thedunnthing.co.uk

Ramblings and Musings from a UK quinquagenarian.

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Learning Activities for 2026!

January 25, 2026 /

I decided to take Naomi’s (from Todoist) excellent post, suggesting we use the whole of January to decide on the best learning activities to take.

I think it’s really helped me pause for breath and play around with a few learning topics.

And here’s my selections for ’26.

  1. Horticulture Studies – this is a course I picked up around August last year, but I have not found the time to work on (lots of building projects going on last year!). I’m working through the first few modules now, and am hoping to get my first assignment in shortly. Learning and working on horticulture projects is a great way for me to learn about the gardening things I love to do – and hope to do for many years to come.
  2. AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure – Microsoft certification. This will become increasingly important as my workplace is now shifting significantly to the cloud. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in to it. Time to blow the dust of my Azure subscription.
  3. GH-900 GitHub Foundations Certification – useful for personal projects I’m working on, but even more so as it’s clear that Microsoft are ploughing dollars into GitHub. I’m betting that Azure DevOps will get morphed into GitHub Enterprise in the next few years. This looks like a fun little qualification, and will almost certainly help me bring a few Git skills up to date.

What I’m reading – Jan 26

January 4, 2026 /

January sees me reading:

The Hobbit (J.R.R Tolkien) – I took a break from this book in December to read all of A Christmas Carol, and all of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy!

Lizey’s Story (Stephen King)

Slow Productivity (Cal Newport)

It’s 2026 – time to be tenacious!

January 4, 2026 /

Happy New Year!

I had a wonderful Christmas and New Year break. The home looked great, we had wonderful food, drink and company, walked our nutter Springer Spaniel at the beach and the park, and I read loads. The perfect Christmas holiday, can’t wait for the next one.

Unfortunately (I’m kidding, it’s all good), there are 50 weeks in the way before the next Christmas break, so I’d better get my act together and fill in the gaps with the best life I can make.

I’ve got a few things I want to do. Whatever it is, I want to see it through, and be relentless and steadfast in getting stuff done. Tenacious, yup, that’s the word.

Aside from the usual “lose weight” goal for every year (modestly budgeted for this year, despite having a ton of weight to lose), I’ve got some key things I want to achieve, based on my life “pockets”:

Purpose: I will refine my productivity system to work better for me. I reintroduced paper into my system last year – I love it – and I’m going to make it work better for me in 2026. I’m also toying with the idea of starting a YouTube channel – something fun and possibly even the launchpad for a side hustle into and beyond my retirement. I’ll be getting the planning paper out in January!

Health: More dog-walking needed! Good for me, good for Marley. Better food choices and exercise. Simples!

Money: Less is more – better financial decisions, savings strategies and investing for retirement.

Home: There were huge expenses last year getting things done inside and outside. We’re getting the exterior of the house painted this year, and we’re refining and improving inside the house. Minimalism will be key this year, stripping out what’s not needed and focusing on quality for what remains.

Work: The biggest item on my list is to say No. I don’t do it enough and consequently fall behind on other, more important projects.

Leisure: Read better. I read around 30 books last year, I want to read more paper books,  and use my new awesome Christmas gift – the Kindle Paperwhite signature edition.  Bigger screen, awesome battery life, wireless charging.  My garden is so important to my physical and mental health. I want to get better at what I do, there’s lots of infrastructure things to get right – a good year for getting stuck in. Oh, and completing my Horticulture course.

Learning: I’m studying Azure this year, as well as my Horticulture course. I’ll also be continuing with DevOps and testing learning this year for my job.

Relationships:  Listen deeper and talk less! Cultivate my relationships with my best mates (we call ourselves The 4 Old Gits), family, and our wonderful Springer spaniel, Marley.  I’ll be proud to welcome my grandson Bobby into the world next month too!

Right. Let’s get this party started.

This year’s watchword is TENACITY.

Books I’m reading (Nov 25)

November 1, 2025 /

Dreamcatcher (Stephen King)

From a Buick 8 (Stephen King)

The Hobbit (J.R.R Tolkien)

Getting Things Done (David Allen)

Haven’t quite read as much in October as I would have liked, but I’m really enjoying The Hobbit. A fun read.

