Try reading up on the neighborhoods in your new city, figure out where stuff is, and just go walk around and explore and see the place. Maybe that means parking somewhere each day and then walking from there; try to write enough directions on a napkin that you can find your way back without using your phone.

Walking your city gives you a perspective you don't get from driving or public transport. Everything seems a lot closer and you get a better idea of how the parts of the city are connected. I am fortunate to live in a city which has a forest within it's boundary. I can be in a shopping centre one minute and walk to a forest fifteen minutes away. Walk another 30 minutes and I am looking at a 3000 year old henge monument. The wonder of Belfast.

I plan to spend the next few weeks doing my yearly review of goals, priorities, and my habits.

Mostly, I want to tighten up spending, hit the weights again, lower sugar and processed food consumption. Play less video games and read more quality fiction. Write more in my journal and a bit of fiction each day.

Career wise, I want to continue to challenge myself and learn new technologies-- even ones that seem difficult. I need to stay optimistic, and learn quickly, become more productive, without burning out. It's a fine line to walk.

There is this ever present desire to constantly learn. I have no idea where it comes from. Haven't always felt that way but I know it affects most people I interact with. Some point to social media and the constant need to keep up. Maybe that's it. In any case, I've found it to be an issue. Continuously trying to learn has brought me to a point where I was skipping around too much and not learning anything. Depth of engagement got a lot better when I stopped to focus on things I was doing.

This led me to take a break at the end of November. I have classes I'm planning to take in January. But so far the last few weeks have been nice forcing myself to _not_ look up tutorials or read articles on new tech stacks or project. I'd recommend it to anyone else who feels that weight of learning. Or anyone who may be trying to squeeze training into small segments of time. I guess I'd call it learning downtime.

Come January though, I'm jumping into self studied math (which I haven't studied since college), a bit of web dev (probably Rails), and a new language (maybe Russian).

I think that your plan to read, run and explore the neighborhood is just enough. I don't know if you are an introvert or extrovert but you could also spend some time in meeting new people if you are new to this city. With the end of the year and all of the festivities there might be some interesting events near you. In any case, I hope that you will have great 12 days!

Health-wise, I would recommend you to find the closest river and start with cold water immersion.

If not possible, start with cold showers.

Your future self will thank you.

Funny, I just took one and was considering posting this. It has an amazing effect of focus and relaxation. Seriously, nothing relaxes me like a cold shower it's like nature's Xanax

In March of last year, two weeks before I was due to move to a new apartment, the water heater in my old apartment broke.

Those two weeks of cold showers were some of the unhappiest in my life. The dread of standing naked in the shower with your hand on the knob. The involuntary spasmodic shivering when the jet of icy water hits your trunk. Panicked attempts to rinse off soap and shampoo that just don't want to foam in water that cold.

No. Never again. No.

In my experience, taking an involuntary cold shower is very different from immersing oneself into a cold lake. The latter can be a nice experience.

It wasn't "involuntary," no one forced me into taking the shower.

Have you ever had the experience of immersing yourself into a cold lake?

Cold water is cold water, no?

In my humble opinion: No.

The experience of cold water from a faucet is very different from the experience of a cold lake.

You cannot get submerged via a faucet.

But you can if you use the faucet to fill a bathtub.

I wouldn’t say that solution is anything near the lake experience.

it was about being submerged. Now you're moving the goalposts.

You'll of course only get the lake experience in a lake. But you won't get the bathtub experience in a lake, either.

Is this real?

I used to be sick with sinusitis every single year(especially winters) for approx. 8 years. I don't even want to count how many packs of antibiotics did I consume during that time.

One September, I started to shower myself with cold water at least once a day.

It's been 4 years now and I haven't taken a single antibiotic since.

It also has a great mental effect - doing something a bit uncomfortable every single day makes it easier to do something else that's also uncomfortable.

Cold showers are a great way to start your day. It takes a while to get used to them but I've always found them refreshing. River immersions, I don't know.

Yeah. Look up “Wim Hof”

Day 1: read Marcus Aurelius Meditations.

Rest: apply it to your life

Inter personal skills. Learn how to get a long with people and make friends will involve skills that will be useful until your last days. The skills involve both understanding yourself as well as others.

You can try to learn not to do anything. Try to create awareness that how mind is keeping us busy all the time.

If I could tell my 26 year old self to get into something, it would be meditation. I started with the Headspace app but I think Waking Up by Sam Harris is better - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wakingup.a....

Most days I do 20 mins first thing when I wake up. With 12 days, you could finish the beginner course if you do 1 session in the morning and one in the evening.

Great advice. Personally I prefer Headspace, but that’s a matter of subjective taste.

Both apps have free trials.

Listen to The Huberman Lab Podcast.

Read a book.

Great advice. It's getting harder for everyone to just sit and read in world where we like YT shorts.

If you don't know any assembly, I'd suggest learning one.

Switch your phone off and go for a lunchtime walk. Magic.

walk the city and find some nice coffee shops that are friendly to working at. It is nice to have a change of pace if you are working remote