Chrome Tabs : 74 → 68
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Happy New Year! I didn’t do a lot to celebrate this time, not least because COVID is surging again. But I did still manage to have a nice day and evening. I went tide pooling in the day time (always crazy low tides around NYE!), and then hung out with a very few friends over Zoom. I even surprised myself and stayed up until 1AM, which I don’t think I’ve done on NYE for a couple years now. Here’s to a better 2022 for us all! 
One of my greatest goals and focuses over the past several years has been to bring more mindfulness into my life, and become more aware of and deliberate about what I do in any given day, what I spend my time on, etc. A while ago I had the thought that perhaps trying a really formalized/structured approach to the day might be an interesting and useful experiment, but it has taken me a long time to actually try it. This past week I finally did, for a 4 hour stretch on my Sunday, which is already a bit more structured than an average day. To put this in IFS terms, it felt like this was a reasonable compromise between some of my parts, the one(s) that want me to try this, and the ones that are concerned about various aspects of doing so. The relatively short time frame (not an entire day or even a full “work day” period), and doing it on an already-more-structured day helped address some of the concerns of the more uncertain parts. And it went well! It’s definitely an insight-generator, and I may have more to say about it soon as I’m trying it again as I write this (also on a Sunday). My ultimate hope is to potentially find a way to bring some elements of this greater structure and awareness into my life in a comfortable, sustainable way.
Another one of my practices for keeping mindful operates on a larger timescale. I do both weekly and quarterly review/evaluations, checking on how things are going in my life, and trying to plan a bit for the coming week or quarter. I have also wanted to do bi-annual reviews with some combination other longer timeline considerations. As I come to the end of another year, there are also year-end and review practices I have been wanting to engage with, some of which I have done a bit with before, others which are new to me. Unfortunately as I write this, just after the turning of the new year, none of the above (except my weeklies) has actually been completed. My quarterly review remains untouched, along with my bi-annual, and certainly the year-end stuff just hasn’t been touched. Now that the symbolic moment to do much of this has passed, will I, should I? Can I motivate myself to do any of it? What is most important to focus on? I am hoping to at least get my quarterly review going again as that feels like a pretty useful and sustainable process. The rest I will see if I can incorporate in time… And of course I’ll report on how it goes.
I am a man of slowly thinning hair. I wish I had more choice here, but I’m not interested in trying anything that could have serious side effects, and most of the options for hair growth have that to contend with. A couple years ago I found a hair style (and stylist) that I like and which I think makes the hair I have left look as good as it can, but it’s still inevitable that I’ll have a classic bald-topped look. So recently I’ve been thinking about the pros and cons of just going ahead and shaving it all off! I’ve always been a little hesitant about changes to my hair style, and I know many other people who are much more comfortable trying something new. So for me it’s a period of consideration, even research, etc. (including asking friends about it). If I had a partner I’d also seriously consider their perspective. So far initial feedback from friends and even my hair stylist is reasonably positive. I also found an app that simulates what it might look like. So uh… here’s that. If you have any feedback let me know. 
(I’m pretty sure my head is not as pointy as pic 3)
Some time in the last year, maybe two, I started to actually be a little bit active on Twitter. Overall it’s been a rewarding experience, but I frequently feel uncertainty and self-doubt. Should I say this or that? Should I respond to this person, should I disagree with them in public? What will people think? All that. The very kind of stuff I write here to more or less avoid. But this is what Twitter is basically used for, and though I am not great at it, I think it’s an interesting and useful part of my “communications ecosystem” (as my coach calls it). I still don’t post everything I think or want to say, and maybe that’s for the best, but I’m at least getting more comfortable with the format, with threads, etc.
I went to Israel toward the end of 2019 (cousin’s wedding) and took a bunch of photos (in a rarity, all of them just with my cell phone). It has taken me until now to post a curated, edited set. Hopefully that gives you some idea of how bad my procrastination with photo editing is. I typically post these kinds of galleries to Facebook, which isn’t something I can really share here. I have a Flickr Pro account, I suppose I should just post them there… Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in seeing, help me get over my inertia of actually using Flickr more. 
I have been a pretty serious cocktail enthusiast for some 10 years now. In a typical week I’ll make a cocktail, sometimes two, 3-5 nights. And I really enjoy inventing new drinks and new flavor combos in particular, so about 2/3 of the time I am make something completely (or almost completely) new. But the last couple weeks I have felt less of an interest in doing so, and I’m not totally sure why. I had a small cocktail event planned with a few friends that I had to cancel, and maybe losing that sort of outlet for the sharing aspect of it has me feeling a little defeated or disappointed? I don’t really know. I did end up making a couple of interesting and tasty things toward the end of the week, but for the most part I just didn’t want a cocktail. Well, at least I know I’m not a true alcoholic. 
I originally went through a “Life Design” process with my coach several years ago, and the output of that was a “life plan”, the “design documents”. Many of my regular habits, practices, and tasks are based on what we planned for me to do through that process (with sensible updates along the way, of course). But they’re important references and I ultimately don’t want to drift too far from their overall intentions, at least not without being deliberate about it. Yet I seldom go back and read through the original design docs. Almost every time I do it’s insightful, and this week I finally went back and reviewed a particularly topical one: my Recreation plan. This connects with some shifts that are happening in my current coaching practice itself. And I setup a task to more regularly review these docs moving forward.
I, uh… I made this. Another graphics project based on a friend’s bad pun ideas. I just find this stuff fun to make, really. I take no responsibility for the quality of the puns themselves. 
A quick heads-up and PSA: if you use Amazon Photos to backup/store your photos on a desktop machine, particularly on Windows, you might want to check and make sure it’s still backing up newer photos! I noticed recently that mine was not, even though the Amazon Photos app that runs in the background would still regularly spike my CPU for hours on end (a known bug, apparently). I removed then re-added the folder of all my photos and after a day or so, and some duplicate uploads, it seems to be back to keeping current, fortunately.