and focus resources. Write them down in your idea notebook. Have business goals and life goals. Plan 25-, 10-, 5-, and 1-year goals. Break them down into monthly, weekly, and daily steps. Every day, take at least one action toward your long-range goals.

🟢My take: Yes, absolutely, even if they are not career goals, we need to know where we’re going.

69. Always remember your subordinates’ spouses

🟢My take: Probably still very true of high up very corporate.

70. See the job through the salesperson’s eyes

One of the oldest truisms of business: nothing happens until somebody sells something. Most products have to be sold. Selling is key to the enterprise.

71. Be a very tough seller

Learn to sell hard—whether it’s convincing your team to work on Saturday, winning your boss’s approval, or getting a customer’s order. Become a persistent, tenacious salesperson. Find the customer’s needs, show how you’ll meet them, and keep asking for the order until you get it.

72. Don’t be an empire builder

Many managers think having the biggest staff or budget makes them important. Wrong. The corporation values the manager who gets the job done with less. Don’t always hire more people. Don’t use lack of resources as an excuse. Promotions go to producers, not administrators.

73. Push products, not paper

Modern corporations are caught in a terrible dilemma. They need to streamline processes, procedures, and cut the bureaucratic creep.

Bureaucratic creep describes the incremental growth of red tape in organizations: rules, useless forms, external task forces, old policies, and so on. Corporations need innovation, prudent risk-taking, and entrepreneurship. They need to spend all their resources—money, time, people, and plant—against the marketplace. But corporations drift to administration and paper.

Do not get paper-trapped. Do not accept your corporation’s paper handcuffs. Monthly reports are stupid. They are long, boring, late, and examples of creative writing in ancient history. Don’t write any. If they insist, rotate the authorship among your staff. Each person should write what they want. Don’t encourage copying or wide distribution. Saves copying and reading time. Don’t bother reading them yourself.

Also, don’t write memos that rehash meetings everyone just attended, trip reports, expense justifications, or anything that does not directly improve your company.

🟢My take: This is so, so important and yet it’s such an easy trap to fall into! Although some of this is much easier/faster/automated today with AI.

74. To teach is to learn and to lead

Always accept the chance to make a training presentation in your company. No matter what your job is, you can improve your company by teaching others what you do, why you do it, and how you do it, and anything connected with your responsibility.

If you have to teach, you will prepare your presentation. Your preparation requires homework, organization, synthesis, and practice. The necessary study and discipline will help you master and add to your knowledge.

75. Do not get discouraged by the idea killers

Companies are filled with idea killers. The idea killers come in all personalities, job titles, shapes, and sizes. They say things like: “We’ve tried it before. Management won’t buy it. We can’t afford it.”

Don’t give in. Don’t let up. Idea people build businesses. Builders get to the top. Don’t let the idea killers whittle you into mediocrity.

Consider the idea killer as a positive—as an incentive. Treat their negativism as a reason to do more homework. Work harder on the things necessary to make your idea work.

One Year With Bear

2026-01-02T18:12:00Z

I’ve now had a full year with Bear, and over that time I’ve gradually moved more and more of my life into it.

My first post on the topic is here: How I Finally Settled on Bear for My Notes

The release of the web app made a huge difference. At work we’re all on PCs, and I can’t install anything on my work laptop - but I can use web apps. That single change completely shifted where and how I could use Bear, and suddenly it was viable everywhere.

Over time, Bear has become my main place for pretty much everything. I touched on this in my Digital Workflow (Jan 2026) post, but here I wanted to go deeper and show how I actually use it day to day.

This setup isn’t fixed. It’s always evolving, and that matters to me. I don’t want to commit to any system forever.

What Bear has helped me do, more than anything, is stop tinkering and tweaking. There are no plugins, no endless setups to browse, and no temptation to rebuild everything every few weeks like I did in Notion or Obsidian. It’s just me and my notes, and that’s made me far more productive.

I actually use these notes. I have several widgets on my phone, including my monthly note and a new-note widget. I clip articles easily, jot things down on the go, and return to them when I need to. Bear has replaced three or four other note-taking apps and has become my main one. It’s cleared a lot of mental clutter, and for now, this setup really works.

When we’re flooded with information, organising systems can feel like progress, even when it’s just reaction (busy work). Tools become ends in themselves, a stand-in for action, and the system becomes the work. Bear, for me, pulls things back in the other direction.

My Main Tag Structure

I have seven main categories (tags):

Home - Planning by year and month, plus context and links I need day to day.
Personal - Notes about me: ideas, reflections, lists, and things to explore.
Admin - Practical life admin I refer to regularly.
Resources - Recipes, links, ideas, and wish lists for later.
Writing - Short form writing: blog posts, essays, stories and writing drafts.
Work - Notes that support my work as a Programme/Project Manager.
Topics - Notes on interests that come and go over time.

Each main tag has a number of nested tags under it.

Home

Home is something I’m trialling this year. It’s loosely inspired by the idea of Forever Notes. I did experiment with an Apple Shortcut for Forever Notes in Bear, but I don’t use Bear for daily journaling or true daily notes—Day One is my source of truth for journaling and memory keeping.

I removed daily and weekly notes from the “forever notes” system, but I kept months and quarters. I have a 2026 Home note, which is very much a work in progress. The idea is that it will include:

A quarterly overview
Monthly sections
Links to things like my 2026 goals

Each month holds artifacts from that month: basic to-dos, links, and references. For example, in January I’ve stored links to my flight ticket and my mum’s ticket—she’s visiting at the moment and leaving on the 27th. We’re going to Auckland together, so I’ve also saved the accommodation details there.

I’m also experimenting with weekly planning. I’ve pre-created weeks inside my monthly notes (as headings, not separate notes), but I’m not yet sure whether (or how) I’ll actually use them. That part is still very much an experiment.

What I am planning to do is add monthly highlights at the end of each month. Whether I stick to this consistently remains to be seen.

This whole section is still evolving.

Personal

Personal is where things about me live. These are notes I want to explore, write about, or dig into further: lists, ideas, lifestyle planning templates, and things I want to remember.

It also includes quotes and things I find inspiring at a particular moment. Because Bear’s tagging system is so flexible, these notes can live in multiple places.

I can tag them temporarily and remove the tag when they’re no longer relevant. My Yearly Reflections live here too. I’ve been writing them since 2017, and I find them incredibly useful.

Admin

Admin took me a few months to commit to. These notes used to live in Apple Notes.

They’re things I refer to often: random but important information, some finance notes, medical information, property details, and records. They’re mostly current and mostly text-based. Permanent attachments live in Dropbox rather than Bear (I link them to Bear). Bear notes act as reference points I return to regularly, I also add temporary attachments or screenshots and delete when I no longer need them.

