A Journey into TTRPG Thoughtspace
What began as a fear of undue influence transformed into a realization that ideas are meant to be shared, not hoarded—execution is what truly matters in the end.
Those That Belong to the Emperor
2024 App Defaults
As we head out of 2024, these are the apps I’m using.
- (Computing) Bookmarks: Raindrop
- (Computing) Browser: Firefox
- (Computing) Calendar: Apple Calendar
- (Computing) Chat: Beeper (Discord + Signal)
- (Computing) Cloud Storage: iCloud Drive
- (Computing) Passwords: 1Password
- (Computing) Photo Management: Apple Photos
- (eMail) Mail Client: Apple Mail
- (eMail) Mail Server: Fastmail
- (Entertainment) Media Player: Infuse Pro
- (Entertainment) Music: Apple Music, Radio Paradise, a growing collection of physical media
- (Entertainment) Podcasts: Pocket Casts
- (Finance) Budgeting: YNAB
- (Health) Body Tracking: Whoop
- (Health) Meal Planning: Plan To Eat
- (Health) Workout Tracking: Gentler Streak
- (Reading) Book Tracking: Hardcover
- (Reading) eBook Management: Calibre
- (Reading) eReader: Kobo Sage
- (Reading) Read It Later: Readwise Reader
- (Reading) RSS: The Old Reader + NetNewsWire
- (Social) Contacts: Apple Contacts
- (Travel) Flight Tracking: Flighty
- (Travel) Trip Planning: Tripsy
- (Writing) Blogging: Micro.blog
- (Writing) Word Processing: VS Code (need a real answer here, considering iA Writer)
- News: N/A
- Notetaking: Apple Notes
- PKM: Obsidian
- Presentations: N/A
- Project Tracking: YouTrack
- Shopping Lists: Obsidian
- Spreadsheets: Apple Numbers (with monumental effort)
- Todo: Omnifocus
Introducing HealthOS
I believe it was roughly around this time of the year, several hundred years ago, third or fourth grade to be imprecise, that I declared in no uncertain terms that new years resolutions were stupid, and I would not be doing them.
The society I happen to have been born into is based on consumption. It tells me that my worth is measured in my economic contributions. That I will be judged by the clothes I wear, the car I drive, the establishments I frequent.
A few months ago I looked back at my first 30 days of tracking 100% of my time. Now I have about a quarter’s worth of data, and some patterns have emerged.
Establishing a baseline for reviewing things can be difficult.
I’m not “traditionally” goal motivated. What do I mean by that? I mean if I tried to set a goal for a year from now that looked something like this: “in one year I want to have written a book,” that would not, on its own, result in any of the behaviors that lead to a book being written.
I’ve spent the last several weeks using Toggl to track 100% of my time, and the results have been interesting.
As part of the Year of Scales and Arpeggios I find myself needing to keep track of new things in new ways. The problem is that tracking things, like naming them, is hard. Maybe it’s less hard for people that don’t suffer from perfectionism. It’s hard for me. The ideal system is one which tracks itself, but those are few and far between and rarely support the other principles that matter to me.
It’s the last day of the Year of Time, and I think of it broadly as a success. I’ve cut my commitments to the bare minimum, and for the first time in forever have been making solid progress on self care and relaxation as a goal. Most nights, after work, there hasn’t been more work.
The Steam Deck has been life changing, being a system perfect for the playing of games and almost nothing else. My computers have always been full of too many non-gaming temptations to be effective gaming machines, even when they were very much built with that express purpose in mind.