I have tried a number mindfulness apps in the past. The Apple Watch Breath app just gets annoying after while, and the only one that really stuck was Headspace. I like their friendly, non-wishy washy approach and well designed app. The guided meditations were easy to follow and I felt like I got something out of it – a brief sense of calmness before the activities of the day takes over again.
This morning my Vitality[1] app updated, and indicated that it would like access to my mindful minutes on Apple Health. That could only mean one thing: Vitality is finally offering the 30% discount on an annual Headspace subscription that they've been promising for a long time. This makes the app a little bit more affordable. Hey, and I get Vitality points for each meditation!
Going to Settings –> Battery on your iPhone and then selecting Last 7 Days gives you a reasonable indication of what apps you used most often. If you then tap on one of the apps or the clock icon, it will show you both how many hours that app was on screen and how much the app was running in the background.
On my phone I had Twitter open for 4.7 hours in the last 7 days. That's 40 minutes on average each day! Next up is the web browser, with 2.5 hours on screen in total. Tile, a Bluetooth tracker I use with my car keys and house keys, ran for 3.9 hours in the background. The Photos app somehow used 6% of my battery life while being open 5 minutes in total. Weird!
I had my podcast player, Overcast, running for about 1.5 hours in the background, usually while walking or going for a run. My VPN software, OpenVPN, which I use when I connect to WiFi away from home, also used around 4% of battery life. Spotify was running for 1.7 hours in the background, while Headspace was running for 1.2 hours in the background.
I use Pocket to bookmark things I want to read on the iPad later, Apple Notes to store random stuff and the standard Apple Mail app for e-mail. For instant messaging I rely on iMessage and WhatsApp. I also use TransferWise for foreign exchange and Parcel for tracking packages. All these apps used around 1-2% battery life and were on screen for five minutes or less each.
It doesn't look like any apps that use less than 1% of battery life are shown. These include:
banking apps
Kisi – used to unlock doors at the co-working space
1Password – password manager
1Blocker – ad blocker
Starbucks – for getting free coffees on Vitality
Three – to top-up airtime credit
Vitality – insurance rewards app
Streaks – for tracking habits
Pure Planet – logging electricity & gas usage
That's more than twenty five apps I use on regular basis! I wonder if all of them are available on Android, in case I want to switch away from the Apple ecosystem? And will there be reasonable replacements if I would switch to a real Linux phone like the Librem 5 in future? And which ones will I just have to go without?
I use an iPhone 6S with 16GB of memory. While that was plenty of storage when I bought it almost exactly three years ago (for £539), iOS now takes up more than half of that (8.65GB). My photo library uses around 3.5GB even with almost all high-res versions of the photos being stored in iCloud, with apps using the remaining quarter of storage. Getting a low storage warning every day is starting to get a bit tiring.
Spending £999 (at a minimum) on the iPhone X is ridiculous, and the iPhone 8 is also not cheap, starting at £699. Apple will probably be announcing a new phone at their special event in a week's time, but I don't expect those phones to be any cheaper. At any rate, now that I've switched to using a Linux laptop, there are fewer advantages to staying in Apple's ecosystem.
Maybe I should make a list of all the apps I use every day and whether they are available on a stripped-down non-Google version of Android? Or maybe there are even alternatives available on the new Librem 5 Linux phone that Purism is working and that will be available next year.
I have been using the Bullet Journal method since the beginning of the year to keep track of tasks and dates. The idea is that you use a physical notebook and follow a specific system to keep track of things.
It can be a bit time-consuming to set up everything for each new month, but it provides a good opportunity to review what I have on my calendar for the upcoming month. Apart from that, I'm not sure that I've found it much more helpful than digital tools that I've used in the past.
I've been using a Field Notes notebook, which is maybe a bit too small, but easier to carry around. Maybe I'll try a bigger notebook next time. Then again, if it hasn't been that useful, maybe I should just go back to tracking tasks using an app?
Over the holidays we tracked our todo list using a physical notepad on the fridge. I noticed it actually worked better than an app, so I decided to try out #bulletjournal for a bit. Got my Field Notes all set up. 📝 📓 pic.twitter.com/hkYftrJfQG
A blog post every day for three months means I'm now just shy of having written 100 posts! I can't believe that I've made it three months without skipping a day, even though we've moved house.