I went back and forth on whether Bear was the right place for this, but once the web app became available, I decided to go all in.

I even asked about this on Reddit - here’s the thread and responses that helped me decide:  From the Bear app community: Should I Move My Life Admin Notes to Bear or Keep Them Separate?

Resources

Resources is exactly what it sounds like: recipes, travel ideas, various links, wish lists, anything I want to keep around and refer to occasionally. These aren’t things I look at every day, but I like knowing they’re there.

Writing

Writing holds blog posts, drafts, writing to-dos, essays, short stories—essentially all my short-form writing. If I’m working on something written, it lives here.

Work

This is not my actual work system. My work tech stack is completely separate. This space is for notes I find useful as a programme and project manager: articles I’ve read, ideas from newsletters, bits of wisdom I want to revisit occasionally. It’s reference material, not active work.

Topics

Topics is the biggest category. These notes have moved from system to system over the years.

These are largely interlinked single topic notes that once lived in Obsidian. Before that, they lived in Evernote. At one point, I was into Zettelkasten/Digital Gardening and thought it was something I wanted to maintain. It turns out it wasn’t.

RELATED: The Rise of Digital Gardeners

I still add to them occasionally when I discover a new topic I’m interested in, but most of the time they just sit there. Every now and then I’ll pull something out when I’m writing a blog post or looking for a quote or reference. Many of these topics reflect interests I’m no longer actively engaged with, and I’m okay with that.

Bear’s archive feature has been especially helpful here—I’ve archived older study notes I don’t want cluttering search results, but don’t want to delete entirely.

As I said at the start, the system is still a work in progress, but I’ve stopped tinkering. I just use it, every day, many times a day.

My Digital Workflow (Jan 2026 Edition)

2026-01-01T18:15:00Z

My digital workflow has evolved quite a bit—really, it’s simplified a lot. I use far fewer apps now.

My last post on this was in October 2024 (edited in Mar 2025), before I adopted Bear. Since then, Bear has launched a web app beta, which means I can access my notes anywhere—especially at work, where we’re PC all the way. https://spasic.me/posts/a-digital-workflow-to-run-my-life

I also just posted My App Defaults (as of Jan 2026).

My workflow rules

(I struggle with this, so I had to write it down for myself and I’m genuinely getting better at following these rules.)

Limit the amount of information I take in and process.
Just because I can capture everything doesn’t mean I should
Don’t rush to save every interesting idea; if it’s truly important, it’ll come back to me.
Be selective about what I consume, especially online.
Avoid organizing and exploring new tools.
Focus on capturing my own thoughts and ideas and summarizing concepts in my own words.
Don’t save everything—let things go.
Write, write, write (don’t just consume - create)

My “best practice” (but fluid) workflows for processing ideas, information, interests, documentation.

Dropbox

Main Documents storage and backup
Photographs, videos and their backup
All current documents (all documentation and scans, ebooks, writing, anything that would go into a computer hard drive)
backup of old, unused documents and mementoes (notes apps backups, old word doc backups, old work doc backups, old email backups, various mementos)
Photographs from my phone upload directly into Dropbox (although for permanent storage I upload manually et the end of the month and delete this automoatic backup when I don’t need it anymore) - I have a separate post on how I manage my Memory Keeping and Photographs
I use Dropbox’s “selective sync” on my laptops (I only sync folders that I currently use)

Cost: 120 USD a year

Bear

What used to live across three or four different apps now lives almost entirely in Bear.

Bear is my:

Central hub for personal projects and current activities, where I store:
- Tasks and goals
- Quarterly and monthly plans
- Narratives and ongoing notes

Central hub for admin and resources (attachments mostly live in Dropbox and are linked back to Bear):
- Personal information (some password-protected)
- Frequently accessed info (school/work details, admin notes, medical info, various records - anything I need to look up occasionally)
- Resources such as links, apps, wishlists, recipes, travel info, etc.

Commonplace book and thinking space, where I:
- Make notes on topics I care about
- Store notes on topics of interest (old and new)
- Collect ideas, concepts, and connections in a non-linear way
- Think freely and explore without structure getting in the way
- Store my writing (essays, blog posts, stories)
- Jot things down at random and on the go
- Dump ideas and brainstorm

Cost: 50 NZD a year

Day One

A single source of truth for all my journaling and mementos.

Digital Journal/Diary: My personal journal and diary (with photos). I use it daily most of the time.
Mementos and Memory Keeping: This includes text notes, screenshots, random photos, voice messages, things my kids said, audio, video, photos, messages, locations, screenshots, various stats, anything I want to preseve.
Logs of books, movies and TV and quotes/wisdom, etc.

Some of this is still a work in progress, I am exploring it and it is constantly evolving.

I back up Day One periodically in both JSON and PDF formats and store the backups in my Archive folder in Dropbox as well as on external hard drives.

Note: I’m considering moving some of my personal journal entries into Bear for reference and long-term safekeeping, but I haven’t decided yet.

Cost: 50 NZD per year

Trello

I’ve written more about my current Trello setup.

I organize my lists using the Eisenhower Matrix, along with a backlog for things I want to clear from my mind but may never actually do.

All my specific To Dos and projects/tasks
Anything that has a date but doesn’t belong in Google Calendar If it doesn’t need to happen on a specific day, it’s a task rather than an event, so it lives in Trello.
Recurring tasks and reminders Things like document expiry dates, subscriptions, and periodic check-ins.
Small personal projects Ideas I’d like to get to at some point, but that don’t need active scheduling yet.

⠀Trello is also great for on the go capture:

I can email tasks directly into Trello
On my phone for quick to-dos and relevant info (goes straight into the inbox widget)
The email reminders are a bonus

Cost: Free

Dabble Writer

Dabble Writer

Long-form writing.

Novel in progress
Memoir (snippets and fragments)

After months of research I have settled on Dabble Writer to replace Scrivener for my long-form writing. While I loved Scrivener, I needed something that syncs seamlessly across multiple computers (and on the go) without requiring downloads or worrying about syncing my work. I hope to write about Dabble Writer in another post.

COST: One-time purchase (subscription options available too)

Readwise/ Reader

Kindle and article highlights

Article dump for things I might read later (or delete if I don’t).
Archive articles only if they’re genuinely worth keeping.
Sends articles directly to my Kindle, which is where I prefer to read them.

Cost: $40/year

Feeder (RSS feeds)

I know I could use Readwise Reader for RSS, but it doesn’t feel as casual or as easy to process as Feeder. I subscribe to a lot of personal blogs, and while I don’t read everything all the time, Feeder lets me quickly scan and dip into whatever catches my eye. It feels nice and low-pressure. Take it or leave it. And it’s free.

