2020 Overview
Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels
Compared to 2019, 2020 was a much better year. It brought lots of good stuff, or rather, I brought a lot of good stuff by acting.
What about Covid-19? It was rather a large problem during the first lockdown, when I got sick and couldn’t go shopping, and online grocery ordering was swamped with orders. I had to put my items into online basket before midnight and it was a race to order while there still were delivery spots. Well, that was rather distressing. But after the first lockdown there was no Covid-19 in the community for maybe a month. And there is none now.
What of note happened in 2020
- I didn’t make a resolution in 2019 to read more books, I just added that to my 12 Week Year actions. As a result, I read lots of books by reading for 1 hour every workday. It was my first year so much into reading, I’m a bookworm now.
- After reading non-tech books, like Awaken the Giant Within, I realised that putting all my learning into tech was a mistake.
- I stopped believing that I would wake up one day and start feeling better. It happened after I started feeling better, because of Awaken the Giant Within. For something to change, I need to make that change happen.
- I learned how to reliably motivate myself. It takes maybe 10 minutes to write things down, and I can reference them later for motivation. “Just do it” is popular, because people don’t have skills to motivate themselves.
- Meditation could only take me so far. A lot of automatic reactions are stored in the body. After I had started practicing tai chi, I started remembering what I did to my body while I was a kid, and I started to have a bit more control over my body. It is quite possible though to be performing automatic reactions and having no idea why you’re doing that.
- Higher states of consciousness do exist, and it’s quite possible to go down or go up. I was doing some things that would drag me down, and I do less of those now. And meditation, tai chi and power questions from Awaken the Giant Within me upwards.
- I saved money by using open-source software. KeePassXC instead of 1Password, Firefly-III instead of YNAB. I postponed MacOS upgrade for 2 years, so I could use an old version of YNAB, and avoid paying for the online SaaS version. YNAB is $84 USD/year, so I saved $151 USD for not using it for 2 years (I’d get a 10% discount as an old YNAB customer).
- I implemented Getting Things Done and it was quite interesting and helpful, but I let it lapse recently. It did take me a week to setup.
- I spent a lot of time on Twitch, and I streamed myself.
What I would not repeat from 2020
- Not knowing what to do with my time.
- Waking up before having enough sleep.
- Cooking things I don’t like to eat.
Best of 2020
- Best JPOP artist - Kumagawa Miyu
- Best KPOP artist - IZ*ONE
- Best Western artist - Vera Blue. She’s Australian, and the MV has only ~200k views.
- Book that had the most impact - Awaken the Giant Within
- Best anime - Koe no Katachi
- Best movie - My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday
- Most charming streamer - IdleWyrd
- Best podcast - Real Japanese Podcast
- Best software - Firefly-III
Happy 2021! 🎉
If you have any questions or would like to discuss a topic, tweet me @oledestin