✈️ I'm getting ready for the trip to Brazil! I've got my travel checklist ready and started packing. I always travel with a carry-on and a backpack, and I just need to add some toiletries and I'm ready to go!
📖 Because of the upcoming trip I've not been doing too much reading lately. It's been hard to sit down to read for more than 15 minutes. So, I'm still reading the same books as the week before.
☕ I'm actually looking forward to all the downtime at the airports to do some reading.
✅ I had a small crisis again this week about to-do list apps, and I was tempted to change tools again. In 24 hours, I realized that what I have (Nirvana HQ) still works well for me and that any other additional feature offered by other apps is not enough to beat Nirvana's functionality for me.
📔 I got a paper planner for 2025! I want to have it as a goal/intention setting tool, with focus on wellness. I want to use it to make monthly, weekly, and daily plans. So, it's more strategic, rather than tactical. I will keep my digital calendar and to-do list as my tactic’s tools if that makes sense.
Currently reading
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Gentle Rogue (Malory-Anderson Families #1) by Johanna Lindsey
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Post 61/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
One of the things I struggle with is planning short term, especially daily and weekly. During the past 2 years I've used Cal Newport's Time-Block Planner and this daily planner. I've tried time blocking in Outlook (digitally) but I didn't stick to it. I've also tried weekly planning and time blocking with Rocketbooks, which didn't last long because I started to dread the process of wiping off the pages every week.
All those experiences with paper planners brought me to the realization that I still enjoy planning on paper.
I was talking to a colleague the other day about planners, and she introduced me to the world of Happy Planners. Initially I just liked the format and the way it's setup with dividers and the disc bound system. It's very versatile and customizable. It's also not overpriced.
So, I got myself a Happy Planner for 2025!
I'm still thinking the details of how I want to integrate it with my digital GTD system, but the main ideas are:
Digital tools:
Calendar and to-do list management remain digital (Outlook and Nirvana)
Paper Planner:
Track my daily to-do's => to choose 3 tasks to focus on the day
Plan and track my monthly goals
Plan and track my weekly goals
Track wellness and health => exercise, meditation, gratitude journal
I'm thinking of the Happy Planner as my catch-all high-level view of my plans that will work alongside my calendar and to-do lists.
I want it to be a planning tool to give me an overview of what's coming.
My Happy Planner – Me And My Big Ideas 2025 (Classic size)
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Post 60/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
🏢 The office at work will undergo some needed renovations. There will be a temporary arrangement of some people working (partially) from home, some people grouped together in offices and some people on temporary cubicles. I currently have an office all to myself and I will be moved to a tiny cubicle while the renovations are ongoing. My department is not keen on working from home at all, so we will be 6 estimators working together in small cubicles for a while. The move will happen this week, and I'm not looking forward to it.
☑️ I deleted all previous GTD setups that I had on Todoist and Microsoft To Do. I didn't want to be tempted to keep going back and forth between to-do apps. If I decide to change, it will be a whole lot harder because I will have to start from scratch.
❄️ Cold has arrived around here! It seems we will get negative temperatures all day all week long now. We had a bit of snow yesterday.
💪 I went to gym 4 times this week!
⛸️ I've advanced in ice skating a bit. I can now do the clockwise forward crossovers! I mean, it takes some concentration and it's still a bit awkward but I'm doing it!
💼 This week I will start getting ready for the trip to Brazil in a week or so. I plan to bring only my carry-on and a backpack, like I did last time. Some folks want me to bring maple syrup to them, I'm not sure how I'm gonna do that yet.
🎮 I bought two RPG games that were on sale on Steam this weekend: “Pillars of Eternity – Definitive Edition” and “Pathfinder: Kingmaker”. They were on my wishlist for a while. I started Pillars of Eternity and created a character.
📗I DNF’d a romance book that had lots of buzz: “Butcher & Blackbird” by Brynne Weaver. I knew it was about serial killers, but there is so much gore and vivid descriptions of torture that I couldn't get past Chapter 3.
Currently reading
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Gentle Rogue (Malory-Anderson Families #1) by Johanna Lindsey
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Post 59/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
I was surprised to see that I finished less books this month than my average. But at the same time, I’ve been reading “The Way of Kings” by Brandon Sanderson, which is like 3-books-in-one length wise, so that explains some of it. I’ve also been spending some time with Dungeons and Dragons lore and articles online. Anyway, it was an interesting month and the last book, “Children of Memory” blew my mind!