Cost: Free

Google Calendar

all appointments and events
important dates and birthdays
reoccurring events (like my yoga classes, kids’ sports, group meetings I regularly attend, etc.)
syncing with my husband’s and son’s calendars ⠀

COST: Free

Yahoo Mail

My main personal email account since March 2000.
I also use it as a kind of archive - emails are such an overlooked record of life and work.

NOTE: I do use Gmail for Chrome, YouTube, and similar things, but I genuinely prefer Yahoo to Gmail, even though Google Calendar is my main calendar (am I the only one?).

I use Inbox Zero across all my email accounts.

RELATED:

How I Finally Settled on Bear for My Notes

My One-Board Trello Task Management System

How I Use Day One to Track What I Read

I Journaled My TV and Movie Watching for a Year

Why Did I Wait So Long to Start Using Day One?

A Digital Workflow to Run My Life

The Eisenhower Matrix I Forgot About (But Still Followed)

My App Defaults (Jan 2026 Edition)

My App Defaults (Mar 2025 Edition)

A Digital Workflow to Run My Life (Mar 2025 Edition)

My App Defaults (Jan 2026 Edition)

2025-12-31T20:00:00Z

Note: My list only includes apps for personal use; work is a whole different story.

📧 Mail service: Yahoo (main), Gmail (blogging, apps, services)
📬 Mail client: Apple Mail (Mac and iPhone), web on PC
📇 Contacts: Apple Contacts, Yahoo Mail contacts
💬 Chat: SMS, WhatsApp,Viber, Facebook Messenger
📆 Calendar: Google Calendar
✅ Tasks/To Do: Trello
☁️ Cloud storage: Dropbox
🌅 Photo library: Dropbox
🔐 Passwords: Proton Pass
🌐 Web browser: Chrome on PC and Mac, Safari on iPhone
📰 RSS service: Feeder
📚Read it Later: Readwise Reader
📜 Journal: Day One
📝 Notes (admin, personal): Bear
📝 PKM Notes: Bear
📔Learning: Bear
🖊️Long form Writing: Dabble Writer (lifetime licence)
🖼️ Screenshots: Lightshot
🎞️ Video editing: VLLO on my iPhone
🗺 Maps: Google maps
🌤️ Weather: Apple Weather
🎙️ Podcasts: Spotify (free)
🎶 Music: Spotify (free)
💬 Transcriptions: Otter.ai or Untold
📚 eBooks: Kindle
📚 Books disovery/tracking: Goodreads
💁🏻‍♂️ Social: Linkedin
🛒Shopping List: Google Keep (shared with family)
📢 Blog: Pika
🧘🏻‍♀️Workouts: DownDog
🍔Calorie Tracker: LoseIt
🔢 Habit Tracker: Good Habits
👗Clothes App: Closet+

Related

My Digital Workflow (Jan 2026 Edition)

My App Defaults (Mar 2025 Edition)

A Digital Workflow to Run My Life (Mar 2025 Edition)

Ambition Without Sacrifice

2025-12-29T21:07:00Z

“I see potential but no resolve,
I see competence but no commitment,
Ambition but no sacrifice.”

TV show Boots

There’s a quote I heard in the TV show Boots, which recently watched with my family.

That quote got me thinking about ambition without sacrifice - because all three lines felt applicable to me, but especially that one.

I’ve always wanted things. I just wanted them to come the easy way.

It took me a long time to realise, honestly more than four decades, that the easy way is usually the harder way in the long run. My first blog was called Choosing Easy, back when I still thought that was the way.

For most of my life, I looked for shortcuts. Shortcut after shortcut. And none of them really did me any favors.

As I am writing this, I realise this is almost the direct opposite of a blog post I wrote only a few months ago. It tells me there is something here I still need to think through and flesh out properly. For now, I am going to leave both posts hereon my blog, until I am ready to come back to it.

RELATED: Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy — Or Does It?

I started university when I was 18, but I was never a full-time student. I worked full-time and studied part-time. Even then, I tried to take shortcuts. I struggled to find real value in studying, probably because I already had a good, well-paid job. University felt like something on the side.

I remember a friend of mine. We were young and went out a lot. I worked nine to five, and after five I was almost always out. She was a full-time student and would sometimes join us. We would be sitting in a bar, having a great time, and she would suddenly stand up and say, “I’m leaving.”

“Where are you going?” I would ask.

“I need to catch the last tram home so I can finish my study,” she would say.

And she would. I never did. No matter how much study was waiting for me, I always chose my hedonistic pursuits.

My son is a bit like her. He doesn’t let things pile up. He breaks his work into pieces and does a little every day. I always had that plan too; divide it up, do it bit by bit - but then I’d skip a day. Then another. Then another. Usually for something more fun, more tempting, more immediately rewarding.

I did that with work. With where I lived. With my weight. It took me years, decades, to accept that there is no easy way to lose weight other than eating less. It’s not that I didn’t try. I read every book. Tried every shortcut.

Shortcut! That’s what I was after - ambition without discomfort, without effort, without sacrifice.

Now, as an older person, this is easier for me to see. In the past few years, I’ve completed several degrees - not because I had to, but because I wanted to. And maybe that’s the difference.

And maybe ambition without sacrifice sounds appealing, but in reality, it’s usually just ambition without results.

And maybe that’s the real trap.

Not that we lack ambition - but that we want ambition without discomfort, without effort, without sacrifice.

But maybe nothing meaningful works that way.

Not learning. Not health. Not growth.

And definitely not the life we quietly hope for while choosing the easier option today.

I think I would tell my younger self to apply herself a little harder, to push through the discomfort, to not give up at the first hurdle. To keep going. To go for something that is hard but attainable.

There is no guarantee of success and what is success anyway.

RELATED: The True Meaning of Success

That friend from my childhood is quite successful when it comes to her career, but so am I. I am talking about careers here because they are easier to quantify.

Our paths were different. Hers was more linear, steady and “safer". Mine was all over the place and varied to a huge extent. I do not regret it now, but it felt harder at the time.

She once told me she wished she was more like me, more carefree, enjoying the moment, hoping for the best. I think a balance of the two would probably be ideal. I do not know. There is more to think about here, but I just wanted to put this out there for now.

How I Use Day One to Track What I Read

2025-12-28T20:58:36Z

(and Goodreads and Kindle Highlights)

So, my Goodreads year in books is out. I read 50 books this year. A few were short books or short stories. I read a lot of fiction this year, mostly for my book clubs (I am in two), and not much non-fiction compared to the last couple of years. For a long time non-fiction (I was a self help/personal growth/popular psychology addict) was my default, but I am clearly back in a fiction phase, and I am enjoying it.

