Howdy, !

I had a very fun Sunday day to the point where I felt like my brain was mush by the afternoon to coherently write this weeks newsletter, hence the email today instead. What did you get up to over the weekend? Let me know!

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In this week's email...

• Week in the Life - read on the blog
• Creative Update - 6 free PC apps to make your life even easier
• Gadget - Inkbird Sous vide
• Read - The Almanac of Naval Ravikant
• Watch - The Sandman
• Quote - “Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”

Week in the life

This last week was a MUCH better balanced one than before. The only thing that had really changed was that I was down to 6 days a week of work. 🤣That said, I had almost made it to work on Wednesday when the call came through that my theatre had been cancelled due to a lack of staff and we had no sick leave in our own department (for the first time in ages!).

Since it was rush hour, I ended up diverting to my parents place to hang out til the traffic died down and then ended up doing some light work from home and it made all the difference. The previous 2 days had been 16 and 15 hours respectively and that day literally turned the week around!

That said the weekend and today is turning out very interesting but more on that over on the blog...

Creative update

6 free PC apps to make your life even easier

This was a quick Medium article highlighting some of the windows utilities I used on a daily basis and some alternatives for free software in the world of graphic design.

On the whole, I'm still experimenting with Medium as a platform and seems like software listicle that are generic are not that popular. Intertesting.

Gadgets/Tech

Inkbird Sous vide

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this a few years ago when I got it. After a couple of uses, it's been hanging in the bottom of my kitchen drawer until about a month or so ago. Recently I have been trying to eat less take away and as a result have been cooking more. My go to is a chicken curry but in the other days, this has resulted in some amazing steaks.

I'll be using this to took some other things to and am curious how sous vide veggies come out. It's pretty compact and attaches to your own container filled with water making it ideal to save on kitchen space.

Other gadgets/tech

• 30 min hourglass - I'm all about the visual passage of time and I'm using this one right now to not procrastinate from writing this email!
• RODE Wireless Mic Go II - This one's more for the creators but we noticed a significant increase in audio quality after changing over to these for the podcast and other content

Read

The Almanac of Naval Ravikant

Even though the banner says "best-seller" the book is actually available for free. I ended up buying the Audible version so I could listen to it but I believe they are or have released the audio for free too somewhere along the way.

The book is a like a condensed summary of a bunch of life philosophies that encapsulate everything from finding purpose, making money and generally leading a happy, healthy and fulfilled life. It's nice in that you can tell by the tone that it's from a guy who has done the hard yards but doesn't constantly espouse hustle culture. I'm re-reading and finding new things this time around.

Book I'm currently reading

• Death's End - I'm still plodding through it. For some reason, I feel like non-fiction stuff again so hence naval is getting another spin!

Watch

The Sandman

I have to say I've only seen the first episode and I LOVED it. The world building is just so rich and unlikely other TV shows, the pacing seems... controlled. Even in the first episode I loved how things almost happened so many times until the finally did.

It's clear that this is a show that has had a lot of attention poured into it. The visuals are nice but not overdone and cheesy and there's a certain slow/patience to the story that in itself feels dreamlike. The link is to the trailer but the show is on Netflix.

Quote I'm pondering

“Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”

– Naval Ravikant

Not sure if he's the original author of that quote but I came across it from his book so he gets the credit from me.

This one made me stop and think while I was out running and listening to his audiobook. Something about hearing it at the time made me realise that even though I was out on a run on a gorgeous day, I was already subconsciously fixated on something else that I wanted after. So instead of enjoying the thing that I was currently doing (which was something I wanted not that long prior) I was instead unhappily doing a fun activity all the while desiring something else.

Something about that kinda made me realise why even "good" activities can sometimes feel hollow even if you're doing them well: it's the fact that you're already desiring the next thing and thereby ruining the enjoyment of the current thing.

Interesting.

That's enough food for thought for one week! Catch you next time!

- Raffy

PS - Given it's been 2 years, I'll be going back through the feedback and tweaking things. Do you like/dislike the subtle changes this year? Let me know with 1 click! I read the survey every week (& keep tweaking things with your feedback!)

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