In an attempt to get my life under control again, I’ve reinstalled Omnifocus, the all-bells-and-whistles to-do app for Mac and iOS. It’s not my first time using it and undoubtedly I will abandon it again at some point, but until that time comes, let me give you an overview of how I use it.

Why Omnifocus?

I won’t claim I have used every to-do app on the market, but the list is long. The other competitors I oscillate between are Things, Apple’s build-in Reminds app and paper. What Omnifocus brings to the table that these others do not have, is the Review feature. I’ll talk more about this in the section about commitments, but I think it’s an essential part of what I want my to-do app to do these days.

The other thing that I just miss when I use a thing like Things, is defer dates, the related “On hold” status and subtasks in parallel and sequential projects. I will come back to these too, but basically: I really like to map out actions for the future, hiding them if they are unavailable, and I want a way for them so show up on my lists when they become available.

Why not Omnifocus?

The above is very advanced and Omnifocus feels really like I’m managing a database. It allows for this very complex setup – which I like – but this also makes me a maximalist user, while still preferring a minimalist workflow.

The other thing is that the app is a bit slow on Mac, and horrendously slow on my old iPhone 11 Pro. The Mac app crashed several times on me now.

The UI of Omnifocus is also not the best. The search function is not of this era, nor are the keyboard shortcuts. Compare it to Things, which is really streamlined and can be navigated fully with only the keyboard, and you get what I mean. If I could put the review stuff in Things, I think I would have the perfect app.

All commitments reviewed

In Omnifocus, every project has a review date. When this date is in the past, it will show up in the dedicated “Review” view, where it is presented with a button next to it. If you click “Reviewed”, it will increase the review date by the interval that you put in the project. This way, I have many projects that I review each week, some each month, but they all can pop into this view on different days of the week, removing a need for a big “weekly review”, which I am terrible at starting with.

As we learn from David Allen in his book Getting Things Done, a project is anything that is on your mind that needs more than one step to completion. He also uses the word “commitments” for this, and I prefer that term, because “projects” to me feels like bundles of tasks. A “commitment” is broader, and could involve goals and standards too.

One of Omnifocus’ many features is the ‘project type’. It can have three types: sequential, which means the tasks have to be done in the order as listed; parallel, which means the tasks can be done in any order and are all available; and single actions, which means this project can never be completed and contains only of actions that do not really have a project. I think the intention of the app is to have one single actions list, but they encourage power users to have multiple if they want to separate, for example, work related and private single actions.

The radical approach I took, is that I made many more single action lists.

For example: I have a commitment that I want to review my work e-mail every workday, and believe me, I need a reminder for that because hardly any human ever e-mails me – but those humans still expect me to answer within a reasonable time.

In previous iterations, I would’ve made a recurring task “check work mail”. The trouble with that is that single actions do not get a review, only their single actions list gets. But having a bunch of random actions on a single list makes the review of it a hassle: it breaks the focus of “one item at a time” and makes me have to think about multiple facets at once. Apart from that: I might want different review-intervals for the different types of commitments that are in there.

To put it another way: if I have the recurring task “check work mail”, a review would nudge me into the question “did you check your work mail?”. The question I want to ask myself during a review is, however: “are you still committed to checking your work mail every work day?”

So my solution is to create a single actions project, with only one (recurring) task on it. I do not see this as a list of actions: I see this as a “commitment”. The title is “being up to date with my work email” (but in Dutch) and the note box contains the following:

• it looks a bit silly if people send me an email and I reply only three days later
• let it be known to my direct team that I prefer Slack for communication

This clarifies what I mean with this commitment. The review is not about whether or not I have checked my e-mail, it is about reading this text and thinking what checking my e-mail means to me, on a regular basis. (This specific one is set to “review every 1 month” because I don’t think my relation to this topic changes every week.)

The ‘Commitments’ perspective

I’ve did a quick count and 81 of my 126 projects are of this type: a single action project with long and clear title and note describing the commitment they represent. Because there are this many, I used folders to organise them roughly into area’s.

Some other commitments are shorter lived and can actually be completed: those are the other projects and they are of types sequential or parallel, depending on how I wanted to structure them.

To get a quick view of all my commitments, I’ve created a custom perspective in Omnifocus. Perspectives are views that you can customize with filters and options. This one is called “Commitments” and has a green lock as icon. It’s organized as “entire projects”, grouped by “folder” and sorted in “projects order”. Then the contents are defined as:

All of the following:
    Availability: Remaining
    Is a project
    Has a project that is active
    None of the following:
        Contained within project or folder: mensen

That last rule is because I had the idea of adding people I know as these projects, so that I can be reminded of them at regular intervals, to see if I’m up to date with correspondence and to judge if I shouldn’t propose to meet up soon. I haven’t put that many people in so far – it feels like an anti-social thing – but I still like the idea.

The ‘Waiting’ perspective

As I said: Omnifocus has the “On hold” status. One of the very good bits of David Allen’s methodology is to keep a “waiting for” list, and put on it anything you are waiting for. This gets these things out of your mind. In Omnifocus, you can implement this using the “On hold” status.

Projects can have this status. This means that the project is currently not active and that you are not currently committed to complete it – you just like having it around for the future. Tags can also have this status, and if you tag a task with a tag that has this status, the task itself become unavailable. The most common tag to use this on is the “waiting” tag. (I personally also have a “delegated” tag, but it’s currently empty.)

A pattern I use all the time is to set up a sequential project and give it two tasks: one that I want to do, but first the condition I want to have true before I do that. For example: I bought two tickets for a running event by accident, but I am not 100% sure which of the two distances I want to run, so I am holding off on reselling one of tickets. My project for this looks like this:

- "sell ticket for The Run: 10 km or 21 km" (+ due date)
    - ">> if I am sure I can run 21 km" (tag: waiting)
    - "put The Run 10 km ticket for sale" (tag: everywhere)

The “>>” is a leftover from when I used Things, which does not have this status, but I still like to use it because it makes it very clear to me that this action is in fact not an action but a question of sorts. Because the project itself is set to sequential, the last action is actually also not available and will not show up in my “Do” perspective. Only when I check off the waiting task it will pop up there.

I use this in combination with the defer date: I defer the task to a date that I think I will be ready on to make this decision. (In this case: three weeks before the event.) I have the review date of this project on weekly, because I want to be reminded of the fact that I got this covered – no need to stress about it, brain!

