Starting 2026
I hope that 2026 brings health, bounty and peace. I think vegetables represent this trio quite well; that is how I chose the header photo for the first post of 2026!
We are starting 2026.1 according to the Hellurian calendar. 2025 had a very pressing, tiring second half—personally, professionally and globally. Living and running a business in Türkiye has always been challenging, but this year we have been subject to new lows. I felt wilted in December. No physical energy to do things. For those things that I found the physical energy, no energy to really, really do all of them well. For things I managed to give my all, no energy to share the enthusiasm and the learnings.
Part of this dull gray period was due to burnout (that I shared with some of my colleagues). But I think part of it was my own neglect of my own needs.
I fell out of touch with things that give me physical, mental and maybe cosmic energy. I was fortunate to be able to go one week with almost no screens at the end of the year. No LinkedIn, no Instagram, one small mobile game (Idle Planet Miner, which you can just use as a soundtrack for your life), cooking 2-3 times a day, check-ups with my favorite doctors, and lots of walking in my neighborhood.
I opened my gratitude jar too! I keep a small cactus-shaped jar next to my desk. Whenever I feel grateful for something (quite hard to encounter something that fits the bill on our side of the world), I jot it down on a post-it-sized paper that I tear out of an old notebook using a fountain pen, then I put it in the jar. The jar is opaque, so I don't see how much has accumulated (or not). I open this jar every 3-4 months; I opened it in my time off. I savored each recent memory and relived the learnings from my little scribbles.
Here are the things I will do slightly differently in the coming months.
Changes to my routine
Waking up early, going to bed not too late. I really like waking up early, but lately my sleep schedule has shifted towards later bedtimes and later wake up times. I want to restore it to earlier bedtimes and earlier wake up times.
Early reflections. If I can manage to wake up early, I want to spend the morning reading thoughtful texts about design, writing about my own reflections, and cooking Japanese style breakfasts. (see below) I don't read fiction that much, and I don't feel that reading fiction belongs in the morning.