Five Things I've Enjoyed This Week
Dune, Sorted3, Below Soundtrack, After Life and Animal Crossing: New Horizons
26. April 2020
This is the first entry of a blog post series that I am hopefully able to keep up, even when things start to get back to normal again. I am very big on keeping a daily journal, tracking what media I am consuming and other things that include big lists. I like to think of it as a way to keep mindful about my day-to-day life and things I’ve been doing with my time.
So here it is! The five things I really enjoyed doing / hearing / consuming this week:
1. Dune
I watched Dune (and really liked it)! After seeing all the images from the upcoming movie adaption, I thought it was time to finally cross the original version off my endless long movie list. A year ago I bought the original book by Frank Herbert on a flea market and started reading it, but soon realized I didn’t really enjoyed it. All the names and terms seemed a bit too overwhelming on paper, so I’m happy I got to watch the movie.
I loved the design from all the different fractions of the universe, my favorite being the design and story of the Bene Gesserit. The concept of the weirding module also seems like an awesome concept for future game projects. I love every idea that changes the stereotypical weapon combat gameplay scenarios into something more interesting and complex.
2. Sorted3
Since I am very passionate about becoming better at time management and personal management in general, I’m always interested in trying out new techniques / apps that could improve my day-to-day workflow.
In the past I’ve used tools such as Notion, TickTick, Todoist and GoodTask. While all of them have great potential and I still love using Notion for organizing all my projects and concepts, none of them seemed to really improve my workflow and lack of structure. Last Sunday I’ve downloaded and organized all my task in Sorted3 – and I might be onto something.
The biggest reason why I love Sorted3 is the fact that the app is really big on helping you to actually schedule your day, there even is an auto schedule function which automatically creates a schedule with all of your tasks you have listed for the day. The fact that you have to add a duration for your tasks in addition to the auto scheduling really helps me to cut down the time I usually spend with slacking around between tasks, so this really could be a game changer for me. But I did say the same with Notion, GoodTask and all the other tools I’ve tried out, so we’ll see!
In case someone else would like to try out Sorted3: Unfortunately the app is only available for iOS devices, it also includes a one-time-only purchase of 16,99€, which understandably may be a bit much for some out there.
3. the below soundtrack
I rarely work without any music on, the background noises that come with living in Berlin and other sounds around me are often irritating when trying to get into the flow zone. I keep a list of ambient soundtracks and am always looking for nice soundtracks without any vocals (can’t write when I hear anything with actual lyrics in it).
There isn’t that much to say other then: I stumbled upon the Below soundtrack and really enjoy it! I basically have been listening to it for the whole week while working.
The soundtrack is composed by Jim Guthrie, be sure to check him out and support his work!
4. After life
My boyfriend suggested that we should watch Ricky Gervais‘ Netflix series After Life, which ended up with us watching almost the entire first season on Monday. The bleak humour and the themes of the show really reasonated with me, so I was happy to find out that the second season already aired on Friday!
I enjoyed the overall quietness and slow pace of the series, which only got interrupted by some more serious story beads that presented how the main character struggled with the recent death of his wife. The series deals with themes such as suicide, drug abuse and depression – so it may not be for everyone.
5. animal crossing: new horizons
Well, technically this isn’t just something I’ve enjoyed during the last week. I have been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons nonstop since the whole quarantine situation started and fell completely in love with it. Unfortunately New Leaf didn’t really catch me when it came out, which made me sad because Animal Crossing: Wild World is a big part of my childhood I still love to reminisce about.
My Switch shows me that I’ve already spend over 120 hours with New Horizons, which probably should concern me – but the earth day event started on Thursday, which means I am way too busy planting bushes to have time worrying about my unhealthy Animal Crossing-obession!
And that’s it, five things I’ve enjoyed this week! I hope I am able to continue this blog series, mostly as a way for me to backtrack and to keep some sort of routine during the week.