To keep track of all these waiting things, I have a perspective called “Waiting”. This shows me all the things that I’m waiting on with a defer date in the past, so that I know to review them. In the “Meta” project I have an action tagged with the “Review” tag (more on that soon) to check this perspective every day.

This perspective is organized as “Individual actions”, grouped by “Defer date”, sorted by “Defer date”, with the following contents:

All of the following:
    Availability: Remaining
    Any of the following:
        Has a defer date in the past 1 year
        All of the following:
            Any of the following:
                Matches search terms: ">>"
                Tagged with any of: "waiting", "delegated"
                All of the following:
                    In the inbox
                    Has a defer date
                Any of the following:
                    Has a defer date in the past 1 year
                    None of the following:
                        Has a defer date

It’s a bit of a mouth full, but it gives me a nice list of other things that have a defer date in the past as well. Most of the times I just clear the defer date if it’s an action that I must take but can’t do right away. After all: it will be available in the “Do” perspective.

“Review”, “morning” and other tags

Like I said: I have a “Meta” project that gives me a few checkboxes to make sure certain lists are empty. These tasks have the tag “review”. This is the very first tag in my tags list, and by doing so these items will end up on top of my “Do” perspective.

Right after that is my “morning” tag, which I use for a little checklist of things I want to do in the morning. This includes “breakfast” (yes), but also more irregular things like remembering to bring the keys for the shop where I run RPGs on Tuesday evenings. I have a task somewhere that reminds me weekly to look at my scheduled runs to see if I need to add “bring running gear to office” tasks here. My mornings are just so much less stressful if I make these decisions in advance, and not with morning-brain.

My tags actually all start with an emoji – with an exception for most location and item based tags. This adds color to them, which works great when scanning the list of things I need to do. Also, they are Dutch, like most of the system – except for the UI, because Omnifocus if you’re reading, your Dutch translation is not great.

I currently have the following:

• “🌞 ochtend” - the morning tag
• “👀 review” - the review tag
• “🗺️ overal” - for things I can always do, or only requiring a phone
• “💻 laptop” - self explanatory
• “⌨️ code” - technically a subsection of “laptop”, but I like this because the mindset is so different
• “📱 contact” - for text messages I put off – again: mindset
• “🕵️ verdiepen” - for things that need deeper attention or research
• “🏡 thuis” - for those household things
• “👔 kantoor” - yet I do not wear a tie at the office
• “🚲 onderweg” - this is for errands I can do in the local area, and it has a lot of subtags for certain stores.
• “🚂 elders” - for this one I only use the subtasks: cities that are not Amsterdam, some containing tags for more specific locations, but I must admit that these are a bit overkill
• “🍵 ontspanning“ - this is for the dumping ground of Youtube links and series to watch that I probably should get rid of
• “☎️ bellen” - classic GTD context which I dread and never use
• “📦 wat?” - this contains a few subtags with specific items that I need to have in order to complete a task. I sort of create these on the fly when I need them, but it’s useful because it creates a separate category in my “Do” perspective that I can ignore after deciding the item is not currently with me
• “👥 wie?” - contains tags for people, but I rarely use them. Also contains the “📂 weekly” tag, which refers to our weekly work meeting, and that one I use to track to report on what I did last week
• “👜 mee naar...” - I have this one still as a context for things to bring to another location, but honestly, the morning tag is just a better place to put these things nowadays
• “🕶️ gedelegeerd“ (on hold) - I told you about this one
• “⏳ wachten“ (on hold) - I told you about this one too

All the perspectives

I’ll conclude with a list of all the perspectives I have in my little side-bar, in this order:

• Inbox - and no, it’s hasn’t been empty in a while now
• Doen - the “Do” context, only active items without the “ontspanning”, “wie”, “onderweg” and “elders” tags and descendants, actions grouped by tags
• Onderweg - similar, but only with “onderweg” and “elders”
• Ontspanning - you guessed it
• Agenda’s - this is for “wie”, I like these four because they feel like a good high level separation of the tags
• Commitments - see above for the description of this
• Forecast - a build-in one that I sometimes check, gives an overview of tasks by date
• Projects - this one shows as many as possible, because “Commitments” already filters by active status
• Tags - also build-in, for managing the tags I guess
• Review - very important and the main feature. I have the sidebar hidden here for more focus
• Misschien - Basically “Commitments” but only the commitments that are on hold
• Wachten - see above
• Ongetagd - for all actions without a tag, for when I forget to tag items
• Actieloos - for sequential and parallel projects that do not have a next action

Final words

Will I stay in Omnifocus? I don’t know. The usual trajectory is that after a few weeks of overflowing inbox I will do stuff in my head again. Or I will convince myself that my procrastination problem is really just a problem with Omnifocus’ UI – the lack of opinion it has – and I’ll start yet again on working on my own to-do app (I should not).

For now I can say that this is what is in my Omnifocus, and that I have been using it every day for over a month now. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

It was really a full and busy week, with work, elections and some family visits, a visit to the barber and, well, all the things below.

Watched

I watched Les Amours Imaginaires, the 2010 Xavier Dolan movie. I actually own this one on DVD, but through the wonder of having neither a tv nor a DVD-player, it’s impossible to do anything with it. When I saw it on NPO Plus – for which my first month was still valid after watching the Great British Bake Off recently – I thought: let’s watch it.

This movie had such an impact on me before, and it was strange to rewatch it. The movie felt very slow, somehow. I guess we got used to every movie being an action film these days. The film did touch me but not in the devastating way like it did when I was 21.

Played

A few weeks ago, I was signed up for a session where I was the only player besides the GM. Since going to Utrecht is a bit of an investment and I didn’t want to get cancelled last minute, I decided to be proactive about it and I dropped out – of course also sending a quick note to the GM to explain why. He said he would’ve ran it anyway, even if I was the only player. By then it was really a bit impossible to make it to Utrecht, but still, this made me think.

This Tuesday it was time for the seventh episode of my Mausritter campaign. Only two people had signed up, but keeping the previously mentioned thought in mind, I decided not to cancel. Turned out one of the players had to rescue a cat and was 36 minutes late. This meant that I had my first little one-on-one session, and it went great. For me personally, that might have even be the best part of the session. So much for the hardest problem of playing RPGs (which is getting people to the table.)

On Wednesday I had a similar experience. I jumped into the train to Utrecht, having just printed a few more character sheets for my little one-off Brindlewood Bay, only to discover that two of my four players had cancelled a few hours before. I was already in the train and the show must go on anyway, and this also turned out to be a very enjoyable session.

