Well, new year, same me and all. Which means I’ll write these for a few weeks and then get “busy” and stop. But for now here we go.

I recommitted a while back to reading every morning before starting work. I did okay with that commitment–I kept it during easy weeks but tended to lose it when work got busy. This week: 4 for 4! So what?

1. I didn’t read as much, especially in the non-fiction category, as I wanted to last year. When I think about my greatest periods of professional growth and creativity, it was when I was reading and bringing new ideas to our work. I really want to have that back.
2. Perhaps more importantly, I noticed this week that after reading, or more accurately, during reading, I had creative solutions and ideas to problems that had felt intractable the day before.
3. Reading is also a much calmer start to my work-day. Opening a book with coffee and a pen is just a much different experience than opening your laptop and being bombarded by 46 different messages. Highly recommend.

Reading: The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers; Game Frame by Aaron Dignan; Bloody Money by Thomas Perry

Watching: Fleishman is in Trouble (it’s…pretty good so far. First episode was excellent…a little worried about the ending)

Playing: God of War Ragnarök

Listening to: All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live from Red Rocks) by Zach Bryan; Destroyer’s Rubies by Destroyer; My 2022 Playlist