Life is a never-ending barrage of choices, decisions and compromises. The following is a list of decisions that I’ve made. Once you decide on something you can let it go, or rather let it become a part of you, and reduce the number of choices. Inspired by Steph Ango’s Style is consistent constraint.

Discipline

• I only buy new things on a pre-defined Buy Day

Self-care

• I shave my hair at least once a month (going to the hairdresser but looking into DIY)
• I shave my face 3 times per week
• I follow My sleep routine to promote consistently good sleep

Technology

• If the software supports it, I use the Nord theme
• Light mode during the day, Dark mode at night
• I enable Night Shift or any similar software on every device to reduce blue night at night
• Tags and other tag-like properties using kebab case (e.g. notes, self-improvement, things-i-want)
  • whenever it makes sense, I use the plural form of the word (i.e. lists instead of list)
• For local software, single payment over subscription models
• For online services, open-source over closed-source, self-hosted whenever possible, 100% user-supported over VC, paid over free
• I don’t have social media accounts and will not create accounts on any platform that measures the performance of human-to-human interactions by “likes”, “reposts” or other similar metrics. This is as much out of a regard for my mental health as it is for any opinions I have on social media in general
  • The one exception to this rule is Bear Blog which has a very light “Upvote” functionality that doesn’t significantly impact the experience (I’m there mostly to Write for myself)
• I am always reachable by email, and seek to reach out to others in the same way. Email has been around for a while and it’ll likely be around for as long I’m alive

Things

• My water bottle is the Kambukka Etna Grip 500 ml Black Steel. It has replaceable components and great cleaning tools, so it should last me forever
• I wear mostly monochromatic clothes with the occasional splashes of color. Simplicity and comfort over all else
  • I buy my clothes from MUJI and H&M, occasionally from COS and Scotch & Soda
  • I buy my shoes from MUJI or Adidas, my boots from Camper (looking into vegan alternatives)
• I write with the Gel Ink Ballpoint Pen 0.5mm from MUJI (and always have 1+ refills in my desk) on Rhodia Desk Webnotebooks with Dot Grid Ruling notebooks

Media

• Purchases over rentals, but not dogmatic about it
• For purchases, DRM-free is the only way to go.
  • For books, try to support your local bookshops. If buying through Kindle, use DeDRM tools for ebooks
• Music is (1) bought on Bandcamp, or (2) streamed via TIDAL. Anything that I listen to more than a couple of times on TIDAL I will seek out and purchase, then grab FLACs for my self-hosted media server
• Streaming services are a necessary evil for now

References