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I’ve read fewer papers and articles (I track those here). This gives me a choice of things to dip into based on how much time, energy and focus I have. I’ve fallen into a good pattern of having one fiction book, one non-fiction book and one graphic novel on the go at any one time. Which is why I use social media after all. But it also sometimes prompts interesting chats and other recommendations. I do this for the same reason I tweet things that I cook: it helps me track what I’ve been doing. As always I’ve been tweeting what I’ve read. Like last year I wanted to read more again this year. #lettuce /X36P0UnOyB- Leigh Dodds JReading
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Here’s a link to the playlist which has 247 tracks on it.
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Its helped me be intentional about recording music that I like, so I can dig deeper. The links from track lists to Spotify is one of the killer features for me.īuilding in listening to the BBC Unclassified show with Elizabeth Alker, on my Saturday mornings, has been one of the best decisions I’ve made this year.Īnother great decision was to keep a dedicated playlist of “ tracks that I loved on first listen, which were released in 2020“. While I’ve griped about the BBC Sounds app, and while its still flaky, I have to admit its really changed how I engage with the BBC’s radio output. I also started following some labels on YouTube and via weekly playlists on Spotify. I listened to more radio to break out of my recommendation bubble and used the #music channel on the ODI slack to do the same. And dug into the back catalogues from the artists I found there. I started regularly listening to my Spotify Discover and Release Radar playlists. I did several things to achieve that goal. Listening to the same mixes and playlists as they helped me tune out others and concentrate on writing. While that was plenty of opportunity, I felt like I was in a rut. I’d fallen into the habit of only listening to music while commuting, working or cooking. My other loose goal for 2020 was to listen to more music. So its great to have found a new way to handle that.
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It’s also helped to work out nervous tension and stress during the year. As someone who closely identifies with the sloth, this is a revelation. While its never easy, it turns out running can actually be enjoyable. I’ve mostly dealt with it now and found that running early in the mornings avoids issues with pollen. But I still get this rising panic when I’m badly out of breath. It’s gotten way better and rarely kicks in now unless the pollen is particularly bad. And not being allowed out during school play times bad. Like, not being able to properly walk up stairs bad. It used to be really bad when I was a kid. The hardest part has been learning to breathe properly. I also prefer running without headphones on. I’ve previously tried using an app but without much success. I read up on the system and gradually increased distance and periods of running over time as recommended. I did a kind of self-directed Couch to 5K. I’ve been feeling so much better because of that. I set out to lose some weight and be healthier at the start of the year. I’ve already written some thoughts on things I’ve enjoyed working on. Next year is going to look a lot different one way or another! So, after helping the team weather the shit-storm of COVID-19, I resigned. I decided it was time to get back to the latter. I feel like my career has had regular cycles where I’ve been doing research and consultancy, interleaved with periods of building and delivering things. I was also ready to do something different. And reminded me of what work-life balanced looked like. I was on a health kick in Q1 which helped, but The Lockdown really demonstrated for me how much that commute was wiping me out. Three trips a week, with increasingly longer days, on top of mounting work pressures was affecting my mood and my health. I’ve loved working at the Open Data Institute, but the effort and expense of long-term distance commuting was starting to get a bit much. WorkingĬoming in to 2020 I’d decided it was probably time for a change. Largely because I want to capture some of the positives and lessons learned. But I’ll write another post about plans for the next 12 months.įor now, I just want to write a diary entry with a few reflections and notes on the year. I’m not really expecting 2021 to be any different to be honest. But it turned out to be for the best anyway. That was deliberate as I tend to beat myself up for not achieving everything. And those that I did have were pretty simple.