Also continuing with Stephen King books I’ve never read before, very different styles for each I think!

Finally, it’s the annual revisit of Getting Things Done, all about the wonderful, common-sense framework for, well, getting things done!

Prod-Oct-ivity ’25

October 28, 2025 /

It’s that time of the year again to review the productivity tools/system changes I’ve worked with, replaced, or refined over the last year.

Broadly speaking – not a lot has changed. Noteworthy bits are:

  1. I’ve moved away from Google tools. My mail, calendar, and file storage are now all Proton. I love Proton tools. The killer app will be when they finally deliver a spreadsheet tool. In terms of privacy-first, they’re a truly professional outfit. Mail and Calendar work great, VPN, Pass, and Authenticator are awesome products, and Docs is a great Word-like alternative. Sure, you have to pay for Proton, but the privacy and convenience make it money well spent.

    I’ve also removed myself from social media (unless you call YouTube social media). The only other social media-ish app I use is WhatsApp, as that’s the main source of comms for all the family. I’d prefer to go to Signal, but I’d be a voice in the wilderness there.

    I don’t see myself fully dropping Google, mainly because of YouTube. I have loads of purchased Google Movies (remember that?) programmes and films, and YouTube itself is hugely useful to me. In fact, I’m hoping to start a little fun channel in the New Year (“The Dunn Thing”) to talk about productivity, retirement planning, music, reading, general life stuff, and just to see how I enjoy it and if it can work going forward.

  2. Notesnook is a great little alternative to Evernote – again, it’s privacy-first, and with my student discount, it’s peanuts for a yearly subscription. I did take a look at Standard Notes (who Proton have sided with) but pricing is quite expensive for the Pro subscription – the Free version is too restrictive.

  3. I’m still using Obsidian. It’s mainly been a vault for work notes, and also to create Daily Scrum docs. It’s a great and powerful tool, although I haven’t really gone fully KPM/Zettelkasten or explored the new Bases feature.

  4. Analogue. This is where the biggest change has been for me over the year. I’ve rediscovered and am loving writing on paper again. I’ve kept a personal journal and filled it in daily over the last 7 months; it’s definitely a stayer. I’m going to go with the Leuchteurm 1917 “Some Lines A Day” 5 year book.



    Also, the Bullet Journal will continue to feature heavily next year. There’s a bit of friction between Daily Scrum stuff in Obsidian and my BuJo but I’m working on it. I’ve also tried a wide range of pens (gel, standard, fountain) as well as notebooks from Rhodia, Dingbats, and Moleskine. I like them all – and I’m not sure which I’ll go with next year, but I’ll definitely need a “Scribble” book for jotting down notes and ideas which I can use, then either reformat in digital or analogue formats.

  5. Todoist – yup, it’s still there! I find it so useful for repeating tasks. It’s so easy to set stuff up and the natural language makes it dead easy and fast to get tasks in with deadlines, assigned to myself or my wife, with priorities and project links. Awesome product.

  6. Nirvana. Yup, Nirvan is still there for all my project work. I still very much love the GTD framework, even if I’m adapting it further to become my own. Nirvana is to my mind the best list manager that embraces the soul of what GTD is about. I do wish they would produce more blog articles and features, but it’s a complete and highly useful app. I did try and forego it to put everything in Todoist but it just didn’t sit right. “Next actions” are a bit of a pain to implement in Todoist despite trying things out with labels.

I’m sure i’ll talk more about the individual tools in future posts, but I’m in a pretty good spot right now, and things are starting to come together!

Books I’m Reading (Oct 25)

October 3, 2025 /

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (Stephen King)

The Green Mile (Stephen King)

The Hobbit (J.R.R Tolkien)

The Bullet Journal Method (Ryder Carroll)

Really enjoying my reading this year, but still need to keep the discipline going.

I’ve been a fan of Stephen King for over 40 years, but I sort of stopped following his books in my late teens/early 20s. It’s been great rediscovering them through Audible – and I’m now slowly catching up. I’m focusing on his novels rather than novellas, collections or non-fiction work – but I will get to them in time – especially The Dark Tower series, which I hope to do in succession. Nearly finished The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, so I’ve lined up The Green Mile next.