Five Minds by Guy Morpuss, 316p: It's a bizarre and surreal concept: five minds sharing one body. Because of Earth's overpopulation, everybody at 17 years old have to choose between 5 options: play hard and die at 42, work all your life and drop down dead at some point, have your mind transported to an android body and die at 80, or become part of a commune, 5 minds sharing one body, each mind being awake for 4 hours a day. I don't think we get a good explanation of how the world got to that point with these options being applied to everybody. In order to gain more years to live, the characters go to a Death Park, where they can play virtual reality games with other participants. So, the premise is intriguing, and there is a murder mystery that happens inside the Death Park. I thought the plot was interesting up until 40% of the book, but I missed more depth to the characters. The resolution of the murder mystery was underwhelming. The author is very obvious pointing us to a suspect along the way, while leaving the real killer somewhat hidden. We don't really get any clues of the killer's character and intentions while the plot develops, so it was a weak final plot twist. I didn't like the ending as well.
Again the Magic (Wallflowers #0.5) by Lisa Kleypas, 416p: A forbidden love and second chance romance with class differences struggles. Lady Aline Marsden and John McKenna, an orphan stableboy, grew up together. They eventually fall in love and start a secret and forbidden relationship. When they are discovered, McKenna is forced to leave forever. But he comes back twelve years later, as a powerful businessman who wants revenge. This book was very emotional and angsty to me. There is a lot of anger and frustration in the face of situations the characters can’t change. I loved the motherly housekeeper character, who cared about them equally, it was very sweet. There is also Aline's secret: the result of a fire accident and she needs to get over some shame and low self-esteem. It's beautifully written, both characters have suffered and carry this sadness inside of them, but they find joy together in the end. And as a bonus, there is secondary romance revolving around Lady Olivia Marsden, Aline’s younger sister, and Gideon Shaw, McKenna’s American business partner.
Children of Memory (Children of Time #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 576p: This book starts like the previous ones: a ship travelling the universe investigating what became of planets that were meant to be terraformed and settled by humans. At the start of the book, the focus is more on the failing human colony at Imir, describing their day-to-day struggles through the lens of a little girl, Liff, who was born in that colony. But we also jump to another planet, Rourke, where another group of human colonizers are trying to settle in and where we see the origins of uplifted intelligent corvids. The exploration ship is composed of characters of the previous books: the AI Kern, Portia, Paul, Fabian and the newcomer Miranda (from Nod). It’s hard to talk more about this book without spoilers, but the whole point of the story is discussing the question: “What is sentience?”. And it is a delicious discussion when we get to Part 12. I was a bit disappointed with the big reveal at around 80% but then it pays off beautifully in the last chapters. This is why I read sci-fi: to experience these mind-bending thoughts one in a while. Also, the corvids Gethli and Gothli are awesome, I want to be friends with them! This is my favorite of this series.
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Post 58/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
💻My work laptop was super slow and crashing a lot, especially after the company installed a zero-trust service called Zscaler on all computers. After complaining with IT, they said I was due for a laptop update anyway, because my current one was 3 years old. They issued me a new laptop, a Thinkpad with 32Gb RAM, intel i7 vPro processor latest generation with Windows 11. All I can say is that I’m not impressed. I mean, it’s not crashing anymore, but I expected it would be a faster machine looking at the specs. There is so much bloat, and everything is scanned five times in the name of cybersecurity. Very annoying.
🚗 Ours cars were all changed to winter tires, but we didn’t have any snow yet around here. It seems like the true Canadian cold is coming later this year.
🥂 Me and my partner attended the company’s Holiday Party this Friday. It’s the first year we had positive temperatures, it was +8C that night. It was weird not having to wear a full winter coat on top of my dress to get to the event.
📺 I watched this series on Nebula by Polyphonic “Hit Record: An Incomplete History of the Music Video” (it’s also available for free on YouTube). It a wonderful series of video essays, exploring the first attempts at making music videos, the rise and fall of MTV, VEVO, YouTube music and how we got to TikTok.
☑️ I had some back and forth with to-do list apps, but Nirvana is still my trusted system. I just can’t use any other app for more than a week. The issues I’m having has more to do with my habits and frequency of reviews, rather than the tool itself. Time to polish up my routines.
📚 We did a “Book Choose” meetup for our Book Club to choose the books we will read in 2025. We want to re-read the classic Neuromancer by William Gibson, get into the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold (maybe we will read all the books in the series as an alt-read throughout the year), The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, among others. I’m excited!
📥 I got a new in-tray for my work office with more tiers to store my notes and reference materials. That freed up some space on my desk space.
🪑 I also got a cushion my work office chair because I’ve been having some low back pain while seated. I wanted to be a bit higher while seated and my current office chair doesn’t go any higher.
Currently reading
Children of Memory (Children of Time #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Butcher & Blackbird (Ruinous Love #1) by Brynne Weaver
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Post 57/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
💼 The past 2 weeks have been super busy at work for me. During the process of closing a big job, I’ve had 2 presentations to deliver! It’s not something I usually do, but coincidentally, I was invited to present about estimating to the company’s project managers the first week of November and then to present about estimating to a group of kids that were participating in the “Kids to Work” event last week. It all went well; I was actually impressed at how well I managed my stress and anxiety!