But hey, Friday when I tried to start some campaign thing for Dutchness & Dragons – the place where you learn Dutch by playing D&D – and had only one player for that first session... I cancelled it anyway. There are limits.

Still, Saturday I was in Utrecht yet again for Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast for an episode named “The Pancake War”. Most players brought their home-baked pancakes – all styles, including poffertjes – which were delicious. After that, the table got cleared and we played the game (we nearly forgot). It was my first time playing this and I chose Amelie the cleaning robot (they/them) as a safe option and was pretty overwhelmed by the great roleplay of the other six players, but I did enjoy it very much to be a part of this and would like to play again.

All in all, that’s quite the RPG week. I did not play other boardgames.

Ran

We’re coming up to the finish line, but I’ve also just ran a 10km personal best. My legs really weren’t up to it, so I made some runs shorter and moved the Sunday long run to the Monday (today).

• Wednesday: 7.4km through Westerpark, which included a 4km tempo section at 4:11/km.
• Friday: a 9km easy run that I shortened to 5.6km because it just didn’t feel right.
• Monday is today but hey that’s week 13! (it was 13km easy, shortened to 9.2km...)

On top of all the above I also somehow played volleyball twice.

Oops, apparently I got the week numbers wrong starting at the very first post. I’ve corrected it now, sorry for the RSS noise.

Read

• continued Closer by Dennis Cooper, but only a few pages

Listened

I do listen to a lot of podcasts that I usually don’t mention, but after this week’s session of Brindlewood Bay I decided it was time to watch and listen to some actual plays (people playing RPGs and recording themselves) to get a better view of how the game could be played. I’ve watched (parts of) several versions of Dad Overboard, the introductory mystery, but there was one I wanted to mention here.

It’s Roll Plus Heart, a group of friends from the UK who make a queer podcast, which was already in my podcast feed. I started listening to their Brindlewood Bay a bit later, because they don’t do Dad Overboard, but what they do is so much better. I only hope I can get some of this style to my table, it’s good.

Played

I’ve ran The Great Brindlewood Bay Bake Off mystery on Tuesday and it was delightful. I had only three players, but two of them had brought their own bakes, which really added to the session. Besides the real-life baking, the story went well too, some remarked that it was the best session so far. I leaned more into the odd and occult part of the game and I will certainly go further with that in the next session.

On Wednesday I was a player in Neverland, which is an open campaign Peter is running over at Utrecht RPG. He’s using Cairn rules and a nice green setting book that has a lot of the world in it.

On Saturday I played my stick figure Gillian again in a second session of Under Hollow Hills. It was a busy session with five players (as opposed of the three in the first one), but we managed to get through a performance of the circus, performing some ceremonial sacrifice that was demanded of us.

Also played boardgames, both with friends (Machiavelli) and at Zuiderspel:

• Machiavelli (aka Citadels)
• a prototype of a game called Checkpoint
• 24/7 Rally, in which we all finished before the creator of the game (but hey, that was luck)
• Compile: Main 1, which I only understood in the second half of the game

Ran

It was supposed to be a deload week, but there was also a race coming up. When Runna decided to put me a bit back in pace (I didn’t make all the intervals), I just said “screw it” and chopped the 11km easy run from the week. Three times is plenty, and my legs need the recovery – unfortunately they still do.

• Monday: 6km easy run, after work, through the Houthavens, before volleyball training.
• Thursday: 5x 400 meters at 3:40/km. I’ve planned this one so that after the 2km warm up, I was at a walking/cycling path with a 15 kilometer speed limit. Right when I had made the picture I wanted to post on Strava, a police car showed up. Luckily they didn’t give me a ticket, even though I did go way over the speed limit. However, I misread the description of the training: it was TWO TIMES 5x 400, which I only noticed when my app kept suggesting to start running again. I did my best but missed the second to last interval by a few seconds.
• Sunday: City Pier City 10km in Den Haag. Despite wanting to take it easy, I couldn’t resist once we started. I ran a PR of 43:10, taking more than 3 minutes off my old one.

So, previous editions of this weekly thing – apart from the first one – did not include a “Watched” section. This is because I genuinely don’t really watch stuff, except for Youtube, which I am not going to track here. But this week, I’ve watched all of season 15 of the Great British Bake Off, as a preparation for my next Brindlewood Bay session. I did this while crocheting, truly cozy activities in the spirit of the game.

Watched

• Great British Bake Off, season 15

Read

• started Closer by Dennis Cooper – I read Sluts by the same author, and this looked thin and also gay, so a good way to get back into reading again. Turns out this one is from 1989 (as am I). Not sure so far.

Played

On Tuesday, I played the sixth episode in my ongoing Mausritter campaign. Interestingly I was a bit nervous about this one, because I had two new players and two returning players, but the returning players had not been in the same session. This lead to the interesting situation that one character was saved from a cult by the other character, yet the players had never met.

Because one of the new characters turned out to be a bee keeper, I nudged them to visited the location of Honey in the Rafters – an official published “adventure” of Mausritter. This was the first time that we actually ran into “official” stuff: most of the things up until now I had made up myself using the spark tables. I found that I was a bit lost in the story, for the module doesn’t really give that much either. I think I prefer a bunch of tables – lists of weird things with numbers so you can roll dice to see which one you have. That sparks the imagination and imagination fills in the blanks. If there’s too much pre-written, I tend to follow that too strictly and then we’re just left with not much ... because you just can’t write everything beforehand.

Other than that I didn’t play anything this week. I did attend the “session 0” of Dutchness & Dragons, an initiative in Amsterdam for people to learn Dutch through D&D, which I found very interesting as a neerlandicus. This was mostly introductions though: we didn't really play. Due to schedule mismatches I will not run a group there now, but maybe in the future.

Ran

I cut down the volleyball a bit, attending the Monday training, but skipping the Thursday training for a meetup about AT Protocol (the technology behind Bluesky) with Henrique. (That was cool but I was crippled with imposter syndrome and left earlier.) It was good to take it easier, but then again, I ran enough this week:

• Tuesday: 11.4km of Piramid Intervals: basically start with going pretty fast for a short distance (200 meters @ 3:30/km) and then walk and go fast again for a longer distance, and then after the slowest longest interval, do all of them again in reverse. It was a good training.
• Thursday: 9.6km easy.
• Saturday: 19.6km, containing 9km on my target half marathon place. Somehow, I broke my Dam tot Damloop (10 miles) PR by over six minutes, according to Strava. It’s was also a very beautiful route through the polders south of Amsterdam – with 19km you can really get great routes in, especially since I started from station Abcoude and ended at station Holendrecht, skipping a lot of the “filler” kilometers around my house that I already know so well.
• Sunday: why not add 11.9km with some tempo runs after that?

