Monthly favourites — December 2018

🎞️	Bandersnatch	Repeats	Breaking Bad
🎧	Serial	Teacher’s Pet	Bikram
📖	The Organized Mind	This will only hurt a little	Multiple books
📱	Vilo	Tally and Done	Way of Life
➿	Spending less time on my phone	To stop saying ‘sorry’ and ‘just’	Time away from my phone
🎒	Human centred design	Financial planning	Yoga

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🎞️ Watching

Bandersnatch (movie)

I had to watch Black Mirror’s choose-your-own-adventure style movie Bandersnatch before hearing too much on social media, and it did not disappoint! Netflix took its offering to a new level with this one, where the viewer determines the plot. The story itself wasn’t groundbreaking but I loved being in control of what happened next. Give it a whirl on a rainy Sunday.
— Jess

Repeats (TV shows)

I haven’t been watching all that much lately, aside from Brooklyn 99 and Seinfeld repeats.
— Aimee

Breaking Bad (TV show)

I am incredibly behind in the world of television, and only after intense pressure from my boyfriend, I finally started Breaking Bad. I’m the only person in the world who hasn’t yet finished the series, so I won’t go into detail on this one.
— Lil

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🎧 Listening to

Serial season three (podcast)

I’m lapping up the third season of the Serial podcast, which examines the US legal system through the eyes of a courthouse in Cleveland. It’s easy to forget your listening to a non-fictional story, when the characters are being taken around the bend and back again. Fascinating/terrifying.
— Jess

Teacher’s Pet (podcast)

I had some long drives over the holiday break and I’m a sucker for investigative journalism. I kept seeing The Teacher’s Pet podcast mentioned in the media due to the recent arrest of Chris Dawson, charged with the murder of his first wife Lyn. I’ve listened to about half of the episodes so far. I should make some time to finish them off.
— Aimee

Bikram (podcast)

BIKRAM by ESPN’s 30 for 30. Fascinating series from behind the scenes of the hot Yoga’s Guru, Bikram. Also listening to a lot of gut health related one offs; from Goop and The ATP Project.
— Lil

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📖 Reading

The Organized Mind (book)

I’m reading The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel J. Levitin, learning about how we organise our memories, including why sometimes things stick and sometimes they don’t. For example, our brain is constantly scanning for new information so we can externalise the memory function by placing a new object in our view when we want to remember it — like an umbrella by the front door, when it’s usually kept in a cupboard.
— Jess

This Will Only Hurt a Little (Book)

I read Busy Philipps book This Will Only Hurt A Little across two days over the Christmas break. I picked it up for two reasons: 1) I don’t have any pink books on my colour co-ordinated bookshelf, and 2) I love her! It was an easy read and I liked being reminded of the fact that even ‘famous’ people deal with the same trials and tribulations of us normal folk.
— Aimee

Multiple books on the go

• Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harani
• The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson
• Atonement, Ian McEwan

— Lil

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📱 Using

Vilo (app)

Look, I’ll be honest: I tried the Vilo app for a while as a means to track habits (food, exercise, sleep, etc) and understand causalities but the constant need to add data was hard to keep up. I’ve been on holidays over the past few weeks and found all unnecessary apps (including this one) have faced happy neglect. (“Happy neglect” is also my new favourite phrase.)
— Jess

Tally and Done (apps)

I wanted to give habit tracking a go, so I downloaded and looked to try Tally and Done. TBH, I haven’t really tracked all that much and haven’t found them that useful for the things I wanted to track. I get more satisfaction out of completing something I know that I’m making an effort to complete, rather than logging it. I think I’ll probably delete them off my phone.
— Aimee

Way of Life (app)

I’ve been extremely lazy with tracking apps and the like over the end of year break. The Way of Life app has been recommended to me, maybe now it’s January I should open it up.
— Lil

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➿ Practicing

Spending less time on my phone

One of my goals for 2019 is to spend less time as a servant to my iPhone, so I’ve been attempting to stay off social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) for the first and last hour of every day. I haven’t been a total saint, but the intention has served me well! The next step is to enforce airplane mode during these times, I just haven’t brought myself to do it yet (Because then how will I check the weather and know what to wear? Or be sure there are no messages from my Mum to reply to?).
— Jess

To stop saying ‘sorry’ and ‘just’

“I’m just writing to let you know”… no, I’m not. I’m writing to let you know. No just about it.
— Aimee

Time away from my phone

Putting my phone away when I’m with other humans and not picking it up.
— Lil

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🎒 Learning

Human centred design

A contender for the Best Thing I Did in 2018 is a 6-week Introduction to Human-Centred Design course from IDEO and Acumen. It really reiterated the value in asking people about their experience when designing anything (a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g!), along with ways and means to conduct research, design, prototyping and working out what to do next when it comes to any project. Because every project should be human-centred, and you don’t have to be a “designer” to learn how.
— Jess

Financial planning

Trying to understand more about financial decisions and how to better prepare my future self. I wanted to take some time to ensure I’m making good, informed decisions now before it’s too late. I was doing some research on Superannuation funds and came across Verve, Australia’s first super fund for women, by women. I haven’t done anything yet beyond looking through Verve academy, which has some helpful resources.
— Aimee

Yoga

About Yoga. I inherited some classic yoga texts recently, from family and friends. Taking my time digesting bits and pieces from B.K.S Iyengar, David Swenson and Desikachar.
— Lil