It was a pretty productive week in terms of work, but I feel a lot more drained than before. I think that I really need some kind of limit on everything I do because I have a tendency to dive deep and spend all my time on one thing, which leads to constant burnout. Especially if it’s related to work stuff.

I’m writing this weeknote on Monday, once again, because I spent the whole weekend on bureaucratic stuff (documents for work, bank accounts, etc.), and it took much more time than I expected. Today, I’m taking a day off to do some things at home and get myself together. Listening to some Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith right now, trying to chill the fuck down - seems to work!

Last week I ran 15km, which is alright, but I think that something around 20-25km would be perfect. But also, I like it as it is because it works great for me right now, and I feel much better, so I won’t set any goals. I feel like progress will come naturally, so no need to force things here. Also, I really like the fresh air in the mornings, considering that I spend the rest of the day sitting indoors and working.

I was thinking about my weeknote process during this week, and I think that I found a happy medium for myself: I write down some keywords during the week, and then I just need to expand on them over the weekend. It seems to be a very convenient way because during the week, I don’t have much time to write a lot of thoughts down. And when the weekend comes, I don’t need to remember what happened during the week and what I wanted to write about.

One thing - it’s still really hard to write. I feel a huge lack of skill in just formulating my thoughts. If you’ve ever tried writing something in a second language, you know what I’m talking about: you have a thought, but when you write it down, it almost loses its meaning and integrity. Maybe I’m just dumb - the possibility is really high. I try not to read my own posts after publishing because they suck balls, but whatever.

I was reading different blogs this week (surfing the BearBlog discovery feed - there are tons of amazing blogs!), and some people have this incredible ability to write profound thoughts with very few words. It fascinates me. Right now, I’m on the opposite end - using a lot of words to say basically nothing. But it’s a learning process, I guess.

Touch typing! This week was harder than usual. I was constantly thinking about life and work-related things, and my thoughts just endlessly wandered from one place to another. It was really hard to concentrate, and it showed instantly in my practice and results. But to be honest, I feel pretty good with the Russian layout now - speed is already up to 50-60 WPM, but progress with the English layout has slowed down a lot. I have around 4-5 letters left to unlock, so it won’t be a problem - I’ll catch up during February. Once again, there’s no need to hurry. Starting this week, I’ll practice 10 minutes per layout. That should work fine.

I watched a few more movies than usual this week, but the only one I want to mention (and recommend) is Leave No Trace (2018) by Debra Granik. I resonated a lot with it, though it’s definitely a niche movie. Touching plot, great acting, beautifully shot - an unexpected gem.

The main concern of the week was time. I feel like I’m doing something wrong with it. Feels like I do too much and not enough at the same time, wtf.. Is this a common thing when you’re in your mid-20s? I was trying to find a good time-tracking app just to get an outside perspective on how I spend my day, but I hate "productivity" apps, to be honest. They always make me feel more anxious.

But I found a good one - BlockyTime. It’s super simple, and you don’t have to write and track a lot of things, just click on 30-minute segments of time and assign an activity. Already got some insights. I’ll use it for a few weeks and try to make some conclusions. I don’t think any conclusions will actually help with this problem, though.

Anyway, I think January was stressful and hard, but I’ve done a lot of important things - things I usually just put off for a long time and never come back to. I’ll try to find something in between in February. We’ll see.