This week marks a bit of a turning point – I hope – in my tendency to fill my week to the absolute maximum with work, runs, volleyball, RPGs and even some other social activities. It is all a bit much and I should prioritize a bit more, which I think I started doing already.

As usual when this happens to me, I turn towards a new task manager. I usually oscillate between paper, Things and Omnifocus, with periods of using my brain as my todo-list in between. We’re ending a “brain after Things” period and enter a new Omnifocus period. I know I’ll inevitably end up running things from my brain again, but hey, there is still value in the process of sorting your tasks and commitments every once in a while.

The recurring mentions of reading in this series are still providing value to me, as reminders of my aspirations.

Played

On Tuesday, I played the second episode in my ongoing open campaign of Brindlewood Bay. This time, it was the All Hallow’s Scream mystery, in which the Murder Mavens visit a halloween party of a famous retired Hollywood horror movie director. It was a nice cozy session with only three players, and I do think I start to get the hang of how the system works. Now that the players (and I) understand the Crown mechanic a bit better, I think I might push the next session slightly darker and riskier. Looking forward to that though: it will be the Great Brindlewood Bay Bake Off, and several players have expressed their intentions to bring real life baked goods.

On Wednesday I went to Utrecht to play Kids in Capes at Queer Arcana. I own the Kids on Bikes book and own and played Kids on Brooms, so I was familiar with the system – just not with this specific flavor. I love how the GM made a full half hour space for character creation, as the inter-character relationships are really what make these games so much fun, in my opinion.

Ran

I played volleybal twice this week, as my club introduced a new training day, but that also meant I had to puzzle even more than usual with my runs. I’ve decided that it’s just too much: I can’t run four times and play volleyball two times each week, so until the Venloop half marathon in the end of March I will keep it to one time volleyball for now.

• Tuesday: 11.3km, 8 sets of 300m at 4:05/km and 300m at 4:50/km. Due to the many constraints (such as no shower being available at the office) I took the metro to therapy and then ran back. I think this is the craziest run I’ve crammed in my schedule so far and I am trying to better my life now.
• Thursday: 11.5km easy, I ran to the office. There was still no shower, but I just accepted the sticky feeling (sorry coworkers).
• Saturday: 21.2km easy to the AH in Breukelen. I kind of have a goal to run a half marathon every month this year (not sure if it will stick), and on this last day of February there was one on my training schedule. One thing I like about running is the fact that you can cover such long distances, so this was a way to underline that. Unfortunately, the train I wanted to take home was cancelled, so I had to take the bus back. This bus, however, took me over most of the same route I had just taken, and given the fact that I ran on the left side of the road, and I sat on the right side of the bus, it was pretty accurately the exact route on many kilometers.
• Sunday: 11.2km easy. I had difficulties with getting my shoes on after yesterday, but I am glad I went. It was a nice easy run in daylight and past the lake in Abcoude where I had not been before. It’s also astounding to me that I can apparently run an average pace of 5:14/km with a reasonably low heart rate. I see the benefits of all this work.

In my weeklogs I’ve been mentioning my Mausritter campaign for a while now. As of the moment of writing, I’ve played five episodes of it, and with that, it’s my longest running campaign as GM ever. (My previous attempt died in scheduling issues after two sessions.)

I thought it would be nice if I give a sneak peak behind the screen, without giving away too much for players. I actually started out not using a GM-screen at all, for I find it puts too much distance between me and the players. But since I found the very cute small (Dutch) Mausritter GM-screen, I’ve been using it to hide my little world map.

The world map and the factions

In the section for the Game Master, the Mausritter rules suggest you prepare a map based on 19 hexagons, configured themselves as sort-of a hexagon. The middle hex contains some city (in my case, it is called Berryhill), and for each other hex you roll some dice to determine it’s contents. For Berryhill, I decided it was right in between a forest (to the east) and a human town (to the west), for these map to the four terrain types the tables have: farm land, human town, forest and river.

After some rolling with dice, I found myself with 19 hexes filled with stuff like: a fallen tree, a stone wall, a abandoned car, an old farm. Using the other tables to specify specifics about these places – and a bit of my own imagination – I made the old farm a headquarters for rats, the fallen tree the former home of a owl sorcerer, and the circle of stones the home of mice who formed a bat-cult.

Mausritter also instructs you to create factions. I added some to the city of Berryhill itself (it has a school with teachers, a city council and a united front of parents, but so far, we haven’t really stayed in the city that much), and I have added some to the world: those Old Farm Rats, the faeries secretly running the bat-cult, the cat Fluffy who reigns with terror. The book comes with examples and I took the frogs verbatim.

The players hit the world

What I also prepared, was not one, but four different encounter tables and four different rumor tables, each representing a cardinal direction from Berryhill. This is maybe a bit overkill, but I had so many factions already, and I wanted them to show up in the appropriate regions.

As soon as I got players, the world was already too small: they were from a mushroom farm, they decided, and that was not on my map. I placed it on a hex just outside of my map, and resolved some rumors and encounters from the North and East tables. This lead the first group encounter the Old Farm Rats, as well as a pigeon interested in magic.

The second session had a group of all-new players, which basically meant I could start fresh. One of them was a tourist, he said, and I placed his big mansion a bit further north from my map. They adored the frogs and took a liking in the Mug of Truth the frogs were after – meanwhile I panicked: I took this from the book and I actually had no idea what this Mug was. In my interpretation it was a bogus story, but when most of them returned in the third session, I had to make it a bit more of a real thing.

In the third session, some players from the first and second session blended, creating a more cohesive story line. In the fourth session, they burned down the ‘Old Barn’, and at this point in the campaign I felt more flexible and pivoted and stopped calling it the ‘Old Farm’ and actually went with ‘the Burning Barn’ as a major event in this world.

Bigger maps

I love that the story runs itself at this point. There are a lot of players who return to the sessions, but there are also new people every time. The existing players have their own goals, and with the backstories we come up for the new players – based on the random backgrounds and some story hooks from the world – we so far always end up with plans that move the story forwards.

