Recently I decided to create a separate Instagram account (@petemanship) to follow my pen and paper related interests, after the original feed became overwhelmed with posts related to various other topic areas. Although I’ve always looked to keep things fairly simple, I feel pen people deserve more than to be lost in the algorithm.

As long as I remember to switch accounts on occasion, it should now be a little easier to catch up on things. A fairly simple yet hopefully successful fix. When transferring the pen accounts I follow over to this new feed, I couldn’t help but think perhaps a few other things in my 2018 had been “lost in the algorithm” as well — if I could use such a term to describe what didn’t get written, posted, read, listened to, or moved forward.

The most recent post here? In late September about my love for the cappuccino as a beverage. Look a little deeper, and the last pen-related post was back in June of 2018. Really? That’s the best you could do?

Apparently so…

Don’t get me wrong. I continue to be a staunch proponent of the no apology approach to blog post gaps. Things get written or they don’t. Personally though, I find this can be a reflection of other areas of my life perhaps not syncing as seamlessly as I’d like — assuming the intent to write remains of course. Nothing too serious, simply the busy-ness of life, work, and the organisational and prioritisation aspects required to keep all areas ticking along. We all have them.

I sometimes wonder if a passion is really that if it constantly needs active “feeding” — or should it always be simmering virtually of its own accord. I think it probably is, though whether the effort required to feed it (again, assuming intent) feels like a joy or a chore is most likely the very essence of prioritisation. Not only that, but how well we do in recognising those priorities and putting energy into working on them.

Of course many aspects around what we do, look at, listen to and write about are well within our control. Other things which take up our time and are perceived to be beyond our control probably aren’t — at least not entirely. Put together, they make up the “whole” that is life, and what we choose to do with it at any given moment I guess.

Despite reading many Year in Review and New Year New You posts over the past month or so and vowing there is no way I’m doing that…

While a stream of consciousness more than bullet points and actions, there are a few things I’ve considered while on a week-long break from work.

In the grand scheme of things I would have indeed liked to write more, and for that matter, spread myself less thin across my consumption as well. I seem to have reached a point in my content consumption of being scattered superficially far and wide, interspersed with periods of not much at all. I keep coming back to the word focus when I consider what could improve in both these areas.

Another consideration has been exactly how I use my tools across all areas of my interests, and of course you know what these interests are (if not, tap or click the menu at the top of the page). In lamenting the cost (don’t get me started) of upgrading anything(I didn’t) in the Apple ecosystem these days, perhaps a better approach is to ensure I maximise the capabilities of what I currently have. This of course led me to think such an approach would be a reasonable one to take across the board. Read the unfinished books and saved articles; ink the idle pens; finish the unused notebooks; and in the process perhaps rediscover what brought me to the point of owning so many in the first place.

Notwithstanding the above, I’ve been pleased with the increasing consistency and quality of my coffee roasting, and made some decent strides (despite a little inconsistency at times) in my health and fitness, so it hasn’t all been missed opportunity and lacking in focus. That being said, the perfect cup or the best roast are still ahead of me.

Now if I were, hypothetically speaking, to look at one or two themes for the coming year (Cortex podcast; episode 79), I would probably be looking at something along the lines of The Year of Rediscovery and The Year of Maximisation. I would also probably be thinking of one feeding the other in a cyclical type of arrangement, the result being greater focus on the areas I prioritise as being in need of it.

Regardless of arbitrary blog post titles, if it looks like a year in review, and sounds like a year in review…