- It is the start of my third week on sabbatical.
And I gotta tell you, I'm really liking this whole
not working thing, especially because it is Monday.
And I'm currently at the beach reading my book
as the start of my day, which is very, very nice.
Valencia is quite a popular place for tourists
to come visit.
So there is still like a lot of people here
at the beach as well, but way less than if I had come
on the weekend.
Being here is definitely an ideal start to my day.
The sun is shining, but it's not too hot yet.
It's definitely gonna get there later on today though.
So I'm gonna read here for a bit, go for swim and
then cycle home and get on with some writing maybe.
(electronic music)
During the first week of my sabbatical
I spent it taking the week completely off my work
no side projects, nothing.
And I came and stayed in that hotel there for a night
to kick things off
which was a good start to, I'd always seen the hotel
and wanted to try it out.
So I went there for a solo staycation.
(electronic music)
I'm home and showered.
And now sitting down at my desk to do a couple
of hours on some side hustle things.
I wanna have a good book writing session.
I'm also doing some organizing for the next season
of "inside Marketing Design", which has been
I don't know, there's just been really good to
have the space to actually stop and think about that.
If you dunno what I'm talking about
it's a interview show that I run in seasons.
So there's only about like 12 episodes every year
but it features different tech companies
and the branded marketing design teams
and people and processes behind them.
It's a really great resource
for understanding how other companies work
getting ideas for different things
that you could be doing with your team.
And I can say that wholeheartedly
because it's a show that I personally get a lot
of value from, learning from my guests.
So I'm pleased to have had the space to start thinking
about another season, because life was feeling really busy.
And I didn't really know if that was gonna be
something that I was gonna get to this year.
So I'm excited that it seems like I am.
I have a couple of very exciting companies already,
that I'm in talks with featuring this time.
It's just so cool to know, the shear level
of the company's willing to come on the show
of mine and, be open about their processes.
So yeah, just doing a bit of outreach.
Let me show you something that I put together last week
cuz like I said at the beach
the first week of my sabbatical, I took completely off.
It was just relaxation, reading books, doing nothing really.
Then the next week honestly ended up being half
doing nothing as well because I got a stomach bug
and was quite ill and that was not fun.
But yeah, when I got back into it, I made this wall here
of post-it notes, which is just kind of like reminding
myself of the options of things
that I could spend my time doing.
Some of them are things that I want to do
and like will be done once
like write my income report, fill my income report.
Others are things that I could do
at any time, like multiple times.
And so this is just like my wall of options
obviously did this one and this one this morning
I think I said this in my last blog.
But when this benefit of having a sabbatical got announced
at Convert Care, which is something that we get
after we've been at the company for five years
you get a month off paid leave on top
of all the regular vacation that you get in a year anyway.
But yeah, when it was first announced, I was like, cool
it'll be a month of travel.
I go on a big road trip.
Clearly we're still in a pandemic, so that's not happening.
And also this little one here needs daily medicine.
Don't you?
Okay now you're stealing my seat.
So yeah, I just don't wanna travel at the moment
and entrust her to anybody else
because she is very precious.
Aren't you?
Yeah. I just made my little post-it wall to remind myself
of all the great things that I can be doing while at home.
And that even though the sabbatical is not
what I first thought that it might be
it still is a great time for me to do other things
that I enjoy doing, like playing my piano,
playing video games, doing jigsaw puzzle
as well as acting on ideas that I have now
that I have the time and space and energy for them
like the "inside Marketing Design" season, for example.
So I'm gonna do a little bit of outreach.
There is a couple of companies that I want to
make initial contact with today.
And some others that are close to being officially booked
for the season that I wanna tie up.
And then I'm going to set a timer
and have a focused writing session.
This is my idea of fun people.
I'm a nerd.
(electronic music)
Well, that was a good writing session.
My book right now, if you were curious to know
so far it is 16,000 words.
I think I'm about halfway through with the draft.
So yeah, that seems about right.
It's probably gonna end up being a book
that's about 30,000 words long.