What I prepare is not what is going to happen next. I only take the things that they did last session, and think how that might change my world. They burn down the barn? Sure, humans are going to extinguish the fire with chemicals, and most of the rats will flee south, but the remaining rats will get high on the chemicals and their new leader – now calling himself Garyolo the Great – seeks ways to sell the stuff for profit.

Luckily they went to the barn, otherwise I just had to be patiently waiting with this story. But I have so many more situations like these in my notes, just waiting for them to stumble upon them. It’s a nice thing to do during easy runs: look at our real world and see what things are left there that could be something else for mice.

I’ve been very religious about the map: the players may not look at my hexes. In fact, I haven’t really told them that they are hexes – although I suspect some are aware by now. I want them to draw their own maps, to make their world even more real. This also gives me an opportunity: if it’s not on their maps, I can move things slightly still, but as soon as it’s there, it there.

As they started with their second map on a bigger paper, I also expanded my map. It now contains 140 hexes instead of 19, and a lot of it is still empty. Last session they visited a hex on the very corner of my old map, so while they were roleplaying among themselves with the new player, I rolled up some stuff for every hex surrounding them. This way the world can just grow. They haven’t visited those places, giving me an opportunity to add details to these sparks. But to me, this is a great balance between light preparation and improvisation.

The future

I have no idea how long this campaign will last, but I hope it will take us further. The fact that it’s only every two weeks gives both me and my players time to relax in between sessions. I’m looking forward to the session of 31 March, for I’ve been saying it’s winter – rolling a lot of ‘sleet’ for weather. Once it’s spring in our own world, it’s also spring in Berryhill, and that strangely excites me a lot.

I will try to do another update after session 10!

This was a bit of a strange week with Monday off and a lot of RPGs. I’m also practicing crochet, since I brought a set to crochet a sheep (het haakschaap) because ... I don’t even know why. But it fits well with the cozy themes of Brindlewood Bay (see “Played”), and it’s a nice fidget.

There was no noteworthy reading this week.

Played

I didn’t play any boardgames this week, yet I ran and played a whopping four RPG sessions.

On Monday, I ran Pasión de las Pasiones with some people I know from my old improvisation theater beginner group. Apart from the improv, they had no experience with RPGs, but I wanted to share this weird hobby with them, especially because Pasión is about playing a telenovela, and “The Telenovela” was one of our favorite improv games we played last year. I translated all moves to Dutch, to ease play, and it was still some getting used to, but to my surprise, they wanted to plan a second session! (In hindsight I don’t really know why I was surprised: RPGs are a lot of fun.)

On Tuesday, I ran Brindlewood Bay for the first time, using the introductory Dad Overboard mystery in which – well – a dad fell overboard. And then the players – elderly women who attend the Murder Mavens Book Club – were asked to assist to investigate. This was obviously also a chaotic session, because all first sessions are, but they solved the murder and that’s what counts. I will be running a second mystery in two weeks time.

On Wednesday, I was a player in the sci-fi horror game Mothership for the first time. I say first time: I have ran it a couple of times, but I was never a player, which was really fun to do. It amazed me how brutal the rules are (low chances of success, easy to die, lots of stress), and how much I liked that (makes the story more dramatic). I accumulated 16 stress points, which is the highest I’ve ever seen, and yet I survived (and inherited 100 credits from another character who did not).

On Saturday, I played Under Hollow Hills, a game in which you are a member of a faerie circus. Monday was my first time running a “Powered by the Apocalypse” game, and this was my first time playing a PbtA game. It took more getting used to than I thought, but I loved how the moves just guided us through every time we were a bit lost on what to do. I was playing Gillian, the Stick Figure and I’m looking forward to return next month.

Ran

It was a deload week, so a little less mileage than usual.

• Monday: 8.4km easy, with daylight because I had a day off
• Tuesday: 7.2km progressive. I only looked at the distance, so I ran Westerpark from the office, because I know that’s 7. Then, every kilometer the app said “next kilometer, go faster!” and it was rough but I made it.
• Thursday: 7km with 4 times 800 meters at 3:55/km. I didn’t really make that in all intervals, but at least the last intervals were faster than the first. And after that I played recreational volleyball, which went horrible because somehow I was way too tired.
• Saturday: 10km long run – not that long this week, due to the deload week.

The word of the week is sudoku. I’ve been watching many video’s from the Cracking the Cryptic Youtube channel and this week I started to do what Simon always says after the announcements and birthdays: ‘the way to play is the link in the description below!’ And then, when I get completely stuck, I press play again and see how he solves it very easily by spotting beautiful patterns I totally missed.

Also bought some classic sudoku booklets from Denksport, a 4-5 star and a 6-7 star edition. Solving sudoku on paper is much harder for me, for the grid looks more wonky with mixed handwriting and print, and also there is no automatic coloring of your pencil marks, making you do all the work yourself – but it’s good practice.

Read

Absolutely nothing. I might stop reading Dungeon Crawler Carl, for I just don’t feel like it – made it to page 83 so far. Reading Lord of the Rings is just a year long side-project and I’m not in a hurry (but I’ve arrived at the Prancing Pony already).

Played

I’ve ran another session of Mausritter. It’s been the same chaotic fun again, the only thing I regret was not thinking harder about where the Mug of Truth could be, since my players were obviously obsessed with it last session, and most of them returned. Very happy they ran into the bat-cult, which turned out to be full of mice under the influence of faerie music.

Also played in a session of The Electrum Archive. It was my fifth session in this open campaign, and since the last session major things were happening to my character, I felt like I had to keep a bit more space for the other players this time. There was a very interesting thing when two of our party members were captured into a crystal, and all they could do to communicate is to just share feelings. RPGs have this way of telling stories that make these moments like magic.

Also played some boardgames:

• Sound Box - fun chaos with making sounds while two people have blinding glasses on.
• Betrayal at the House on the Hill - I failed the haunt roll but the player to my left was revealed as the traitor.
• Deception: Murder in Hong Kong - solving a murder committed by another player, while the forensic specialist can only give hints by placing bullets on words on cards.
• Unfair - building a theme park by buying attraction and upgrade cards from the money you get with the number of visitors you get – but at some point public opinion turns against your park.

Ran

I think I’m back! By Thursday I was feeling very miserable, from a mental perspective, but Friday and Saturday fixed that for me. That’s the downside of running: it’s addictive and if you stop, you get withdrawal symptoms.

