HELLO 👋🏻

A work in progress is back, it’s bigger, it’s better, it’s everything and more!

In all seriousness - I took a break, now focusing this email back to where I started: interesting, snappy, useful. They’ll be fortnightly, sometimes less. I’m going to mess with the format a bit over the next few weeks to keep it as not crap as possible - your input is always welcome!

Anyway, enough about all that*.

^{*I once watched a compilation video by Vsauce of literally hundreds of YouTubers apologising for not uploading last week. Basically: nobody cares, just get to the point}

Shall we?

There’s still time!

We’re over halfway through the year! Did you need that reminder? Did you want that reminder?

If no, chances are you feel behind on some of the things you promised yourself way back when in January. Trust me - I’m there with you, I feel the same.

And that’s a great thing!

Here’s the truth: we’ve got about 5 and a half months to get the ball rolling and make some progress on the promises we made to ourselves at the turn of the year. Plenty of time!

BUT: it’s maaaaybe not plenty of time to do everything. And that’s fine.

As Michael McConaughey (had to spellcheck that surname) said during his time on the High Performance podcast:

This means a lot of useful things but to me it means that we make life difficult by trying to do too much.

The average set of new year’s resolutions looks something like this:

• Lose some weight

• Tell Kathy I’m not her mate any more

• Stop smoking (ok maybe smoke less)

• Get a new job or get a payrise, which ever comes first

That is A LOT of stuff! It reminds me of something Bill Gates once said to me that’s stuck with me for a long time.

So it’s not the end of the world that we try to set out to do too much in the average year.

But, take it as a lesson to cut down on a few of those things and focus hard on 1 or 2 for the rest of the year.

Choose something that ticks most of these boxes:

• What would make the biggest difference to your life?

• What would be easy to do? (low hanging fruit)

• What would make the biggest difference to the people around me?

• What might I not get a chance to do or change after the next 5 and a half months?

• What have I been putting off forever? (and why??)

• What unique set of circumstances over the next 5 and a half months mean that now is the perfect time to fulfil this goal? (this might be another way of looking at point #4, you be the judge)

• Which of these goals, if I fulfilled it this year, would make the biggest difference to all of the other goals I have?

Remember: anything is better than nothing.

That’s it! Thanks for coming back, it’s good to be writing again.

A lot of newsletter writing is shouting into the void and hoping that something, somewhere sticks its landing. The fact you haven’t unsubscribed tells me this is the case, but please do reply and let me know you’re still reading!

You can even send a single emoji. It’s 2023, so that sort of thing is appropriate now.

And remember that the very best thing you can do is share this newsletter with someone who you think will benefit.

Ciao for now! 👋🏻

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This week I'm: ⬇️

😆 Laughing at the comedy pet photo awards 2023! Obviously!

🤖 Watching this lovely atmospheric video about a New Yorker using ChatGPT to help cure his depression

🐭 Sharing this nerdy but actually excellent and highly ergonomic mouse I use every day - MX Master. When you use a mousepad, you turn your wrists inwards which then turns in your shoulders, leading you to hunch. Even if you don’t buy this mouse, get a mouse. Treat yourself.

📺 Finishing Race Across The World season 3 (Canada) on BBC. I’ve actually already finished it but who’s checking

🪄 Listening to the audiobook version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It is soooooooo much better than I remember and Stephen Fry does a stellar job, though I am looking forward to the trio hitting puberty as Harry and Hermione are very high pitched for the time being. Philosopher’s Stone was written in 1997! What!

⚽️ Adding the final touches to my soon to be world beating fantasy team and of course looking forward to the return of the Premier League! (I thought about adding this bit. I want to keep this email useful to all but then again I write it so I guess I should get a bit of editorial leeway)

💣 Looking forward to watching Oppenheimer at the BFI IMAX next week. Huge cinema releases like this are few and far between so I can’t wait

💬 And finally, a quote

As always, feel free to reply to this email if you found this useful!

Thanks!

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Until next time, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and have a look at what I’m reading on Goodreads.

📸 BONUS: Photo of the Week