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I read 45 books in 2022.

Nearly one in three you should probably read too. See the To Read list.

Star ratings out of 5 are below for every book. I’ve also included a “Do Not Read” list for books I wish I had not wasted my time on. I rate books differently: High stars given for new learnings, the surprising or entertaining, or things I can apply to my life. Rehashes or bombastic, unbacked opinions rarely rate. Oh, and am always a big fan of a good tale, well told.

Post-pandemic it’s been interesting seeing what people did with two years of lockdown reflection. I wrote earlier about hoping to see more people starting businesses, making science, creating art, and doing not-for-profits.

“The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

While disappointed seeing people run right back to jobs they swore they’d leave, I’m also shocked at people making wild, ill-considered leaps to “follow their passions” without planning or contingency.

With COVID restrictions lifting, I’ve been traveling a lot since October. That, plus a recent post by Dutel inspired me to take a look how my setup has changed. Compare and contrast with my Travel Happy, Travel Light post from back in 2018. I was also interested to see how much actually has changed after 18 months sidelined and as I look towards being more remote work-wise.

First off: I travel with just one carry-on bag for virtually all travel. This is the way. If you are someone that simply cannot get on a plane without your checked 30kg of luggage, this post is probably not for you.

At some point as your career advances, you’ll get job offers. Often, like waiting for the proverbial bus, three come along at the same time. How do you choose between them and your current role? This is the simple framework I use to evaluate, and more importantly, discard… opportunities that I’m approached with. YMMV.

I have four factors I use to evaluate offers. In order. Pairs nicely with my quarterly assessment of existing roles .

The things you own end up owning you.
— Tyler Durden. Fight Cub.

Moving house is weird. Moving countries even weirder. Why? I think it’s the Tyranny of Stuff. Modern life accumulates possessions at a prodigious rate despite how minimalist you’re trying to make it. We live in an age of material abundance unimaginable even 100 years ago to our ancestors.

One thing I couldn’t believe packing up SG was the sheer amount of things I’d managed to accumulate in a short two years in the new house — even after throwing away about half of everything I owned when I moved-in. It was strange, how weirdly anxious moving out felt deciding on holding and getting rid of stuff. It was trickier than (expensively) storing it. Loss aversion kicked in hard, and I found myself one night sitting going round in mental circles trying to figure out what should stay and what should go. For many things, I really didn’t care about them but was somehow worried about discarding for the fact I might need them in some unforeseen future.

I mentioned a few posts back that I’m convinced the underlying database for my life really needs to be plain text files. Simplicty works. But, it’s surprising how few tools seem to be based on this idea.

I’d ignored Obsidian after initially checking it out because it had no live preview feature and having two panes open on a laptop took up too much real estate. Them adding the single in-editor live preview feature has completely changed my experience since I’ve hit a sweet spot between writing experience, bi-directional linking, and task management along with it being simple markdown files I control. Things painful or messy in other apps work smoothly. I’m also shocked at how good thier plugin ecosystem is already, allowing me to layer on functionality I want and not have any bloat I don’t need.

The information firehose we’re blasted with daily mocks us to focus. It consumes and divides our attention and defiantly laughs at our plans.

Pre-COVID, I outlined how I changed things up to deal with the fact I was grinding rather than progressing critical information consumption.

The reset definitely helped consumption-wise, but ultimately I want to be applying knowledge I gain. In particular, I was still having issue with what I describe as the ephemera class of information, so wanted to see if it I could improve my flow, and make sure I was extracting the important (and discarding the unimportant faster) to leverage longer term gains and opportunities.

Having fewer, better things will likely make you happier. “The things you own, end up owning you.”. Only invest in things you spend a lot of time with and where money invested will make a quality of life difference.

This is my “would buy again” list of items I’d immediately replace if needed.

(nb: I’m not receiving sponsorship or affiliate revenue for any of these things, just genuinely wanted to recommend them to people who might need them.)

I’ve had a theory of happiness since my twenties.

I’ve often wished I’d listen to it more since it’s powered the really good parts and decisions in my life. And strangely, I’ve found it holds for most people, in most places, I’ve been. And I’ve been around.

I don’t talk about it much, because I’ve often thought it’s obvious, even silly. But it’s been surprisingly transformative for people I’ve told about it who nudged their lives in its direction.

I’m convinced now that the underlying database for my life needs to move longer-term to human-readable, plain-text formats. As much as practical. And files under my control. But, it’s hard being an OG when everyone is shouting cloud. How do you do it? Why would you do it?

Sounds old school, I know… but, more than a decade of hard knock lessons about applications, apps, and companies have taught me that the only thing you can rely on is plain text representations. If you want any semblance of continuity and history in your data. Doubly-so for the metadata around your data.