📰 I’ve been taking a break fromnewsfeeds and even RSS feeds. I don’t feel like going through a feed and read about random topics right now. I’ve been focusing on reading my books and something else, which I’ll talk about in the next bullet point.
🐲 Dungeons and Dragons! We finally had our Session Zero this weekend! I was super excited! So, before this session, I got a physical copy of the new Players Handbook version 2024 and I read through it and made a bunch of notes. I’m creating a tough Dwarf Paladin, to be our group tanker, with Lawful Neutral alignment. I’m still deciding on a name and background. The group has a total of 6 players, and we will be somewhere in the mysterious High Forest of Faerûn. I’m thrilled!
✅ I’ve been thinking about my to-do list again. I don’t know, I am trying to understand what is bothering me about Nirvana. It’s still a work in progress, but there’s something there I need to figure out.
🎧 The power button of my 5-year-old Bose Soundsport earphones broke! I’ve been using this earphone daily, and I really like it, but the button fell out and broke just from pressing/regular usage. I read online that the rubber gets old, and it has happened with many people before. I can still power it on with a pencil or something that reaches inside for the button. But because I use it daily mainly for my yoga practice, I ordered a new SPORT True Wireless Sennheiser that was on sale. I still prefer the sound of the Bose, tho.
📺 I finished watching Season 3 of “The Legend of Vox Machina”!! It was so good, so heartbreaking and lots of high stakes. I loved it!
🌲 The weather is colder now and perfect for hiking the trails around our home (now that the bugs are gone)!
Currently reading
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Again the Magic (Wallflowers #0.5) by Lisa Kleypas
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Post 55/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
I finished a bunch of romance books this month! All of them by authors I’ve never read before, so it was an exploration month. I finished it off with some light productivity read.
The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels #1) by Kerrigan Byrne, 368p: It's hard to talk about this book without spoilers. It involves orphans, friendship, life hardships, trauma and love. It starts with a story of a girl and a boy building up a deep connection. Then we meet Farah, a widow who works for Scotland Yard (the only woman in the office) and Dorian, a powerful criminal who is never caught but has a good heart. There is a lot going on in this book, and I really enjoyed it! It's mysterious and emotional. Sometimes dark but sweet. The characters are strong and survived lots of challenges. Dorian is a traumatized adult, and we see him struggle with his traumas. The romance is slow burn, and I was totally invested in it. Both main characters have secrets, and it's all revealed in the most interesting way. I want to read more into this series.
A Thief in the Nude (Rushmore Brothers #1) by Olivia Waite, 126p: This was a short read with an interesting premise. Miss Hecuba Jones is trying to recover lost paintings (painted by her mother) by breaking into an earl's house. In the midst of her burglary, she meets John Rushmore (the earl's brother) who is a disillusioned artist (painter). Of course, they start an affair with conditions related to said lost paintings, and nudes. Mysteries are uncovered. I learned that Hecuba blue is a colour, and there are lovely dialogues about art and painting in this book.
Shadowbound (Dark Arts #1) by Bec McMaster, 427p: This book reminded of the Dresden Files but with more romance (and steam) and a female protagonist. It definitely scratched my itch for a sorcerer themed book for Halloween. Ianthe and Rathbourne are both powerful magic users, they've met in the past and they have secrets and hidden lives. In the best enemies-to-lovers trope, they must unite to fight against the demons and uncontrollable power threatening to destroy London. It's a good series starter and I was intrigued to see what happens in the next books.
How the Marquess Was Won (Pennyroyal Green #6) by Julie Anne Long, 384p: Such beautiful writing and fun banter. Phoebe is a teacher, and she has a peculiar cat. She is a very independent woman with the dream to leave England and go to Africa on a mission. The Marquess Dryden is the most popular guy in the ton, dark and charming, and he sets fashion and trends. He's all the talk on the tabloids. I loved that the writing jumps between the two points of view seamlessly. There is a whole chapter building up to describe a single kiss that is so lovely! There are class differences conflicts and a slow burn romance.
Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal, 295p: This was an enjoyable read. It presents a more positive and healthy approach to productivity which I appreciated. Some scientific research results are presented in a light way, not going too deep, but delivering the concepts behind the strategies suggested by the author. I liked his ideas on how to add more fun elements to our work and mundane activities.
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Post 54/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
✅ After experimenting with Microsoft To Do this week I switched back to Nirvana. I’ve reached the same conclusions I’ve had before. I like Nirvana. It works well with my system. I've been using it for the longest time. It works for me.
⛸️ I could do a few clockwise cross overs on the circle on my last ice-skating class. I’m making progress, bit by bit!
🎃 We attended a Halloween party this weekend! I loved my purple cape.
