Four months on

Picking up from where the last post left off, I’m now on a holiday for a few days with a group of friends. We only meet up a few times per year, and because I now have the extra flexibility of not being at work full-time, I jumped at the opportunity to spend time with them, even after I’ve just recently come back from Turkey.

I’m staying in the UK this time - we’ve gone to a retreat somewhere deep in rural England. Lots of nature and green spaces. What’s even better is that this is a super-active holiday: yesterday (6th May), I went on a 30km cycle ride and spent about 3 hours at a water park (amongst lots of walking in addition).

I’m writing this in any spare down-time I can find (I quite enjoy writing, it relaxes my mind).

While it may seem gluttonous to have two holidays so close together, (it’s actually just coincidence), it’s difficult to pass up the opportunity to spend quality time with good people. In fact, I’ve worked out that this year, I’ll take 5.5 weeks’ worth of “holidays” where I’m actually away from home. So not an excessive amount of holidaying, but certainly more than I could take if I were working full-time.

It’s been just about 4 months now since I started part-time work, so I thought it a good time to take a look at my situation.

Reflections

At this point, I’m just enjoying the longer days as we head through spring, and the luxury of being able to spend more time away from the office.

A bluebell woods which I visited in late April.

I’m starting to think that my poor long-range vision, blighted by years of constantly staring at computer screens, is beginning to recover. I suspect this is a function of living more in the “real world”, looking at nature, the sky and sunsets more frequently. My vision is far from perfect, but perhaps I’m just starting to see the first signs of a recovery.

I’ve certainly noticed that my sleep is more consistent, and I’m getting ~30 mins more sleep each night overall. My circadian rhythm is pretty consistent and I’m still getting up around 06:00 every morning (which is ironic as it’s currently 02:30 and I’m unable to sleep).

I live my life out of a diary which enables me to plan my day and the week ahead. Being goal-oriented, and ticking off these goals as they are done throughout the week, allows me to get so much more done. It’s difficult to emphasise how much more productive I feel now I’ve got more time to focus on my own goals. I’ve come to realise that it’s really just a re-direction of my energy from my job.

I’m also more physically active (walking, cycling, gym, running more frequently). I’ve always been an active person - although my activity has been impacted by some injuries over the past ~6 weeks - but even so, I’m seeing a positive change in my physical exercise. We’ll see how this changes as we go through the summer!

Certainly, I’m giving myself more time to just enjoy nature - through long walks or sitting in my newly-finished garden when the weather is nice. The garden itself has become a bit of an unexpected hobby too - it’s had a full-makeover and is now unrecognisable from a few months ago. But finally I’ve got a nice outdoor space that I actually want to use (and one which will hopefully yield a good crop of vegetables later in the summer).

I’ve also been reading quite a lot more. I’m aiming to read a book per month, but am actually exceeding this by about 50% so far. Other kinds of reading too - like catching up on the stack of Royal Meteorological Society Weather magazines I’ve not had time to read previously (about two year’s worth).

I have also been spending more time watching good TV (from a long list of TV series and films that I keep), and I’ve also been playing Minecraft (my current video game of choice) a little more often. I tend to push these ultra-processed recreation choices to the lowest priority though, in favour of something more physically or mentally exerting.

Overall. I feel that I’ve successfully diverted time spent in developing my professional career into developing myself. And that makes me happy.

One of the other skills I’ve been working on - baking!