Morning Walk #1 – Getting back to making stuff
In this issue
Why I’m starting a newsletter and what to expect.
How I spent my two months off of work, and what am I doing now.
Some interesting things I read/watched/listened to lately.
So I’m starting a newsletter
I decided to try out something entirely new for me and start a personal weekly newsletter that I’ll be sending out each Sunday. The “entirely new” part for me is twofold:
Having scheduled writing published.
I’ve been trying to build writing practice for ages with varied success, but I never published something on a strict schedule. I have always been opposed to the idea of tying creative energy to a clock. Now I’m willing to try this, and I’m fighting my fear of publishing imperfect content.
Publishing personal writing.
Although I write in a private journal every day, I always try to post only helpful(ish) stuff in public. It doesn’t mean I’ll start posting about my romantic life or something like that. But I want to be able to share some of my personal musings more. Musings on work, tech products, and life in general. This is a massive experiment for me, and we’ll see how it goes.
What I’ve been up to
In July, I left my job at Moscow City Government after five roller-coaster years there. I could have stayed for five more, but I wanted to start something of my own. It felt like now was a perfect time. I also wanted to do nothing for the rest of the summer (which is pretty short here in Moscow).
I spent July and August mostly reading, wake surfing, meditating, walking in parks, watching tv shows, hugging trees, quieting my FOMO, and basically regaining consciousness after some mild burnout.
In September, I started fiddling with some ideas, meeting many new people, talking to them about those ideas, and genuinely trying to start something new. Right now, there is one big idea that keeps coming back to me day after day, and we are trying to make something of it. But it’s too early to say anything about it. But we’ll get to that.
Meanwhile, a couple of weeks ago, my friend asked me to help his company launch MVP of their first product. I decided that a temporary gig could be a good thing while I’m still figuring out my own thing, so I jumped on board.
It’s a seed-stage company in the fintech sector, and right now, it is turning out to be more fun than I thought.
Super early stage. This is my favorite “from zero to one” kind of challenge, and I love it.
Entirely new market for me. I never touched fintech, and I wanted to dive deep into something entirely new for me.
English language! I missed speaking English when working at Moscow City Government, and now I get to do it every day.
Making something myself
The only real thing I finished this summer was relaunching my personal website. I've meant to do this for ages, and the sabbatical break was a perfect opportunity. The last time I refreshed my personal website was about seven years ago, and I coded it myself. I missed that marvelous feeling of making something myself, and mostly, I just wanted to get the sense of it again.
Even though I haven't done much coding this time around, I still felt it. Oh, boy, how good it is! Tinkering with something you do with your own hands (not managing others) and seeing how it is shaping up is incredible. I remember the moment I was playing around with stylesheets and some copy late at night. Loud tech music in the background. I refresh the page for the 1000th time and... "Yes! I love how it's coming along!" – was my reaction. I was immediately carried away to my school days when I was coding and designing my first websites.
As for the website, I wanted something clean and straightforward with the only goal of just telling a bit about myself. This is what it looks like for now – https://stepamitaki.com/
Things I've been reading/watching/enjoying
Andy Matuschak is a researcher who spends most of his time thinking about designing better tools for thought. His pieces on Timeful Texts and Why books donʼt work really got me thinking about how I preserve information from books and how we could do better.
Intriguing idea from Justin Mares in his newsletter on identifying three types of people based on their life priorities. These are 1) process-oriented; 2) outcome-oriented; 3) understanding-oriented. You can discover which type you are by looking at where you make sacrifices.
Chris Luno YouTube channel. Stumbled upon this when trying to find some deep house music to play in the background while working. This works okay in terms of music, but I especially like his approach to video. This guy records live sets everywhere: in the driving car, in the park, on the beach, in a middle of a desert. Just fun to look at.
Thanks for reading. Until next week 👋🏻
Hugging trees — great pastime! 👍