One thing I am genuinely pleased about is that, like I do with movies and tv shows, I managed to log all my books in Day One. I was inspired by a blog post to do this, and I plan to keep going. Every now and then, when I have the time, I will probably add books from previous years too. It is surprisingly satisfying to see everything in one place and to remember what you have read (esp when they pop up in on this day in Day One).

I already use Readwise for my Kindle highlights. Those highlights export to different places. The problem is that highlights tend to just sit there. I always feel like I should do something with them, tidy them up, organize them, make sense of them somehow. I have done that a few times, but I never really connected those highlights to the book as a whole in a way that felt complete.

Until I read this post that is: Keep a Book Journal with Day One and Apple Shortcuts

I created a simple template in Day One, inspired by that original blog post, but adapted entirely to what I actually want and it looks like this:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ /Goodreads /Date

Book Details
Author:
# pages, Kindle Edition
Published Date
Language:

My Review on Goodreads

Book Cover

Plot

My Kindle Highlights

About the Author

As soon as I finish a book, I set open an entry in my Book Journal in Day One that has the template as the default entry. I add the title, the date read, and my star rating. Sometimes I leave the rest until I have a bit more time, but at least the basics are captured.

When I do have time, I write a short review, sometimes a longer one. It is not really a review in the public sense. It is mostly for me, so I can remember what the book was and how I felt about it. I usually publish it on Goodreads, but if there is anything more personal, that goes only into Day One.

From there, I start filling in the details. I add the Goodreads link, the author, page count, whether I read it on Kindle, when it was first published, the language I read it in, and the original language. I copy in my review, sometimes with a link, add the book cover, and paste in the plot summary from Goodreads or elsewhere.

Then come the highlights.

I copy my Kindle highlights, and sometimes I run them through ChatGPT first. Highlights can be messy, especially depending on how I highlighted while reading. I ask ChatGPT to tidy them up, group them, or restructure them in ways that make sense. This is especially useful for non-fiction, where there are usually a lot more highlights and where I actually want to reuse them later.

I do lose something by not doing this manually (I used to, before Readwise). When you process highlights yourself, you get to relive them. But right now at this stage of my life this is a good enough compromise. When I do have time, I often go back and reread the highlights anyway, especially for non-fiction.

The template also includes a section about the author.

After I finish the book, I do a bit of research, add a short bio, and include links to the author’s website or interviews. If I find good essays or blog posts about the book, I add links or excerpts to those too. I never do this before or during reading. I am too easily influenced by other people’s opinions, so I wait until I have formed my own.

The long-term plan is to export these entries once a year into Bear (my notetaking app of choice). That gives me a backup, but it also fits with how I use Bear as my digital knowledge storage.

This book logging system was inspired by someone else, but the version I ended up with is very much mine. It took time to figure out how I actually wanted to track. I only really finalized the template a few months into the year, once I had tried a few things and dropped what did not work.

That is probably the main takeaway. Get inspired by other people, absolutely, but build something that works for you. It takes experimentation, and it changes over time. And that is fine.

(Side note: both my Day One and Bear systems look different now than in the original blog posts when I wrote about them, but it took time, almost a whole year, to realise what actually works for me.)

I Journaled My TV and Movie Watching for a Year

2025-12-21T05:21:51Z

At the beginning of this year, I started tracking how much TV and how many movies I actually watch. Not because I wanted to optimise it, cut it down, or feel bad about it - I mean, I watch what I watch. I always have. It’s often my outlet, my decompression time, and we’re also a family that watches a show together with dinner in the evening (even though I’ve spent years trying to make “sit down at the table” our family thing).

I try not to track everything (I can be/have been/am a compulsive tracker of many things). But a few things feel worth paying attention to. I already journal in Day One and keep a reading journal there for books (in addition to Goodreads), a habit I picked up after reading this blog post by Robert Breen.

Related:
Keep a Book Journal with Day One and Apple Shortcuts
10 Reasons to Use Goodreads

Tracking film and television felt like a natural extension of that practice, just another way of noticing how I spend my time.

And somehow, I managed to stick with it for a full year.

Whenever I watched something, I logged it.

For TV shows, I noted the season, number of episodes, and average episode length. For movies, I recorded the basics. At the end of the year, I dropped everything into ChatGPT to get averages and totals.

The result came to about sixteen days. At first, that number felt confronting. Sixteen full days of a year spent watching tv.

But here is the actual excerpt from that exercise.

🎬 Movies

~32 movies

Average runtime: 1.8 hours

≈ 58 hours

📺 TV shows, miniseries & documentaries

≈ 430–450 episodes total

Average episode length (weighted): ~42 minutes

≈ 305–315 hours

⏱️ Grand Total for 2025

≈ 365–375 hours of screen time

That’s roughly:

15–16 full days

7–7.5 hours per week

About 1 hour per day, averaged across the year

And a kind ChatGPT comment I didn’t ask for:

This isn’t actually excessive — especially considering how many long-form, narrative-heavy shows you watched (The Expanse, Parenthood, Silo). That kind of viewing is closer to reading novels than mindless scrolling.

It’s also very seasonal: big immersion months, then quieter gaps. Not constant, not compulsive — more intentional than it might look on paper.

ONE hour a day! That’s way below average.

I don’t spend much/any time on social media. I don’t scroll endlessly or fall into algorithmic rabbit holes (I am so so mindful about that). I use Reddit occasionally when I’m researching something specific, but otherwise I’m careful about where my attention goes. Most of what I watched was long-form, narrative content: films, series, documentaries; chosen more or less deliberately, not consumed by default.

That distinction matters.

Tracking didn’t make me watch less; it made me watch more consciously.

My system isn’t particularly elegant. I don’t use templates or ratings. I usually note what I watched, who I watched it with, a few words about whether I liked it or not and basic details pulled from Wikipedia: the year, cast, director. If something sparks my interest like an interview, a review, a long-form article, I add that too. After seeing Nuremberg at the cinema, for example, I saved a Smithsonian piece that added depth to the experience.

Writing things down shifted the experience from mostly consumption to something closer to engagement. Instead of shows blurring together and disappearing, they became moments with shape and memory. This type of journaling practice is a way of being present with my experiences rather than letting them slip by unnoticed.

Everything lives in Day One, dated and accompanied by a film poster (it just looks nicer like that in Day One if I want to view it in “Media” mode).

What surprised me most wasn’t the number of hours, but how reassuring the practice felt. In a digital world designed to pull our attention in every direction, simply knowing how you spend your time is grounding. Mindful consumption doesn’t require perfection or abstinence, just awareness.

I’ll probably keep tracking in the coming year, maybe with a few tweaks, maybe without.

In the end, this isn’t about watching less. It’s about watching well.

