2025 was a big year

• Rode to the northern-most Tour de France stage
• Went on a family weekend to Margate
• Made a third Baddland child
• Hosted a family weekend with 21 people in a 2up-2down london terrace
• Sold that 2up-2down London Terrace
• Bought a different London Terrace
• Moved into a rented house
• Took the kids camping to Norfolk alone
• Had a wonderful Norfolk holiday in a lovely house

So whats new:

Attention

• It’s always been better this year to take the call and act. Talk to people; Talk to the sales person, talk to the recruiter, ring your sister, phone your friends. Get it off email, get it off messages, just do something. Like right now. Don’t add it to a list, do stuff, talk and communicate to other people. This is unwinding my MSN Messenger upbringing.
• Your attention is all you have. My attention is all I have. https://open.substack.com/pub/blackbirdspyplane/p/this-life-gives-you-nothing
• The problem isn’t that scrolling is bad, it’s the habit. When my phone is there, it’s an abundance of choice. My mind gets in the zone of when I used to sit in front of my first desktop computer; Not “let me use this tool to complete this task I had” but: “What could I do right now?”. Every slight thought becomes a side quest. Tangents become insatiable nervous ticks to check everything. It’s not “Doom scrolling” its Doom Navigation. It becomes searching Ebay for random things I don’t need, it becomes reading articles I don’t want to read, it becomes constantly checking hacker news or reddit. Living life through doom navigation.
• Things I’ve tried in 2026 to stop Doom Navigating through life:
  • No phones before breakfast
  • Instagram web access only and not logged in (log in weekend just for messages)
  • Screentime widget, get that screen time front and centre.
  • Non disturb after 10pm
  • Phone not in bedroom (or at least on the other side of the room).
• But it hasn't really worked 100%. So I’m going to try replacing apps with analog things. You can’t stop doomscrolling with an app. It has to be something different.
• So in 2026, I’ll try to do these differently:
  • No YouTube, reddit (biggest time sinks) on top of instagram. Youtube will be on tv only, reddit for work research, Linkedin for work stuff. So these will only accessible on work laptop. Instagram continues as banned, with random access to post or find inspiration.
  • I’ve subscribed to a real weekly newspaper. Coffee table books should be bought regularly.
  • For downtime, this should be studying music, planning adventures and reading. A stack of books, maps, a calendar and a guitar.
  • Phone lives in its phone space. Do not take phone into the toilet. Even at work. Phone space in bedroom when at home. Phone space in locker when at work.
  • This leaves only commerce as the main time sink for me. Which I think I’m okay with.

Running