New Gadgets and Ideas
Your Perfect Sunday Reading and Listening
There is a lot going on in this newsletter so I want to keep my intro short and just let you know that I’ve been enjoying my new Air Fryer lately.
I use a mini one by Corsori which stows away easily. I am still trying to find the right settings because you can end up with crispy food that isn’t warm in the middle, but overall it’s a fantastic appliance. It is highly improved by using paper liners to help clean up the mess.
I also have been enjoying my Apple Watch SE, which is the most basic edition you can get. They try to sell you a bigger version for “men”, but I hated that one and ended up with the smaller 40mm which is the perfect size.
I worried that the rubber wristband would cause irritation like back in my Swatch days as a kid, but that hasn’t happened so far.
Hans in Australia keeps tabs on my fitness rings better than I do because I had to disable the notifications in this area as they were driving me nuts.
The best reason to have a smart watch is the integration with the calendar and really having your appointments and meetings front and centre throughout the day.
Three Ideas from My Notebooks
The lower vibration is the voice that says you’re not good enough and you’ve tried everything and you’re going to fail again. You should be hanging around with the higher vibration instead. Be curious about trying the next thing out and seeing what happens. Curiosity is the higher vibration.
Your experience is exactly what you say it is. If you say the past year has been a form of wandering in the desert, then that is exactly what the past year has been. If you say instead that you’re discovering your personal oasis and that you had to hike through some hot, dry sand to get there, then that’s what it will be. Words and language are energy. Use them to your advantage.
I don’t work on Thursdays because I work 7 days a week. I decided that Thursdays has been the best day to do the things that interest me the most and to let my mind rest. Then I come back on Friday and tie up loose ends for the week. At my last position, it was in my contract that I worked four days a week and I suggest you consider something similar for your work arrangement. If at the very least, take an extended morning or lunch break once a week to signal that you need rest in order to be creative. The weekend sucks for taking a break because everyone else is doing it too1.
All of the ideas going back to May 2023 are now located in The Ideas Index:
Get the templates to log your own three ideas every day here.
Listen to The Offering
In December, 2013, Beyonce dropped a surprise album. At the time I remember enjoying hearing this because it just makes sense in the digital world. I also read that it’s been done many times since by pop artists of a similar calibre.
So here is a short EP that I am releasing with no previous announcement, which makes sense because I release a new song every week. So this week is no different, except there are four new songs instead of one.
It’s heavy on the solo piano front.
or listen on Apple Music or Amazon Prime. It’s not on Spotify yet because I just uploaded it yesterday.
Tracklist
Morning Page
Roadkill Blues
Rolsen
The American Dream
The Offering refers to a post that I wrote about Oprah Winfrey’s experience of spending 10 years on a film that flopped hard (Beloved). After that, she learned that everything we create is simply an offering, and it doesn’t matter if people like it or not.
Zooming out, your entire life experience is an offering and more specifically, a gift, and if people can’t appreciate you, then let them go and don’t try to bend the universe in your favour.
Last week’s tune is called The Origin, and I had shared a video with supporters of this newsletter in advance. Here is that video (9 minutes):
I’m off to get some warm, fluffy bagels, and then I’ll be indoors for Dune 2 later on.
Elliott
I don’t want to suggest that creating a four day work week inside a five day company is easy or financially feasible, as it usually involves taking a pay cut because of the factory system that we work under. It wasn’t great in my previous position as I was resented for not being there on Thursdays even though I came back in on Friday and barrelled through a ton of work. And I paid for it financially. But I at least want to start putting things out there to help people rethink the industrial model.
Think of me as Australian Big Brother Elliot. Always watching! Xoxo