Everything I watched in 2025 (minus whatever I watch in the next few days of 2025)

January

Movies:
Tara Road, Gladiator, Red Sparrow, Burlesque, The Whole Truth, Promising Young Woman, I, Robot

TV & Series:
La Palma (limited series)

February

Movies:
The Last Witch Hunter, The Day After Tomorrow, The Mountain Between Us, I Feel Pretty, The Man from Earth: Holocene, Kinda Pregnant, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, The Endless, Supernova

TV & Series:
New Amsterdam (Season 5), The Resident (Season 6), Obsession (miniseries), Apple Cider Vinegar (miniseries), The Search for Instagram’s Worst Con Artist (docuseries), Missing You (miniseries)

March

Movies & Documentaries:
American Murder: Gabby Petito, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, Black Bag

TV & Series:
Fire Country (Season 1)

April

Movies:
Time Cut, The Life List, The Amateur, Lonely Planet

TV & Series:
Zero Day (miniseries), Adolescence (miniseries), Matlock (Season 1), Fire Country (Seasons 2 & 3), The Swarm, The Expanse (Seasons 1–6), The Big Door Prize (Season 2)

May

Movies & Documentaries:
Seen

TV & Series:
Silo (Seasons 1 & 2), Cobra Kai (Season 6), Disclaimer (limited series), Locke & Key (Seasons 1–3), The Witcher: Blood Origin (limited series), The Four Seasons (Season 1)

June

Movies & Documentaries:
Ocean with David Attenborough, Sweethearts, Juror #2, A Perfect Murder, Trap

TV & Series:
Loot (Season 2), Running Point (Season 1), Bob Hearts Abishola

July

Movies:
Godrich, Garfield, St. Vincent, A Man Called Otto, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

TV & Series:
Sirens (limited series), No Good Deed (limited series), Too Much (Season 1), Untamed (Season 1), The Signal (limited series), The Diplomat (Season 2), Pulse (Season 1), Little Disasters (limited series)

September

Movies:
The Old Guard, The Twits, Dinner for Schmucks

TV & Series:
Ghosts (Seasons 1–4), Dark Winds (Seasons 1–2), Elsbeth (Season 2), Mayfair Witches (Seasons 1–2)

November

Movies:
The Woman in Cabin 10, Good Boys, A Merry Little Christmas, The House of Dynamite

TV & Series:
The Diplomat (Season 3), Nobody Wants This (Season 2), Parenthood (Seasons 1–6), All Her Fault (miniseries)

December

Movies:
Nuremberg

TV & Series:
The Beast in Me (miniseries), Boots (Season 1)

My One-Board Trello Task Management System

2025-11-20T19:26:59Z

So I just came out of a project management webinar — and they shared this really simple task-management method. And I realized that I’ve basically been doing this all along. It’s about moving away from constantly trying to prioritise everything to simply postponing things in a deliberate, thought-out way. And it felt nice to see that this thing I pieced together is, a “real” method.

After years of trying to figure out how to manage all my different tasks, I came up with a system a few years ago that has just worked. I haven’t had to change it in ages. I’ve tried different apps, different methods, different everything — but this setup (which I run in Trello, though you could do it anywhere that has Kanban boards) has stuck.

Why Trello? Mostly because it’s free, simple, and the phone app works. It sends reminders to my email (which I’ll see because I keep inbox zero) and as phone pop-ups. The email part is key for me — if it hits my inbox, it won’t get lost.

Over time this system grew with me, but this is where I’ve landed: one single board. Just one.

Below is the breakdown of my lists on this one board (though I do add more when I need to — if I have extra tasks or a project, like planning a trip, spring cleaning, I’ll add a temporary list for it). When a task or a list is done, I delete it. I don’t archive it, I don’t capture it anywhere else. Done and gone.---Inbox
You can email directly into Trello — I rarely do, but I like knowing I could. This list is where I stick generic things: kids’ school holidays, public and work statutory holidays, my goals for the year, and my very loose 5-year “plan” (which is more vibes than plan, honestly).---Because I like the Eisenhower Matrix method (I wrote about it here), I have a few lists that follow that idea:

Do Immediately
Urgent + important. - Things that actually need to happen pretty soon or right away.

Important but Not Urgent
That elusive middle ground where all the good long-term things live. I’m honestly terrible at this list lately because work has been so full-on — which is also why my personal projects, like blogging, have been basically nonexistent. But this is where those long-term goals go: things like education, personal skill development, improving health and wellness — all the stuff that matters but always falls behind the “do immediately” tasks, and therefore need to be scheduled.

Scheduled / Recurring
Anything already booked, or anything that repeats: insurance payments, car registration, health appointments, whatever. I put a date on it, set a reminder, and forget about it until it surfaces again. I do this for the whole family.

Why not just put it all in my shared (with my husband and son) Google Calendar?

Because some things don’t need to be done on the day they pop up.

For example: car registration. I set a reminder a month before it’s due. I won’t do it that exact day, but it will pop up, I’ll drag it to “Do Immediately,” and then it gets done.

If something goes in Google Calendar, it’s because it happens at an actual fixed time — dinner with a friend, a scheduled doctor’s appointment, whatever. Those don’t go in Trello.
May or May Not Do
This took me a long time to figure out. These are things that don’t need to be done, nothing is riding on them, but they matter (and maybe they shouldn’t) to me.

I wrote about some of it here:

The Art of Organizing (Things That Don’t Need to Be Organized)

The Journal Project I Can’t Quit

The Cost of Organizing Ideas – But I Keep Doing It Anyway

An example is my digital photo books.

I use Mixbook or Shutterfly services, and the kids love having the physical copy of a digital photobooks to leaf through. And so do I. I make ones for big trips too. But then I realised: if those companies disappear, all my digital books vanish. You can’t download them as PDFs or export them in any meaningful way (apart from having the printed copies — but what if my house burns down, or I want another copy?). After researching and asking around, the only real solution seems to be opening them full screen, taking screenshots, and saving them in Day One (link to one of my posts about it). It’s a huge project (well, potentially, once I start working on something and break it down into smaller tasks - it gets done). But I’m not touching it right now. However, having it on the list gets it out of my head.---The other lists I have on my board are:

Subscriptions
I like knowing how much I spend and when things renew. I regularly cancel things. For example, Kindle Unlimited: I sign up when there’s a deal or when I need it, then cancel again. Same with Apple TV — if there’s a show I want, I get it for a month, then drop it. I hate having too many subscriptions that sit there unused.

Document Expiry
I didn’t put these in recurring tasks because some documents are valid for years or even decades. So I just keep a list. Sometimes I attach the files, but I don’t fully trust Trello with sensitive things, so the actual scanned documents live in my Dropbox.

Someday Projects
Renovations, things I want to study, photo books I still want to make. These live even further out than the “may or may not do” list. Not urgent, not actionable, probably not happening soon — but I don’t want to forget about them either.

