Wow, it has been an insane couple of weeks with plenty of emotional ups and downs. Work has been very busy and it feels like the weeks are flying by. This last week however, I’ve had a bit more time to think and look at stuff outside the office.
1) Tech I’ve been playing with this week: My love of Docker has led me to put even more services on my little Raspberry Pi this week, primarily Wireguard VPN which was so remarkably simple to set up I think I went from nothing to a fully functional VPN in about 5 minutes.
2) What I’ve been reading this week: Not long ago I discovered World of Books and have promptly ordered several ‘old’ books. This week I’ve been reading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne and enjoying playing OceanBlock, which is what I though Sky block should have been all along.
3) What I’ve been drinking this week: Oh, how I love my coffee! While I’ve been experimenting with delaying my caffeine intake until at least 90 minutes after I wake up, I’m also trying to improve not only the quality but also the consistency of my morning cuppa. Currently I weigh the beans (15g), and measure the amount of grounds into my areporess, and measure the amount of water (200g), finally, I time the brewing (2 min). My results are pretty good and consistant, so what remains? Water temperature! That’s the next challenge.
4) Articles I’ve been reading this week: The Time Millionaires is an interesting concept, while not new. I’ve always been a fan of working form home and the last two years have enabled me to spend much more time with my family. I also used to work a 4-day week, which again, gave me the freedom to get more done outside work. As work and life settle after the impact of the pandemic I hope that people and companies continue to be flexible in their approach to work enabling us to create time for actual leisure, not a side hustle!
5) Practices I’ve gone back to this week As mentioned, work has been, and continues to be quite demanding. Initially this lead to a drop off in some of my daily practices, and boy, did I feel the effect. This week I have tried to go back to those foundational practices and, while work and home life are no less demanding, I have found both much easier to deal with! My standard, go to practices are; a daily three rounds of Wim Hof breathing, without getting too hung up on the breath hold retention times, followed by at least 20 min of meditation. I have found this to be a winning combination with the Wim Hof breathing getting me in the right mental state for meditation.
I’ve noticed an increasingly negative effect on my mental health from using services like Instagram, so have been using it less and less. I am still pretty active on Twitter.