Oh this is such a big overwhelming project.
You've heard me talk about it before.
I am really liking how it's turning out
but it has not been easy.
That is for sure.
Now that I'm finished with this
I think I'm going to take some inspiration
from my poster wall here and I'm gonna do some streaming
on Twitch and play a video game.
It's gonna be fun.
(electronic music)
That was super fun.
Time flies by playing that game.
I swear.
But anyways now at seven o'clock this is the time
that I'm normally signing off of work for the day.
So it's interesting that instead I'm signing
off of two hours of streaming a game on Twitch.
Yeah. I'm going to go cook some dinner now
and I'll see tomorrow for another day of my sabbatical.
Good morning, it's Tuesday
and I'm joining my writing call, to start the day.
That was a really good session.
Nora joined me right at the end there
didn't you?
I'm actually gonna keep going now.
Cause I feel like I have more like ideas flowing and yeah.
Some more stuff that I wanna get out.
So I'm gonna continue with my writing session by myself.
You wanna join or should I put you down?
(cat purring)
(electronic music)
Okay. I just got totally inspired
and it ended up writing a new homepage for myself.
Oops, take a look here.
My current homepage, I have known
that I wanted to change it for a while.
First of all, this used to be a photo
of me and I just like added
in a photo of gray scale when I launched the font.
Cause I was like
I need to promote this on my homepage somehow.
And there's no space for it.
So yeah, not a great overview of who I am and what I do.
I do like the rest of my current homepage though.
I've got my latest blog posts and videos
this stopped functioning.
So this is not the latest two videos.
These are quite old by now and this is still working
bringing in my latest work from Dribble.
But there's also a lot of stuff that I'm currently doing
that isn't on my site or my homepage at all.
Like my mentoring calls, for example
like the fact that I don't just have one podcast now
I have "inside Marketing Design" as well.
So yeah, I've wanted to work on this for a while.
And so what I've ended up doing
is writing a whole new homepage.
I've been doing some wire framing as well
in fig jam just to like yeah.
Figure things out.
And I'm excited.
I'm really excited to actually dig in
and start designing this.
First though, because I just realized how much time
had passed when my stomach grumbled.
I wanna check if the Poke place is still open.
Have I missed it?
Yes. It's still open.
A lot of places here will like close
in between lunch and dinner time
and dinner time being like 8:00 PM.
But the Poke shop is apparently one that stays open.
So I think what I'm gonna do is go get a Poke bowl
and sit in the river bed and read.
So let's go do that.
(electronic music)
This is definitely the life.
In my poke bowl I have salmon, mango, edamame, avocado.
I forgot the English word for it for a second and zucchini
it's delicious.
I'm currently reading Sand Storm by James Rollins.
So like a Indiana Jones, treasure hunting type of story.
It is quite good.
I went through quite a phase where
for like several years, honestly, where I felt
like it was a waste of time to be reading fiction.
And if I was gonna read a book
it should be a non-fiction book that was gonna
help me progress and improve in something.
And I don't know why I thought that
because it's not like every time I watch TV
I felt like it had to be something super educational.
But yeah, recently last year really I found my way back
into loving novels and I've read like honestly
nearly 30 of them this year already.
(electronic music)
Oh man it's nice to be home in the air conditioning again.
Not gonna lie.
I think that I'm gonna call it here for today.
I am feeling very tempted honestly
to dive straight into the design of that new hope page.
I just wrote up, but I'm gonna wait till tomorrow
and probably do a live stream as I work on it
which will have already happened
by the time you see this blog.
But yeah that is a good reason to subscribe
turn the notifications on so that you get told
when I'm going live for streams like that.
Hope you've enjoyed spending a few days
of my sabbatical with me.
I'm just really loving this time and freedom
to do whatever the heck I feel like.
I will probably have another sabbatical blog coming
to you soon because I do still have a whole week
and a half left of the sabbatical, which is great.
And I'm definitely going to be making the most of it.
Hope you're having a good week
and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.