_And most importantly, I don’t want to think about them. _

When I do a review, I’ll see them, remember them, and that’s enough.

It’s simple. It’s not over-engineered. It’s not automated to death. It’s easy to maintain.

And most importantly: things actually get done.

My lists used to be huge and chaotic. This isn’t.

NOTE: For work tasks I use Microsoft To Do, since it plugs straight into the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem we use.

Letting Go of My Library

2025-11-19T01:29:54Z

I recently read a few very interesting articles about personal libraries. Here is one that haunts me about Cormac McCarthy’s huge personal library and his vast, chaotic collection of “stuff”.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the idea of having a library of my own. But as I get older, something about it has started to feel unsettling. The thought of being surrounded by piles of things - books, objects, layers of accumulated life- now makes me uneasy. I crave order, clean spaces, and easy living unburdened by stuff. Large empty spaces and shelves call to me.

I started collecting books when I was a student. They moved with me between different flats, and at one point I had over a thousand titles. I cherish them all, even the ones I haven’t read, because I agree with whoever said that reading and collecting books are two different hobbies.

But as the saying goes, we spend the second half of our lives getting rid of the things we so fervently collected in the first half. I’ve been in that situation for several years now. I moved countries with a large container of stuff, only to realize I could probably have left 90% of it behind and never missed it. In fact, it took me years to slowly get rid of it.

I wrote once about decluttering my clothes the Marie Kondo way. I’ve done the same with my house, again and again, until I got to a minimalist look and feel that I was happy with (and it’s still a work in progress).

For the past two years I’ve been in a very high-stress role at work, and sometimes taking care of my house, when everything else feels out of control, is the one thing I can do. I’m well aware of it, but it still leaves me with a nice, clean, minimal home. I live with a non-minimalist husband who, thankfully, gets on board every now and then. If it weren’t for him, it would be even more minimalist.

Recently, after another round of spring cleaning, I finally got to my library. I’ve decluttered it many times since moving to New Zealand, but books are easy to come by here. There are lots of secondhand shops in town, and every February/March there’s a beautiful book fair where you can stock up for winter. It’s also easy to donate books, and I’ve been doing that. Still, I had too many. Reading those articles, and realizing I now read most of my books on Kindle, I felt the urge to minimize my library again.

My criteria were simple:

Get rid of books I’ve read and know I’ll never read again.
Get rid of books I haven’t read but know I’ll probably never read.
Get rid of books on subjects I’m no longer interested in, or that I could easily borrow from the library or download if I change my mind later.
Get rid of novels I’ve saved for years, waiting to read, but never did.

Having shelves so full was also stopping me from borrowing (but not buying) new books, because I felt weighed down by all the unread ones sitting at home.

So I took all the books down. I got my husband to go through his too. Surprisingly, he got rid of quite a few. It was easier than I expected to minimize my library to the point where it now looks almost empty. People commented that it looks too empty. But I’m not worried. I feel like I can finally breathe.

The books were gone in a day- donated, given to friends, or put on the book exchange shelves at work. What’s left are my true favorites, the ones I’ll reread. My husband’s books are breathing now too - he loves Bob Woodward and all kinds of political and spy thrillers, and he actually rereads them, so those stay. The goal isn’t to have no books at all, but to keep only the ones that genuinely matter, and to leave room for new interests when they arrive.

So while I still appreciate big libraries - and if this were the 90s or early 2000s, when we didn’t have Kindles and books were harder or more expensive to get, I might still keep one - right now, a lighter library just feels better.

There are still a few hundred books on my shelves (and I’ll admit to owning a set of about 50 nearly-new beautiful hardcover classics I picked up at an auction for $15. They’re currently sitting in the attic, waiting for some imaginary future where we have space to display them purely for decoration, because I doubt I’ll read them again. But I can’t get rid of them. Yet.

But my shelves can finally breathe, and so can I. I can happily pick up a book, flip through it, enjoy the moment, and put it back down—without feeling weighed down by the sheer volume of “stuff.”

Here is the before, during and after of my library.

Arguably, the before is more aesthetically pleasing, but the after makes me feel so much lighter, full of possibility.

At this point in my life, I think I’d be completely fine not having any shelves or books at all. But even my kids, who don’t particularly enjoy reading (at least not the way I did when I was younger), were upset when I got rid of so many books - they say they like the feeling of them, the atmosphere they create. I agree. I love looking at other people’s libraries and I always will.

The Irony of Personal Blog Longevity

2025-08-23T12:07:05Z

Why Free Blogs Outlast the Ones We Pay For

I was recently cleaning up some of my old files and stumbled across posts from a free wordpress blog I’d set up for my mum and her two sisters back in 2020, when everyone was trying new projects. I called it The Three Sisters Write (trisestretipisu.wordpress.com), and the idea was for them to share bits of life wisdom from their six or seven decades of experience. They ended up writing about 20 posts before abandoning it, but when I clicked the link the other day, everything was still there as I left it five years ago - neat, tidy, untouched.

That got me thinking about the longevity of blogs. With paid domains and hosting, once you stop paying, everything disappears. But with free platforms - WordPress, Blogger, and the like- you sometimes stumble across an old, abandoned blog that’s still sitting there decades later, preserved without anyone lifting a finger.

I regret deleting my own old (self hosted) blog. I’d worked hard on it, tweaking SEO, even ranking first on Google for some posts. But at the time, I couldn’t justify the cost of hosting or a custom domain, or having a blog at all , so evetually, three years after starting it, I deleted the whole thing. Honestly, I felt relieved in the moment, one less thing to worry about. But now I wish I’d just kept it alive and I probably would have, if I’d started it on a free platform.

I find myself wondering about this blog sometimes. I don’t keep it for any particular reason beyond simply having a place for my thoughts. But life has been busy, and while I still collect ideas, links, and drafts, I rarely find the energy to actually write.

I just started a new role, and most of my days happen in front of a computer. So outside of work, I reach for physical activities, anything that involves moving my body, even something as simple as cleaning the house. Sitting down to write often feels like I’m literally breaking my back.

Meanwhile, I follow dozens of blogs in my RSS feed. People who post weekly notes, updates, essays, some of them incredibly consistent. And I know I wouldn’t be able to keep up with that rhythm at this stage of my life.

Recently, I took six weeks off and went on vacation with my family. It was perfectly timed, just before starting the new job. In all that time, I wrote a single post. Weeks passed without me even opening my computer. Instead, I read on my Kindle, I rested, and I felt no urge at all to write, or collect, or track anything digitally.