These blog posts have helped me in unexpected ways. Sometimes the act of writing things down helps me to think through a problem. Other times it's just helpful to have documented something when I want to look at it again later. It's also helped me to be more clear and less ambiguous when having to communicate things to others.
None of these things require me to write them in public on a blog, but having it public somehow helps me to be a bit more accountable and to keep the habit going.
One of the reasons we moved was that the new house is nearer to the beaches of the Gower, the UK's first Area of Natural Outstanding Beauty. In addition, we've got four parks and a beach within walking distance.
Cwmdonkin Park, made famous by Dylan Thomas, is the nearest park to the house. You can also take a walk through Brynmill Park with its duck pond, through to Singleton Park, a massive park next to the university and beach. Singleton Park is about a quarter the size of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but for a city of only 250 thousand residents it's a pretty big park.
The toddler and I walked through Brynmill Park and Singleton Park to the beach today, and back past Victoria Park, another park next to the beach. It's a bit of a steep climb getting back, but manageable. I'm glad this house is starting to feel like home.
I spent most of the day putting up new furniture and attaching things to walls. First I drilled six holes to attach our TV to the wall with a movable arm. Making sure I got the six holes in exactly the right places was quite nerve-wracking, but it all worked out in the end.
I also drilled two holes to attach our shoe cabinet. In the end we decided to mount it against a wall with a lower skirting board, which left our foyer as the only viable option. This one turned out easier than expected, as it's not too hard to line up two holes for drilling.
I then assembled yet another piece of IKEA furniture, this time round a set of drawers for our bedroom. This one also had to be fixed against the wall, with two metal brackets. I had to move the brackets from their original position in the furniture to make it fit, but this also worked out in the end.
All in all, a successful day in the DIY department. There were no big surprises, and slowly but surely everything in the house is coming together.
Previously I described some of the issues regarding getting the internet working at our new house. Well, it seems like I've finally found a solution!
Using a WiFi extender was not successful, as the average network speed would still be around 10Mbps. I considered getting a second ASUS router and setting up a mesh network, but initial testing using the existing router showed it would peak around 60Mbps and maybe not be that reliable.
This morning I went and bought an AV2000 Gigabit Powerline ac Wi-Fi Kit . It's theoretically capable of carrying up to 2Gbps over electrical wiring, with 802.11ac WiFi built in. Guess what, powerline networking is amazing! Given that our house was built over a century ago, I was a bit worried that the electrical wiring wouldn't be up to the task. However, setup was super easy and the link between the two powerline units is around 670Mbps!
My actual Internet speed is only around 40Mbps (while I'm paying for 78Mbps), but that is a whole other issue.
For dinner tonight I finally made that vegan mac & cheese I wrote about a while back. I was a bit surprised by how easy it was to make and that I actually enjoyed eating it. The toddler ate his very enthusiastically (or maybe he was just very hungry) and my wife ate at least half her plate.
I'm not planning on going vegan anytime soon, but it's good to know that there are alternatives to things like cheese that taste acceptable. I can't say I've found any good meat alternatives yet.
On Monday I wrote how other companies copying IKEA's flat-pack furniture style really don't match up when it comes to the quality of the assembly instructions. Today I was assembling an IKEA shoe cabinet, and the instructions made it a breeze.
Also, by keeping to standard and minimal sizes on their screws and bolts, there was very little confusion about which screw to use when. With the assembly instructions of the other manufacturers, they actually included a printed ruler section so that you have to measure each screw before you use it.
There was one major hiccup: I was almost done and wanted to mount it against the wall. Our skirting boards[1] are so high that the cabinet doesn't sit flush. I found an IKEA Hackers article that uses door stoppers to extend the feet, but I would need door stoppers at least 10cm long for that to work.
The proprietor of the tiny hardware store in my new neighbourhood was very helpful and suggested that I use 2x2 pieces of wood and cut them to replace the existing feet. That's a pretty good option, but I'm still looking into other alternatives like mounting it directly against the wall or maybe mounting it on a wall with lower skirting board.