My son said recently he was looking to start The Lord of the Rings. I remember starting it in my teens, but I got bored quickly. Too much scene-setting (and I was too much into Stephen King). I thought I’d try again, starting with the The Hobbit. Reading it on Kindle, and really enjoying it!

I’ve been keeping a Bullet Journal and a personal long-form journal for the last 6 months. With the bullet journal, I want to get back to the original ideas and philosophy, as I’m keen to track habits and use better collections. I’m slowly splitting my work life and home life, and need my journal to reflect that.

Books I’m reading

August 30, 2025 /

September 25

Bag of Bones (Stephen King)
Writers block, death, and horror!

Make Time (Knapp and Zeratsky)
A re-read – a great productivity book on how to make the best of the time that’s available through common-sense planning.

The INFJ Handbook (Baker)
I discovered I was an INFJ through the official Myers-Briggs assessment – hopefully this will unlock the reasoning behind my quirks, and how I handle strengths and weaknesses of being one!

Prime Suspect (La Plante)
Recently watched the TV series (again) and thought I’d give the book a go. It’s great!

Garden Progress

August 23, 2025 /

Well all the builders have finally gone – and not on the best terms… with jobs about 90% done. Disappointed with the landscape gardening company – went really well for 2 weeks then they overran, then tried to cut corners on jobs and it shows.

That said, the majority of the work was good, and we now have both turf and a new patio area sorted.

I’m on hols this week so I’m working on painting all the sleepers. I found this really good paint called Bartoline – an “almost” creosote-like paint that is really making the plants stand out against that dark background.

As well as painting the sleepers, I’ll be giving everything a dig over and a bit of TLC, as it was all pretty well neglected while the work was going on. had a pleasant surprise with the sunflowers, the multi-headed ones have really come out great! Lots to do to get things looking good, movement of trees (2 x Ceanothus) and reorganising the plants in the garden. I’m looking overall for a “cottage garden” feel… despite being have strong architectural feel. I think it can work. Lots of planning, and general love needed!

In the mean time, the canna lilies have really fired up this year and are looking good. The raspberries are producing well, and the tomatoes (Roma) are amazing!

The shadier part of the garden requires a complete rework, and the front of the garden – stone rings – will need to be completely revamped and brought back to life. I’ve got about 1/2 tonne of topsoil from the building works to help with that so it’s all good! Not all success sadly, 2 clematis plants are in a really poor state so will need more than a bit of coaxing to get them happy again.

The Morning Glory has gone mad also, strangling the pear tree and generally looking a bit too wild! It really needed to be contained through an obelisk or similar, but everything is good learning and experience.

Sunflowers have done amazing!

The hot weather has caused issues with the lawn, not the best time to have put a new lawn in(!)….and Marley seems to have created his own little runway so he run off some steam between walks, but it’s what it is. No worries. Watering for about 2 hours of an evening to keep things running smoothly. It’s looking good!

Really placed with the overall shape – tidying on the pointing and TLC needed throughout!
Guess I’d better buy a lawnmower now!

So, onwards and upwards. The exterior of the place will be done next year, to make everything (hopefully) stand out, the interior in a few weeks. It’s definitely starting to feel like our own place.

Here we go again!

August 18, 2025 /

So. The start of the 25/26 season and a frankly dreadful start against newbies Sunderland.

What’s worrying is that we had a reasonable summer transfer list, and good pre-season results.

But the 3-0 opening day defeat at The Stadium of Light doesn’t bode well for what has been a horrid couple of seasons since David Moyes left.

As usual, it’s time to keep the faith and hope that Graham Potter can turn things around. Best we can hope for I think is mid-table this season unless there is some dramatic and frankly unexpected revival.

I’ll also be rooting for my birthplace team Dagenham and Redbridge as they try and do something after demotion to the National Conference Southern League at the end of 24/25. A loss and a draw thus far. 21st in the League.

It’s gonna be a fun season! Got to keep the faith. COYI! COYD!

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