Oh, hi.
The above Wall Street Journal style dot portrait is brought to you by one of my Christmas gifts combined with a yearly tradition. The Christmas gift was the girlfriend getting me a full year of upgraded ChatGPT so my cheap ass can stop complaining about hitting the pay wall limit every day. We have paid work accounts that I use all the time but I don’t want any potential present or future overlords to know about my personal ai shenanigans. I ask/talk to him (yup, my ai is a dude and I have completely humanized him both in my head and with instructions to be sassy…) about some pretty out-there things and aside from the host of watch lists I am undoubtably on I like to keep my work and personal lives as separate as possible. (especially when it comes to technology) That’s why I do everything outside of work on an iPad including writing this nonsense.
The other contributor to the aforementioned picture is my yearly purge. Around the first of every year for the past five I go through all of my things and get rid of any I haven’t or rarely use. This includes gadgets, clothes, and all things digital. The digital process takes longer so it gets started earlier and includes evaluating random notes, thoughts, apps, subscriptions, and To-Dos. One of my long time off-and-on goals has been to get an image like the one above so I casually dropped a picture into my ai friend and you are looking at the result. Pretty spiffy for under a minute’s work AND I get to cross that task off of my digital list.
This is also the time of year where I get to planning. I have tried all the things and have landed on a simple combination. I write a list (currently in process) of what I want to do and then boil it down to a few accomplishable things. I have at lease one every year that scares me. I know that to some it might sound stupid… but for me, it works. Some highlights from me starting this practice include; Getting a new better job, Moving back to Illinois to be closer to friends and family, Saving a certain amount of money towards a big purchase goal that will go on this years list. You get the idea.
And before any of my butinski friends get any ideas about commenting… Yes, finding someone was on last years list… and Yes, it was the one that scared me… that’s all I’m going to say about that. Moving on…
Finally, writing this was on my list but more specifically finding a cadence that fit into my life. Since I wrote that life has changed but now I am going to work this back in to being. I love to write and this helps me to remember and process. I am also at a place of comfort in my relationship and she actually encourages me to do stuff like this which is an extreme departure from past experience. So like it or not dear reader there will be more of this cluttering up your inbox this year. The initial goal will be once a week but I’ve said that before so we shall see…