The procrastinating part of me celebrates these words.

I want a good calendar app. One I’m excited to use, that works across devices, and is happy with multiple accounts that didn’t all originate in its own ecosystem. I want it to be lightweight.

I want a beautiful way of organizing my areas of responsibility. The difference between organizing my objectives, and executing on them is growing larger by the day, it seems. I don’t see people around me who appear to have the same struggle.

Replied to selfcare.tech

1. Continue a seemingly unending cycle of laundry
2. Write in my diary
3. Bake challah

If you still needed convincing that I’m Grandma Tech at home, struggling to use even the most straightforward of functionalities, please be aware that I was today years old when I learned that, five years ago, TextExpander released a custom iOS keyboard that would’ve solved so many of my mundane problems, and all I was doing was asking myself “why am I even paying for that app anymore?”

Walking with Annelie is coffee indoors today. We’ve told each other we need to go on more walks. She asks if we should dress warmly for the cold, wet park, or if we should just grab a table inside. Normally at this hour, Coffee Company is packed to the brim with digital nomads, so “dress for cold, hope for warmth” I say. Miraculously, there are two tables from which we can choose.

Christmas break is passing by me like it passes by an ambitious teenager. I greeted all the things I could do with great enthusiasm. Sadly, that feeling quickly turned into terror once I realised two weeks isn’t that long and I need to sleep.

Productivity-wise, man can only fail under such conditions, this I know.

Meanwhile, I keep being amazed by the weather in Haarlem. I managed to take some photos downtown last week that remind me of the beginning of September, despite a winter coat here and rain hat there.

Ryan Holiday describes the how and why of his ‘Commonplace Book’, a collection of quotes and other pieces of text written down on index cards. I, too, have been keeping such a system since I started college. I always carry a few cards when I’m out and about, held together by bulldog clips.

Incredibly handy and simple, it has turned out.