• Monday: 8km with two 2km tempo blocks
• Friday: 9.7km easy run around the city centre of Amsterdam, which is a lot of stopping and evasion-sprints.
• Saturday: 16.8km long run at night, next to the Amstel river. Dogs at night are terrifying, for their eyes reflect the light of my headlamp, making them look insanely devilish.

I don’t know. I just wanted to write a silly year overview, but nothing fancy comes to mind. Here are six themes in no particular order.

Volleybal

In the beginning of the year, I was a party with a lot of people who play volleyball. As you might know, I am quite tall, so I got asked a lot about volleyball too. At some point it became apparent to me that it was not so much that they wanted to convince me to join, rather it was myself who wanted to be convinced to start playing volleyball.

So since March, I’ve been playing volleyball. There was some drama involved, but I found a nice club in the end and I’m happy with my progress (although it goes much slower than I hoped for in March).

Seriously running again

Because of the drama of volleyball, I was reminded again of the beautiful sport of running. Since you can do this totally on your own at any moment of the day, there is simply no need for drama. You just go for a run.

Halfway June I started to seriously train again. From running 0 kilometers in January (still recovering from a broken foot), I went to running 4 times a week in December, completing a total of 851 kilometer, which included personal best times on 5K (20:32), 21.1K (1:46:19) and 15K (1:06:07). The last one also includes my fastest 10K, according to Strava, but I like to only count chip-times of full events.

Still wearing radical shoes

I’m still almost exclusively walking on barefoot shoes. In the last month, I’ve been wearing ‘foam shoes’ on some days now that I am transitioning into running 4 times a week, and I still wear foamed running shoes, but most of the time I walk on 4mm soles, meaning: almost nothing.

I radicalized even more when this summer I finally got a pair of Vibram 5fingers, yes, the one with individual toes. I bought it so I could use them for walks in the forest, when nobody would see me, but I got over that shame and now wear them in daily life every once in a while because they Just. Feel. So. Good.

Sold my car, back to trains

At the end of June I sold my car. With my new job in the centre of Amsterdam, I was using it less and less, and since I’m politically against cars, it made sense to let go. (Also, owning a car is expensive.)

I’m back to having an NS WeekendVrij card, like I had before covid happened. I also have a Veloretti Ace 2 (e-bike) now, which makes my 11km + 11km commute much easier. (Keep in mind: I’m also running 4 times a week, plus playing volleyball. I feel like I am allowed an e-bike).

Reading and writing

My recap of 2024 was based around notebooks, as I was just into forming a new habit of keeping a Bullet Journal again. Over the last year, it changed form a bit – I don’t use it as to-do manager anymore, it’s more of a life log – but I still do it. I’ve used the mentioned Black B6+ up to May, and switched to the unused Port Red B6+ in June.

Because of that, I know exactly which books I’ve read in 2025. Here’s some titles: Mystiek lichaam by Frans Kellendonk, Silo: Wool, Shift, Dust by Hugh Howey, Vallen is als vliegen, Manon Uphof, The Sluts by Dennis Cooper, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Apocalypse World by Vincent and Meguey Baker.

Playing a lot of RPGs

That last title is actually a game. In the last quarter of 2025, I started to play tabletop roleplaying games again on a regular basis. In fact, I run a game every week now. Apart from playing them, I also get a lot of joy out of just reading these books, not necessarily for the rules, but mostly because they contain a lot of setting and are designed to tickle your imagination.

Games I played or ran in 2025 are: Mothership, Pirate Borg, Kids on Brooms, Dungeons & Dragons, Daggerheart, The Electrum Archive and Moonlight on Roseville Beach. And if reading is a form of play: Mausritter, Apocalypse World, Brindlewood Bay. I just want to do this more in 2026.

If you came here for answers, sorry, this is one of those posts where the author is trying to figure it out himself. Aren't we all? I've been playing a lot of RPGs these days, mostly as a DM / Game Master, and I'm really trying to find a style of play that I like. This post is an exploration of that.

The title refers to a series of role playing games that are inspired by the game Apocalypse World. In the past few weeks, I have been contrasting "PbtA" with "D&D", stating that I want more of Powered by the Apocalypse elements in my games, and less of the Dungeons & Dragons mindset. But what do I mean with that? I wrote this blog post to organise my thoughts around it.

Before we begin I also want to make clear: I do think there are many styles to play Dungeons & Dragons and other games. I'm using the terms as shorthand for a style of thinking about games, but I don't want to imply everyone playing D&D thinks about the game in this way. I just needed names for the positions.

A little backstory

When I started D&D, I was a player in a campaign of a former coworker. I had a simple tabaxi ranger (meaning: a cat with a bow) with some light backstory, but it never really came into play. We just showed up and whatever the DM had planned happened, and we would kill some monsters and go home. I always felt guilty that I should also prepare more, think more deeply about my character, write more backstory.

Now I run a weekly open table – people I know and total strangers buy tickets for my session and just show up. Every week I run a one-shot, a story that is completed in a single evening, and I hand out pre-made character sheets to new players, completely void of backstory. And now I feel guilty when players do show up with a self-made character with a backstory that just cannot become relevant, because I planned an adventure that has totally different vibes from their characters.

As a solution, I started to run other game systems (Pirate Borg, Mothership, Kids on Brooms, to name a few). These systems are either very light on backstory – you roll a new character within five minutes and you can die easily – or very collaborative – in Kids on Brooms you collectively invent a magical school a la Harry Potter, and I was kinda sad when after three hours of answering prompts about the school we actually had to "start playing".

I think this is what spawned my search. How do I tell stories that are relevant for the characters that are in them?

Hush, the DM is telling a story

In Dungeons & Dragons, the roles are clearly marked: every player has a character with a class, species, background and stats; the Dungeon Master is in charge of the rest of the world and every other character in it, and if you're not careful they are also in charge of knowing all the rules, session planning, hosting the thing, getting the snacks, solve interpersonal conflicts between players, etc.

Again, I'm not saying everyone plays D&D like this, but I do say that D&D has the tendency to put a lot of work on the DM. I do not want to be a DM who starts a story that is to be followed by the players, but most published adventures do come with a set of scenes that follow in succession. They often include words like "if the PCs did X, then Y", but the choices feel very limited compared to the open worlds that were promised to me when I started playing.

