It’s the end of 2025, my second quarterly check-in, and the beginning of 2026, all in one. I’ll look back, and I’ll look ahead. For reference, here are the notes I made at the beginning of 2025, and here is the 25Q3 review.
The defining themes have really been fitness/nutrition and grief. A beloved pet passed away unexpectedly and suddenly; it’s been a moment of perspective shift and a time out of routine for the last month. In addition to the usual (but arbitrary) calendar driven moments of reflection, this event has also forced an unusual state of mind. It has been a reset.
The following three areas (fitness, writing, photography), resolved into my main leisure activities this past quarter. Only one of them had real success, another had moderate progress, and the last had almost none at all.
On reflection, I wrote a moderate amount. Less than I would have hoped but more than nothing.
Photography practice was nearly a complete miss the last 3 months.
This quarter has been my best ever for fitness and nutrition. I’m sure it’s mostly newbie gainz, but those are still gainz.
The next sections aren’t the priority so I’ve abbreviated the updates.
I read several books, the best were Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, and Winter. Quitting books that aren’t working for me is a good thing. In the new quarter I plan to continue reading, and may tradeoff morning RSS time for book time.
I drew only 4 times over the quarter, and I am happily surprised that I still retained a reasonable amount of skill. Since I plan to emphasize writing and photography this quarter, I won’t set any particular goals. If my wife starts up a crafting club though, I’ll join that time to practice sketching.
In the last month I renewed my iPad music practice and made several (over half a dozen) introductory drone music pieces. It was fun. Again, music is not the focus this time, so I’ll just do a few things here and there without any specific goals. I’ll try to be intentional instead of aimless about what I do, so keeping some notes will be helpful. But, no pressure.
Nothing done. Well, almost nothing- I offloaded one recording from September from the recorder, and was disappointed to discover that the other recording hadn’t happened at all. That was a great night of wind and coyotes and eventually rain. I had expected to find a second recording with a few hours of wind in the pines at least and maybe the first coyote chorus before the batteries ran out. There was nothing at all; I must have not pressed record. What a bummer.
Work took up a lot of my energy. I put all the remaining energy into the fitness and nutrition bucket. That was a good choice.
Highs
Lows
The only experiments were around fitness and nutrition, and they weren’t super controlled. More like directional moves toward meals that anchor on protein and deemphasize carbs and fat. Strength has been gained, fat pounds have not (but they haven’t reduced either).
Possible Next Experiments
On structure: I have had great success by having set appointments for the gym. Can I apply a similar strategy for writing and picture making? What does it take for that to work?
This past quarter was somewhat lost in an over emphasis on work and then consequent undirected personal time projects. I drew energy from my new regular habit of going to the gym, another new activity of going out to dinner with a forming friend group, the few times I discovered and listened to some really good music1, and my new simplified nutrition plan. The time out to dinner with the new friend group was also the time that I felt most carefree. I realized that too much screen time on attention economy parasitic activities (doom scrolling, YouTube influencer content, general screen time without a creative purpose) were some of the biggest causes of energy and mood drain. So trying to limit the aimless screen time, or even going a bit further and limiting the RSS review time, which is a sort of planned aimless doom scroll, would probably improve my mood and satisfaction in the next quarter. Another habit that I suspect would produce a lot of satisfaction is a regular practice of 10 minute exploration writing.
Finally, the grieving period caused a perspective shift, a chance to see things in a different light. The time was, somewhat paradoxically, a slow almost meditative state, while I attended to my own emotional needs, completely insulated from the outside world’s pressures. My own internal clock drove time’s forward march. It was a strong reminder to identify and prioritize what matters and spend time on that.
I mean some interesting drones, some great ambient music, and always the long mixes from Anjunadeep. ↑
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