Stuffocation: Living More With Less, is the ‘catchy’ title of a new book by James Wallman that explores the simple living movement. Unlike most of the books I’ve read on simple living though the emphasis is on ‘explores’, this is not a passionate call to arms, rather it’s a fairly...
At first sight this seems like a strange question to ask, I only need to look around me and I see all the evidence that’s need to answer with a resounding “yes” — the amazing iPhone clipped to my belt, the super efficient boiler that’s at heart of my home,...
The first 40 years of my life were experiential, dominated by doing, innovating, building and learning on the job; but when I became ill, the focus shifted to an intellectual life, one dominated by reading, strategizing, planning, coaching, reviewing. It’s not as much fun! The challenge is that at work...
I listen to a lot of podcasts, they provide a great combination of education, entertainment and company when I’m out walking or cycling alone (I reserve listening to audio books for holidays). Yesterday I listened to a particularly interesting podcast that described the concept of Temptation Bundling: the idea of...
Gadgets of one form or another have been a constant in my life, I’m drawn to them in a way that I can’t fully explain, but there’s a constant niggling voice in my head encouraging me to give in to my desire to buy, to tweak, to enhance, to play....
Over the last year I’ve used the Coach Me app on my iPhone and iPad to track all of the aspects of my life that I want to promote or prevent. For example I wanted to have more family meals and less high pain days, I wanted to spend more...
Passion is important in life. People often develop a passion for their work because they work hard at it, get good at it, make progress and get positive feedback. It’s rare that they start out with this passion, they just take the first step ‘work hard’ and the rest follows...
I’ve been experimenting with improving my work life balance for decades and my approach has mainly been one of work-life integration; where I seamlessly integrate work activities with ‘life activities’ through the day. But the idea of balance had gradually asserted more prominence in my approach; it no longer seems...
Make my health my first job, I’m in the fortunate position that I’m financially able to make recovering my health my first job, but intellectually this has been difficult to come to terms with. Last year I made some steps in the right direction, this year I’m going to double...
Essentialism was an interesting book to read while reflecting on the last year and planning for the next. My plan for next year is defined by: doing less; focusing more; being kind to myself – all topics addressed to a greater or lesser degree by the book. The over-arching theme...