The jargon for this is "railroading versus sandbox", and it's generally accepted that railroading is bad, but solutions for it can be as shallow as adding those "if this than that" kind of sentences in the adventures, or even the advice to just fake it: provide the players with the illusion of choice, but let every one of the three doors you give them lead to the same troll battle.

Recently, I was a player in a very open game where we could literally do anything. The GM presented us with four quests which I knew from out-of-game context would all lead to improvised play on their part. It was a cool session, but I still felt I missed something – even though I regard the GM very highly! Apparently just sandboxing the thing is also not the solution.

Between all the players

I like to think of RPGs as collaborative story telling. In the aforementioned sandbox session, the players – myself included – fell into the trap of wanting to be entertained. We looked at the GM, hoping they would tell us a story. We were doing what I feel like also happens in a lot of the sessions that I run: it's a conversation between two parties – the party of the players on one side and the GM on the other.

What often happens to me in these sessions, is that I as the GM set up a bit of world and story. I then look up to the players at the table and find someone who responds to me. I tell the story a bit further and they contribute too. But as the party speaks, it's always a single member speaking for the party. If they move to a new location, they move as one group. Every decision feels like a group decision. It's them against me.

To finally mention Apocalypse World: in this game, part of character creation is actually your relation to other player's characters. Your relation to every other character has a number, that can be relevant in the dice-rolls you make when you are in conflict. And that conflict comes from questions you answer during character creation too. Conflict does not mean battle, but it does mean that some characters want different things than others. In that tension, a story emerges, and this part of the story does not need a GM.

I think that's my first take-away so far: D&D is not promoting these individual differences as much (see also: "never split the party!"), but it's certainly possible to add more of this to it. I think seeing all characters as individuals with their own choices would make my games better.

Simulation versus game versus narrative

Another characteristic of D&D is that it somewhat tries to mimic the real world. There's a lot of numbers and rules that determine how things can move or interact with each other. There is this feeling that if a dice has not been rolled, it didn't really happen.

I came across some RPG theory called "The Big Model" and "GNS Theory", that divides this up into three pieces: simulationism, gamism and narrativism. I guess that the idea that you should always roll for something is gamism (is it still a game if we don't roll for it?), and that always trying to capture something in a rule with some associated math is simulationism. Both interest me, but as a former writer and literary student, I think I'm more fan of narrativism.

When playing out a D&D battle with mini's on the table, we've very much moved away from narrative and paused to play a game. To be totally honest with you: after two rounds I'm often totally bored out of my mind. I am sometimes subtracting more HP from monsters than I should, just because I want them to be dead already. I really don't like this part of the game.

I don't think Apocalypse World is only narrative and not a game nor simulation, but it's certainly more on the narrative + game end of things than D&D, which I would place more on simulation + game. Apocalypse World has the concept of Moves, which are just little sentences describing what you can do. Some of them have associated dice rolls, but on the GM's side, many aren't much more than prompts for you to come up with interesting narrative twists.

Let's make that a second take-away: I can prepare prompt moves for D&D, to explicitly give myself permission to improvise. I guess battles in D&D will always be very much a game, but even there: I can make a list of prompts to look at for when someone misses an attack (e.g. when 'nothing happens' mechanically, but I can still make narrative progress).

Boundaries of world and character

So, the DM is in charge of the world, and the players in charge of their character. It's therefore only natural that the DM is talking a lot: there is just so much more world than there are characters! How else would the story move forwards?

I still see some room, however – a character is always a part of the world. It's very normal for a DM to ask a character for a Perception check, followed by an explanation of what the character saw, heard or smelled in the world. This is on the very edge of the DM telling something about the character. Many DMs are also pretty comfortable with asking for a History check, followed by an explanation of facts that the character already knew about the world. This is the DM filling in even more for the character.

In that same way, could you not flip that around? Instead of explaining the history of this city, why not ask the player what the character knows about this city? Or what the character smelled when they entered the weapon store? Or describe what the bartender looks like?

It feels scary. If players can make shit up, why wouldn't they just say they see a +3 magical sword for sale, for only 5 gold? But hey, you are making shit up as well! I think this player would easily agree that this was a way too good of a deal, and that it's obvious they are now cursed by the sword, or being followed by it's former owner, or both.

So my third take-away would be: let the players tell a bit about the world too, from now and then, because they probably have better input than the numbers 1 to 20 can ever give you.

Final thoughts

So, most of these are tastes, not truths. Your mileage may vary, I'm just exploring mine. But I guess I did find three things I can use in my own games. I like to think of them as elements I took from Apocalypse World, but I don't think it's limited to that. It's also mostly a mindset: be okay with improvising. If anything: prepare less concrete things, so that story can flow in the ways it wants to. Let's see where it goes.

I wasn’t feeling like writing this month’s digest with the same structure as the previous ones, so I just didn’t.

Volleyball

At the beginning of the month I decided the universe nudged enough into the direction of volleyball to finally try it out. I loved it. I played three times now on two different locations and I am totally hooked and keep looking for new locations and times I can expand to.

My obsession with it expanded to rewatching the first three seasons of Haikyū. It is one of my favorite anime series and it was very nice to see it again. The first time watching I didn’t like the style of season 4, and season 3 ends on a nice note, so I just pretended it ended there.

Also watched a lot of Youtube, of people putting a GoPro on their head and play volleyball. It’s really the theme of the month for me.

Running again

But let’s not forget the other highlight of the month: on 7 Februari, bit over 6 months after the fracture, I finally ran again! It was only 6 times 1 minute with some walking in between, but it was so good to be back.

It really felt like I just stopped for two weeks, but okay, the runs after that I did notice I am not instantly back to my old stamina. I did run three times in total, with one being a 3.7km continuous run, which was exactly right for me.

It’s nice to have the technical experience now. I did not forget that part: how to run, how much, how to recover. I am my own trainer in this and I am pleased.

Mothership

I didn’t read much at all this month, but I did play Mothership twice. It’s a tabletop roleplaying gamd, like Dungeons and Dragons, but instead of fantasy heroes it’s sci-fi horror.

I am really just figuring what to prepare, as in both sessions I had to improvise a substantial area of the story, but in different ways. (I run the game as a Warden, so I kind of need to know how the world works.)

In the first session, I had a very good idea of how to start the session, and what the jumpliner they were on looked like, but I had no idea how combat worked (I read the rules, but that was in December.) It showed in the session, but we made it work.