And yet, here’s the thing: this blog costs money to exist (no matter the actual amount). Even if I step away for weeks, or months, or years - I still have to keep paying for the domain and hosting if I want it to live. That feels incredibly wasteful when I’m not writing, and yet letting it disappear feels worse. I’ve been there before, deleting a blog I’d worked hard on, one that had even gained some traction, and I regretted it. If I had started it as something like word.wordpress.com, it would be sitting there quietly, waiting for me, no matter how long I stayed away.

That’s the irony: the free version offers permanence, while the paid one demands constant justification… and any lapse (like deleting it) is unforgiving.

Social Media Still Calls to Me

2025-06-26T05:53:56Z

I’m currently on vacation, with time on my hands, and I’m with my sister—an enthusiastic Instagram user. We’ve been taking a lot of pictures together, and of course, she wants to tag me in them.

I do have an Instagram account that I once sort of linked to this blog, but then decided not to. Still, I use it to open links people send me or to look things up. I follow maybe 10 accounts, max. But honestly, I barely check it—maybe once every few weeks, or when something randomly pops up.

But now, because I’m on vacation, I’ve been on it a lot more. I shared the account with my sister so she can tag me in her posts. It’s a tiny, barely-alive account with exactly two followers—my sister and my niece.

Scrolling through her profile, full of happy, shiny moments, I felt a familiar pull. It made me miss my old Instagram account—the one I had since 2011 and deleted completely a few years ago. Not just deactivated, but fully deleted. Every now and then, I feel a pang of regret over that. That account was like a mini time capsule of my child growing up. It was private, friends-only. People I knew in real life. But it got overwhelming. The endless scrolling, liking, checking—just like what happened to me on Facebook.

At the time, I didn’t regret deleting it. But sometimes I do miss it. That feeling came back on this trip. But even now, with just two followers and following ten people, I can see the algorithm slowly reeling me in again. Suggested posts, targeted content based on what I pause to look at. It’s a slippery slope.

I don’t know how people manage their lives around social media. To me it is addictive. I can’t just control it (believe me, I tried). I am not sure anyone can, but it is true that some people don’t see it as a huge time waster and they don’t overthink it. They just scroll.

I still have my Facebook account—from the early days—and I haven’t deleted it. Mostly because I worked internationally for many years, and I’ve got over 600 contacts there (I culled and cleaned for years, attempting to control my feed)—people I’ve met and worked with. Messenger is handy, and yes, I know I could delete Facebook and keep Messenger, but sometimes I like to post something small. Just to say hi. To remind people I still exist.

But I haven’t posted personal life updates in years. Then the other day, I did. It was a picture of my former boss, now retired, who flew in from Mexico to visit me and my husband on vacation in my home country (Bosnia). We all used to work together. We played dress-up in Dubrovnik (aka King’s Landing for Game of Thrones fans), and I posted a picture.

And right after that, people started messaging me—likely reminded I’m still around—and asking what I’ve been up to. And I’m sitting there thinking, Well, if you were really wondering, you could have messaged me. I’m right here.

That’s exactly what I do now—if I wonder about someone, I message them. I don’t have most people’s email addresses or phone numbers anyway, but Messenger works.

And in doing that—actually reaching out—I’ve rekindled a few friendships. Nothing deep or ongoing, but short exchanges, a few messages here and there. And that feels real.

So there I was this morning, lying in my hotel room, looking at my sister’s reels, wondering Should I bring back Instagram? And immediately: Why?

Day One has been an absolute godsend for that itch. I can still store my photos. I can still write about what they meant to me, what I (really) felt. I can relive memories in ways that actually matter to me.

And importantly—it still makes me want to take pictures. I’ve seen so many people say they’ve stopped taking photos altogether because they have nowhere to put them. I kind of get that. I see how much time my sister spends getting the perfect shot because the photo is going to go somewhere, and so it has to be good.

I like beautiful pictures too. But mine usually go in our digital family photo albums—the ones I try to put together every year—or into Day One, where they resurface over time. But I don’t spend nearly as much time trying to get the perfect photo anymore.

This whole Instagram temptation made me pause. What would I even do with a new account? Invite all my friends again? Start posting again? I already have Facebook, and if I really want to reach someone, I can message them.

Since stepping away from social media, I’ve actually built stronger, more intentional connections. I’ve got standing catch-ups now—actual, monthly or so one-on-one chats with people I care about. And funnily enough, I never had that while I was active on social media.

Back then, we all just posted updates and scrolled through each other’s feeds. It felt like we were in touch, but we weren’t really. There wasn’t space for real conversations.

And those real conversations? They go deeper. They’re about things we’d never post publicly. We plan things, we meet up, we talk. It’s true what they say—we can really only maintain a few close relationships. Not hundreds.

Now that I’ve moved countries and had to form new friendships, I find most of the people I see in real life aren’t even on my social media. And sure, sometimes I think, Oh, it would be nice to post a picture and have them see me in that setting - but I resist the temptation.

I get these pangs, especially on vacation—when I’ve got space to think or time to tinker with things. But I try to pause. Like this morning, sitting here by the sea, thinking, No, I don’t need to show this to anyone.

But I did want to flesh it out in a blog post rather than a journal entry.

Which brings me to another thought—I really wish this blog had comments. Every now and then, I toy with the idea of going back to WordPress, just for the comments plugin. This current platform (Pika) doesn’t have one. I’ve had people reach out by email in response to my posts—and that’s been lovely. But I miss the public conversations that can happen right on a blog.

On many of the blogs I follow, I learn just as much from the comments as from the original post. People responding, sharing their takes, offering advice, reflecting. Sharing interests that nobody in my real life shares.

It becomes a little community. And sure, responding to emails one-on-one is great, but it’s time-consuming. And we can’t share it, except like this. But it’s still one-sided.

I hope Pika brings in comments soon—or at least makes them optional. I’d turn them on in a heartbeat. I don’t want to open another social media account—I even tried Mastodon briefly—but no can’t bring myself to use it. Because every time I dabble in that world, it brings me right back to this—this Instagram spiral. This black hole of time and energy.

And as I get older, I’m just more aware of how precious time really is.

Bear Web Beta: Finally, My Notes Anywhere

2025-05-02T22:45:59Z

Something happened the other day that made me really weirdly happy. I opened my email first thing in the morning and saw that I’d I'd been accepted into the Bear web private beta.

I was so excited. I wanted to tell someone right away. But then I realized there’s no one in my day-to-day life who would get why this mattered.

I guess that’s what this space is for.

When I first decided to go all in on Bear, I knew it came with limitations. It’s Apple-only, which I accepted because no other app felt as good to use on my phone. The writing experience is clean, beautiful, and lightweight in a way nothing else really manages. I moved everything over from Obsidian, and it was nice to have constant access to my notes—to review them, trim what no longer made sense, and actually use them.

