Month: January 2022

Fifty From Fifty

On By TontowilliamsIn Life

In a few weeks time I turn 50. I’ve been toying with ideas of ways to mark it in some way and I thought I’d write about some of the things that I’ve learnt in my life, things that were important to me.

I wanted it to be a limited thing too, something that would be roughly 50 posts, done before I turn 51. So rather than post them here I’ve set up a separate newsletter that way if you’re interested you can sign up for it and if you’re not you don’t have to worry about it – although I can’t guarantee I won’t mention it again here.

So if you’re up for some reminiscence and nostalgia you can sign up here: Fifty From Fifty the sign up process might ask you if you want to pay, but ignore that all the posts will be free. I hope you’ll join me.

Coming soon

On By TontowilliamsIn Uncategorized

This is Fifty Things From Fifty Years, a newsletter about some things from 50 years of life.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be indulging in some nostalgia about things from the last 50 years. If you’d like to join me feel free to subscribe via the link in this post or go to fiftyfromfifty.substack.com and sign up there.

Always free and lasting until I turn 51.

Reading Productively

On By TontowilliamsIn Book Review, books, Kindle

At the end of last year and for the first couple of weeks of this year I seem to have been reading a lot of books that could broadly be classed as “productivity self-help”. Here’s what I’ve been reading:

Mason Currey’s “Daily Rituals“
Cal Newport’s “Digital Minimalism” & “Deep Work“,
Oliver Burkeman’s “Four Thousand Weeks” (as an audiobook),
James Clear’s “Atomic Habits“

All of these have been recommended to me via a variety of difference sources; friends, podcasts, etc, and some of these books reference each other. All of them were worth reading in their own way, just after I’d decided to take a break from social media I read Digital Minimalism. Interestingly most of what the author was suggesting in terms of reducing digital consumption were steps that I’d already been taking. In fact in most cases you could make the argument that most of what was being suggested anyone could probably come up with by themselves with enough thought and time. I would say however that these books save you that time but only work if you are prepared to put the thought in about how you might implement things for yourself.

Accepting that we are all unique and our personal circumstances are different there is no one-size fits all approach, did I learn anything? Yes, I did. I’d say that I’ve tweaked some of my work patterns to better fit me. For example I know that mornings work best for me to really get things done. So I’m blocking my mornings much more for writing and thinking and trying wherever I can to push admin type work e.g. raising client invoices, to afternoons. That doesn’t mean that I won’t do other things in my mornings, because I also need to be responsive to clients needs, but my preference is to try and keep them for when I really need to focus on things.

I’m still on a bit of a social media break, but I have allowed it to creep back into my life a bit more than it was. However this is much more on a set of “rules” that mean that I don’t end up doom scrolling or wasting time. I am now spending more time reading which is one of my aims for this year (not necessarily more self-help books though). I enjoy this lower level of interaction, although it isn’t the perfect balance yet so will need a bit more refinement.

Do I recommend any of the above books? Well that depends on whether this is something that you want to read about. All are good, but I’ve had a couple of them languishing on my kindle for quite some time (purchased when they were 99p specials), so I’m not sure I’d have bought them (at full price) if I weren’t already thinking about this sort of thing. I don’t think they’re the sort of book you’d read without a reason to.

2020 Take 3

On By TontowilliamsIn books, The Week That Was2 Comments

A couple of different people have mentioned that this seems like the third attempt at 2020 after 2021 turned out to be the rerun. I’m not sure yet whether 2022 will fare any better but so far it’s starting out a little similar to 2021 with Covid-19 on the rise, a government that is focussed on its internal party politics rather than the betterment of the country, work being cancelled or changed as a result and life not being quite what anyone would wish for. It probably doesn’t help that the days are shorter and there’s not a great deal of sunlight at the best of times.

I’ve been taking a break from writing here and just about everywhere on social media for a few weeks. I needed the break, especially from Twitter and to a lesser extent YouTube and Instagram, and to be honest I’m not planning on going back anytime soon, and when I do it won’t be to the same extent. Inevitably I use social media a little by default, with things autoposting e.g. GoodReads and this blog, but that’s likely to be my limit of interaction for the time being at least.

One of my aims for this year is to read more and in doing so read more widely. The less time I spend doom scrolling the more time I’ll have for other things like that. I took the approach of looking at things I should: ‘stop doing, start doing, & keep doing’ the logic being that to start doing one thing you have to stop doing something else.

I ended up spending quite a bit of time reading at the end of December, partly in a conscious choice to have a break at the end of the year and also as ideas emerged about less social media and more reading to see what that felt like. Overall I read 83 books last year and so far this year I’ve read 4 (including one audiobook), like last year I have no target I just want to see where I go, no pressure and reading more doesn’t necessarily mean more books.

We finally watched the most recent Bond film over Christmas. I enjoyed it and it was worth the wait. Would I have liked to have seen it in the cinema? Yes, but then I still think that was just too great a risk at the time. Other than that Christmas television was pretty disappointing and there hasn’t been much better so far this year. We’re watching quite a few repeats or just not bothering.

We had a quiet Christmas, restrictions on care homes meant that I saw my Mum before Christmas and spoke to her on the phone on the day itself. Her Alzheimer’s meant that she didn’t actually know that it was Christmas as such. We don’t have what I would consider to be family Christmases anymore.

Related to reading I’ve been cataloguing my kindle highlights using my.clippings.io and my Evernote account. I’ve wanted to be able to make better use of my kindle highlights for writing and making them more searchable has been my aim. They’re now all uploaded to Evernote and I’m working my way through adding tags to each one. I have a couple of hundred books left to do this for so I’m doing them in batches.

I already add my handwritten notes on real books into Evernote when I finish a book so finally all my reading notes will be together in one database.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this blog at the moment. I want to write, but I think I’ll be posting on a more ad-hoc basis than a regular timetable.

Whatever you’re up to, stay safe and take care.