Some holiday resolutions

I got back from a nice week in Greece today. It was a much needed break with some much needed time to slow down and think. Because of that, I came back with the following resolutions:

No Twitter until 5pm

What I did—using iOS Downtime—was stop myself from looking at Twitter until 5pm at the earliest. That hell site has a habit of completely ruining my mood, so not looking until at least 5pm meant I get most of a day before I see the dickhead of the day’s shite take.

It’s been an experiment and it’s massively reduced the amount of time spent on there. I’m a full Twitter addict and I’m constantly trying to spend less time on there. Circles has been a godsend for this too. I can tweet without a sea of reply guys, which is great. I would love to have a Circle timeline so I can only see what those mutuals are tweeting though.

I really should post to Twitter from here—my website. I’ve got the posting setup real nice on my phone, so even short little posts are easy. Maybe I should have a rule where I only post to my Circle directly on Twitter and bring in replies as webmentions on my site for interacting with the wider Twitter community.

I still checked in on Twitter while on holiday, though—unfortunately it’s intrinsically linked to work and being self-employed, you can’t fully escape work while on holiday. I’d take that over having a boss though, any day of the week.

Read books every day

I read loads before the pandemic and really let that slip over the last couple of years. I only managed one full book this holiday—Fake Law, by The Secret Barrister—but bloody loved it. I did get very far into What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, by Randall Munroe (xkcd person). This one is excellent.

I’m going to read at least 15-20 mins a day ongoing. It’ll help keep me away from Twitter and hopefully, get me to bed earlier. I go to bed way too late and chilling with a book should help wind me down more (I hope).

Slow down and say no more

A consistent theme (along with my endless battle with Twitter addiction) for me is when stuff gets busy with work, I let it get the better of me.

I’m lucky—the new agency is flying a heck of a lot faster than I expected it too. That has brought a lot of stress and overlap with my existing freelance commitments though.

A big problem is I’ve said yes to too many things and I should know better. This has unfortunately resulted in a couple of truly horrible projects this year, that have really dragged me down. I’m going to sort that right out because I’m not taking full advantage of being independent by working on crap stuff!

Wrapping up

Anyway, I’ve had a lovely time and feel completely recharged. hopefully the above resolutions will make that feeling last as long as possible!

Edit: my circle timeline prayers have been answered