But the big limitation: no web version. And that’s huge for me. At work, I can’t download apps on my work device. I’m in the Microsoft 365 world where OneNote is the note-taking tool of choice. OneNote is fine for work stuff (it just seamlessly integrates with everything at work), but I’d never use it for personal notes—mainly because you can’t really export anything properly and folder, folders, folders aka notebooks (tagging in Bear seems like such an elegant solution to note duplication).

So for notes, it’s been Bear all the way—but not really for writing, much as I’d love to use it more. I spend most of my time in Windows. So Notion is still very much a thing for me for writing and learning.

Anyway, before I went all in on Bear, I saw they were developing a web version and calling for beta testers. I signed up and forgot about it. People on the Bear forums have been asking about it constantly, and rightly so—cross-platform access is a deal-breaker for many. I’d never go fully Apple-only. Windows still does some things better, and Apple’s workarounds can be infuriating. But nothing beats the feel of writing on my (2018) MacBook Air. It just feels right.

So now, finally, I have access to Bear on the web. I’m just thrilled to be able to access my notes outside of the Apple bubble. We were asked not to talk about the web app itself in detail, so I won’t. But I had to say something—because this little corner of the internet is where people might understand why it matters.

So yeah. Yay, I did it.

Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy - Or Does It?

2025-04-21T08:42:56Z

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life.”
– attributed to Theodore Roosevelt

I had a conversation with my husband the other day about this idea that most of us seem to carry - the belief that whatever is truly worthwhile should come through struggle. Hard work leads to success. A good relationship requires effort. A job is only valuable if you had to fight for it.

Somewhere along the way, we absorbed the idea that struggle is the price of anything meaningful - like the quote above. But that just doesn’t resonate with me anymore.

I’m not even sure when we first internalize this belief. But I see it playing out in subtle ways.

I asked my teenage son, who’s 15, what he believes about success. His answer was: hard work. He already has this idea that a good degree or a successful career will only come through long hours of studying and grinding. And I think we — as a society, as parents - have passed this belief down to our kids without even realizing it. It’s not that it’s entirely wrong, but the true tragedy of it is that it makes not appreicate, sometimes not even notice (until we lose it) anything that comes easily.

I’ve had jobs that came to me easily, and I never fully appreciated them. My first job was literally “given” to me - a well-paid, stable position - because I was in the right place at the right time. And yet, I never valued it the way I might have if I had struggled to land it. Then another job came along, and another. And instead of being grateful, I found myself focusing on the flaws: what wasn’t working, what I was missing, how it could be better. Because surely, it must only go better from here.

It’s only when I left those jobs that I started to appreciate what I had. At the time, I was convinced I could do better - that something even better was just around the corner because it had all come so easily. Meanwhile, the people who had worked hard to get where I was seemed to understand they had a good thing going.

Derren Brown writes in Happy that “we should train ourselves - as and when we remember - to feel satisfied with what comes more easily.”

On a more new-agey note - Esther Hicks talks about in Money, and the Law of Attraction - that the universe tends to reflect our beliefs back to us. If you believe something is hard, it will feel hard. If you believe it’s easy, you’ll experience more ease.

But most of us are so attached to the idea that effort equals value, we resist accepting anything that comes without struggle.

After all, aren’t we taught not to spoil our kids - because when they get everything without effort, they tend to take it for granted?

Even creativity gets tangled up in this. We distrust joy and ease, as if they’re signs we’re not doing it right.

And yet, as Brown points out, the key to a more satisfying life might be to stop chasing struggle and start finding contentment in the things that come naturally and easily.

I think the real danger of this mindset is that it makes us blind to the good things we already have.

It reminds me of the hadith:

"Take advantage of five before five:
your youth before your old age;
your health before your sickness;
your wealth before your poverty;
your free time before your workload;
and your life before your death."

- Prophet Muhammad

We’d be wise to remember that. I know there were many times in my life when I didn’t.

A Room of My Own

What My 2025 Journal Taught Me

The Happiest Moments Are Simple (duh!)

Complexity Drains Me Faster Than I Think (duh!)

I’m Becoming More Aware of Time

My Kids Are the Center of My Story

Travel Brings Me Back to Myself

Two Sides of My Personality

One Habit That Changes Everything

The Lesson of the Year

Why I Stopped Writing Weekly Notes

I Choose Living Over Documenting

A Note on Blogging Anonymously

On Leaving, Starting Over, and Not Living in Fear

When Your World Feels Small, Walk Away

Where Most of My Energy Goes These Days

My Photo Management and Memory Keeping Workflow

Managing Photographs and Mementos - My Workflow

Photos

Videos

Related Posts

My 2026 Direction (Not Goals)

My Actual 2026 Direction (as written in and stored in my Bear Notes)

Let Myself Be Content

Move daily and be kind to my body

Go with what feels good in the moment

Focus at work, keep growing professionally

On the Compulsion to Record

You’re Always Choosing How You Live

The Courage to Be Disliked (and Why It’s Shaping My 2026)

The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga

1. Teleology, Not Trauma

2. People Don’t Change Because It’s Scary

3. All Problems Are Interpersonal

4. Stop Competing

5. Separate Tasks

6. Drop the Need for Recognition

7. Build Horizontal Relationships

8. Self-Acceptance, Not Self-Esteem

9. Belonging Comes From Contribution

10. Live in the Here and Now

11. Meaning Is Not Found, It’s Chosen

Apparently I’ve Been “Interstitial” Journaling All Along

Where I Keep My “Bookmarks”

How I Organise Things

What I have instead

Old-School Career Advice That Still Works

Re-Reading How to Become a CEO by Jeffrey J. Fox in 2025

How to Become CEO by Jeffrey J. Fox (1998)

1. Always take the job that offers the most money

2. Avoid staff jobs, seek line jobs

Line Jobs

Staff Jobs

3. Don’t expect the personnel department to plan your career

4. Get and keep customers

5. Keep physically fit

6. Do something hard and lonely regularly

7. Never write a nasty memo

8. Think for one hour every day

9. Keep and use a special idea notebook

10. Don’t have a drink with the gang

11. Don’t smoke

12. Skip all office parties

13. Friday is “How are you doing?” day

14. Make allies of your peers and subordinates

15. Know everybody by their first name

16. Organize one-line “Good Job” tours

17. Make one more call

18. Arrive 45 minutes early and leave 15 minutes late

19. Don’t take work home from the office

20. Earn your invitation credentials

21. Avoid superiors when you travel

22. Eat in your hotel room

23. Work, don’t read paperbacks on the airplane

24. Keep a people file

25. Send handwritten notes

26. Don’t get buddy-buddy with your superiors

27. Don’t hide an elephant

28. Be visible

29. Always take vacations

The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi , Fumitake Koga