🌲 We hiked the Morris Island trails on Sunday. It was a cloudy and windy day, and most of the red and orange leaves were already gone. It’s an easy trail, but it has lots of rocks and roots, so I was glad I had my hiking boots.
❄️ There is no delaying anymore: we turned on the furnace in our house. Temperatures are negative during the night now, so winter is coming!
Currently reading
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Five Minds by Guy Morpuss (My Book Club pick for November)
I want to read next
Children of Memory (Children of Time #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Again the Magic (Wallflowers #0.5) by Lisa Kleypas (a series I want to start)
Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment #2) by Rebecca Ross
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Post 53/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
After experimenting with Microsoft To Do this week I switched back to Nirvana. Some things were working well, but overall it was not that smooth.
I was going to write about my Microsoft To Do setup but it’s pretty much the same setup I had before: Testing Microsoft To Do and saying goodbye. And it’s so weird to see that all the reasons I listed before for not sticking with Microsoft To Do are still the same, for the most part.
Reasons why I switched back to Nirvana
The clarity of seeing all my actions organized by project, neat and tidy, is priceless!
I just REALLY like the projects / next actions connections in Nirvana.
And the unified inbox.
And that I can schedule actions (tickle them) to show up only at a certain time in the future.
And that the recurring tasks create a copy of the task, so I don't lose sight of the recurring task after the deadline (it keeps showing up on my Focus list).
And that I can scale the fonts size on my screen (desktop app).
And that I can add something to the inbox by just pressing the “I” key, no need to worry about which Inbox I'm adding things too.
It's so good to see my list of projects with the actions! It's easy to go back and forth between the two. So nice!
This short experiment made me realize some things:
I want to keep my Calendar visible to me while I’m working. So now I have the Outlook app on my work computer to start-up with Windows every morning, and I keep it in a “One Day” view on a vertical screen I have on my left.
Having the Outlook Calendar visible to me makes me use time blocking directly on the digital calendar, instead of using a paper time blocking planner.
I still Plan My Day in the morning the same way. But instead of using Cal Newport’s Time block Planner, I’m using my paper notebook in conjunction with Outlook calendar.
I start with writing the day/month/year/temperature on my notebook. Then I look at my calendar to jot down an “Agenda List” for the day to get a sense of how many meetings I have.
Then I think about my Focus for the day. I look at Nirvana to see what’s already in my Focus list/next actions and decide which projects/actions are going to be priority. I write them down on my notebook just give my brain some clarity. I them update the Focus list on Nirvana based on these notes.
Then I look at my Outlook Calendar and schedule some focus blocks, snack times, commuting times (if needed), check email blocks, processing/organizing blocks.
So, I’m still using the same techniques and routines, but I’m streamlining the number of places I have information on. Some days my meetings will get moved around, canceled, or re-scheduled and I think that having to update everything in a paper time block planner was double work. My calender really dictates my day, so it’s better to have it in one place.
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Post 52/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
✅ I’ve switched my task list management to Microsoft To Do and it’s been working well so far. It’s less overhead overall. I’m working on a blog post to describe the setup, which actually is not too different from previous setups I’ve tried before.
⚖️ I got a new digital bathroom scale with BIG numbers! My dietitian is asking me to weight myself regularly at the same time in the morning and keep a record. My old scale is a mechanical one and the numbers are so small, I can’t read them.
💊 I’m taking a lot of probiotics/supplements prescribed by my Naturopath, including one that will tamper down some of the H. Pylori present in my stomach. It seems I don’t have enough of the bacteria to call it an infection, but they might be contributing to my acid reflux (gastritis) symptoms.
⛸️ I went to my first intermediate 2024 Fall Ice Skating class this Saturday. I was happy to know that: 1) I did not forget how to skate, and 2) I can still do my awkward forward cross-over counter-clockwise. So that means I’m just continuing from where I left off earlier this year. I’m enjoying my skates, all is working well.
📺 We got Amazon Prime for 3 months and we started watching “The Rings of Power” Season 2 and “The Legend ofVox Machina” Season 3. We only saw the first episode of each so far.
🧱My partner and I both worked with building heritage restoration for a long time in our careers. This weekend we attended a workshop about the use of traditional mortars, specifically, hot mixed lime pointing mortars used in stone masonry. It was a great excuse to drive to Kingston when the lovely fall colours are in bloom and be around Fort Henry near the river.
📖 I’m relaxing reading this historical romance with such beautiful writing and fun banter. It’s called “How the Marquess Was Won” by Julie Anne Long. It’s my first time reading this author. I saw this book being praised in the Heaving Bosoms podcast and I just want to finish reading it to listen to the episode. It will be fun!
Currently reading
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
How the Marquess Was Won (Pennyroyal Green #6) by Julie Anne Long
I want to read next
Five Minds by Guy Morpuss (BookClub pick for November)
Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal
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Post 51/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
