Decided I’m going to spend a bit of time working on a new design for my blog this weekend. Time to restructure some things and, since I’m posting more often, have a design that’s more reflective of me and my design tastes.
I just discovered that WhatsApp can do bold and italic text with some basic Markdown syntax. Who knew!
Book Budget
I just added a new category in my YNAB Budget under Quality of Life Goals, it’s name? Books.
Since I started using Goodreads in 2013 I’ve read 104 books. That’s an average of just under 21 books a year with a low of 17 in 2013 and a high of 34 books in 2016.
Clearly I like to read, so it made sense to actually budget for these books financially since I’m already making time in my life to read them. There’s something very different about sitting down and relaxing with a good book compared to a film or boxset that I enjoy a great deal. Most of these books are fiction, I find they provide me with a good way of shutting my mind off at the end of the day by forcing me to use my imagination. I have to let my mind create the images that go with the words, converting the writers descriptions into visuals in my mind. The words on the page acting as the brush and my mind as the paint to create the large landscapes and cityscapes as well as the detail of the characters faces and the expressions they pull.
Until a few years ago I had gone a few years without reading a lot, I always had a novel on the go but the number I would read in a year was much less. Gradually as I got older and remembered how much I like reading the number would increase, but the intensity at which I devoured books became greater after I became ill with depression a few years ago. Throughout my recovery, and when I find my mood dipping again, novels become a great source of escape. Usually I find concentration hard when I’m battling a low period, but a good novel (often a familiar one that I’ve read many times) is able to provide me with some escape. Reading the prose of a good fantasy or sci-fi book allows me to find freedom from the circular thoughts and spirals of whatever I find myself fixating on. As a visual thinker letting my imagination build the worlds centuries away from today (in either direction) is a great way of exercising my creative muscles and preventing those unhelpful thought patterns take hold.
Whenever I’ve spoken to friends who have been struggling with similar mental health issues, I always recommend they read. It takes a bit of effort to start, but I’ve found it much more helpful than watching a film. The act of watching images develop on a screen is far less distracting than having to engage your mind with the words and story of a book. Reading, I find, is a form of active rest. I can let my body rest and recharge, while using my mind in a way that’s different from the work of my two jobs, and in so doing letting it refresh and recharge.
So here’s to books, to my new book budget, and to the many more hours of rest that they will provide.
After a long tiring week there’s nothing quite like flopping on the sofa with a good book. I usually have a non-fiction and a fiction book on the go, more and more I find myself reaching for the fiction to wind down. Currently reading Red Rising and Quiet. 📚
One thing about building discipline, particularly in the area of posting to a blog each day, is the need for ideas. There’s a similarity between ideas and discipline, in that the more you exercise those muscles the stronger they become.
Email to @culturedcode’s Things is possibly one of their best features yet. The fact it is able to create a link to the email in mail.app makes it incredibly valuable.
Thoughts On Just Turning Up
I’ve been thinking a little more about the link I posted to Austin Kleon’s blog the other day. I finished it with the line
Instead there should just be turning up to write down a thought and seeing where it takes you.
It’s a sentiment that you hear quite regularly around the Internet these days. Just keep turning up every day and do the thing—whatever your thing is.
The phrase turning up is just a less intimidating way of saying be disciplined. Turning up to write a blog post everyday is a discipline, just as reading your bible every day is or getting up without pressing the snooze button.
As I get older I’m understanding more and more that learning to be disciplined is one of the most important things you can do. It can effect every area of your life and it’s easy to assume that discipline is something that you have or you don’t. That you’re either able to be disciplined or you’re not, but that’s not the case. Discipline, I’m learning, is something you can develop. It’s like a muscle, the more you work it the stronger it gets.
The hard part, I believe, is not getting started but maintaining and developing. Everyone can start something, doing it for a couple of days before they get distracted or it begins to feel like work, and then stopping because it requires effort to continue. But that’s where you need to begin exercising that muscle of discipline, when things feel too hard keep going regardless, over time how hard it feels will disappear and instead it will become something you do each and every day.
So join me in learning to be disciplined. Starting tomorrow morning decide what time you’re going to get up, set your alarm and then get up when it goes off. No snoozing, no rolling over, just turn off that alarm and get up. Then do it the next day, and the next, until it becomes something you just do.
Last week I moved Tweetbot out the dock on my iPhone and replaced it with Micro.blog. Haven’t looked back since, a much nicer community to interact with. I’m still checking Twitter but mostly for design/sports news.
Thoughts as Nest Eggs
Today when you say “nest egg” many think of money saved and put away, but a literal “nest egg” is a real or fake egg that you put in a nest to encourage a bird or a hen to lay more eggs there. So what Thoreau is saying is that by simply writing down a thought, you encourage more thoughts to come. When you have enough thoughts pushed together in the same space — a collage of thoughts, juxtaposed — they often lead to something totally new.
This is the magic of writing.
Austin Kleon wrapped up a recent post with the quote above. The post on one level is about journaling and writing in general, but do you know what else that quote describes? A blog.
A blog is nothing more than a series of thoughts written down over a period of time. When you think about it that way it’s incredibly freeing. There should be no pressure. Instead there should just be turning up to write down a thought and seeing where it takes you.
Firefox is becoming my favourite browser to develop websites in. The new CSS Grid layout inspector is excellent, reminiscent of InDesign in its display and so helpful in helping me to understand how the new layout stuff works.