The second session I had a good understanding of the combat procedure, and I knew my “horror” very well, but (don’t tell them) I had no real kickstart for the story prepared and had only a vague idea of the moonbase they were in.

But despite this all I think everyone had a good time in both sessions (the players didn’t overlap except one returning player). And I did enjoy it too. Might continue in March.

Honerable mentions

• P.’s last minute birthday party at BlendXL
• my trip to Eindhoven to have matcha lunch with Henrique and helping my mom clean up her stand at Art Eindhoven
• my pingpong at the office has significantly improved
• playing Root with the Riverfolk expansion with C., D. and P.
• watched “the worst ever” Jurassic Park III with friends
• ending the month with a party at Bops

The first month of the year has flown by, and I have the feeling that the next one will be as fast. Luckily, I'm still going strong with the Bullet Journal, and in that I now have another neat list of what I did in every day of the month, one line per day. It really helps me to see that actually, a lot has happened.

Life

In January, I added a single-line gratitude log on the next page after my single-line monthly overview. I know that it kind of became a cliche at this point, but it is really nice to have one, and if you don't have a gratitude log I highly recommend you start one. Reading it back now just gives warm feelings, but I also now notice things during the day, being more mindfully grateful for them in the moment they happen.

In general January was, kind of like last year, a month of reflection and trying to be more mindful. See also the section about reading, which I did (almost) every day of the month, most of the time in the metro to work. Having this daily check-in with a book about being mindful made me more mindful throughout the month.

As for what happened: lots of boardgames again, some pizza, some pasta, some improvisation theater. I also visited family more often, went to a storytelling evening in Mezrab, the PhD ceremony of a friend, and to the presentation of the new book of poetry by Wout Waanders.

Health

A lot of people have said this to me, but I finally did it: I went to the hospital for a new perspective on my foot, almost half a year after the fracture. The last one was five weeks after the fracture, and was basically: "go do what feels right, if you have pain, you should slow down, good luck." I still have pain, or at least discomfort, and I didn't really know what direction to go in anymore.

Turns out: the bone has healed fine, so it's probably mostly the muscles and ligaments that are painful now. So my hunch was correct: this is indeed pain I should ignore, maybe even seek out, in order to get on the other side of this. (I just didn't want to do that before seeing a doctor.)

The photo was last week, so I've been trying to stand on one leg a bit more, doing calf raises and stuff. In terms of pain nothing has changed much, but at least I have something I can work towards again.

Reading

I have finally finished reading The Name of The Wind, which is a thick book, but I also just didn't find the time for it, and now I did. It's a very unique take on the fantasy genre and I really liked it. I have already bought The Wise Man's Fear, aka "day 2", but since 722 pages took me six months to complete, I am kind of delaying my start of these 1107 pages.

I also have been reading a lot in Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, which is the book about mindfulness and self-compassion I mentioned in the 'Life' section. I have three more chapters to go, but I also want to focus more on actually practicing these things, instead of just buying the next book and hoping that that solves all my problems. But it's a good book.

Watching

I did omit this from the last Monthly Digest, but that was because I didn't watch any series or movies in December. In January, I allowed myself a bit of relaxing with this medium. I just have to be careful that I don't disappear in a series.

I (re)watched the first four episodes of De Geheimen van Barslet, a series made by the Dutch public broadcaster in 2012, but is now streaming on HBO. It was nice because I had mostly forgotten what happened, and I think it's a relatively good series for Dutch standards. I just didn't see the last three episodes again, so maybe that says that I am not really sold?

I watched Dune 2, which I probably should have (and certainly could have) watched in the cinema (I had a Cineville all year but just didn't go after May). I rewatched Tenet and this time I kind of understood what was going on in the movie. And I also rewatched Goodfellas, in the background while doing other stuff on a weird evening.

My favorite movie of the month is absolutely Triangle of Sadness, which is also a rewatch for me, but I liked it all the same as the first time. Somehow Henrique hates the movie – he told me several of his friends share this opinion – but I just have to disagree on this one.

To add to my list of rewatches: The White Lotus, both seasons, because a third is about to air next month. I am very curious what the new season will bring, because the first two are so good, but also in such different ways.

Intentions

My previous intentions of stretching have been working out, but the working out was a bit of a stretch this month. The healthy eating also didn't really happen (but I borrowed Ottolenghi's Simple and I looked inside of it twice). Let's just carry these over to the new month. And as previously mentioned: the reading part of the intentions went well.

For the next month I did write down a lot more intentions in my Bullet Journal. One that I want to share here, is that I want to do a daily check-in in mindfulness. The intention is to try to be more mindful during the day-to-day, but in order to get a checkmark on my day, I need to take a few minutes of silence, and in that pause, I want to check in with whatever I feel at that moment. Too often I just run around in life pressing down some feeling I have no time for. Like with the gratitude log: I hope that a daily check-in will improve my day-to-day relation to feelings too.

I see all your oddly specific 2024 recaps and I raise you with this one about notebooks.

I am the first to admit I have a bit of a stationary obsession. When I feel stressed, I love to go to P.W. Akkerman on the Langebrugsteeg in Amsterdam, just to look at the various notebooks and index cards they have for sale. I always have to restrain myself for not buying one when I visit, and sometimes I succeed at that. There is just something so promising about getting a new notebook, and thinking of all the ways you could make notes in it to declutter your mind.

Here are, in rough chronological order, some notebooks I bought or used in 2024. And yes, they are mostly dotted Leuchtturm1917 notebooks, and no, they are not all from P.W. Akkerman. (But never ordered online!)

Leuchtturm Classic Medium (A5) "Rising Sun"

Dotted, 251 pages, hardcover, 80g/m²
Technically I bought this orange/yellow one in 2023. It was in cellophane in my bag when some person broke the passenger window of my car, trying to get my laptop out of it, on the last day of the year. The thief must have touched it, for it was in the laptop compartment, but they threw the bag – notebook included – back into my car when they noticed there was no laptop.

On 1 January, I opened the cellophane and started writing a long form diary in it. There was a lot on my mind at that time, and I had a lot of free time (the company I worked for just went bankrupt), so I wrote down my thoughts in tiny handwriting. I used the first 61 pages in January, up to page 130 in february and stopped on page 161 at the end of March. Then a few pages with entries of September, October, November. In December I really picked it up again and I am now at page 210.

Leuchtturm Classic Paperback (B6+) "Stone Blue"

Dotted, 123 pages, soft cover, 80g/m²
I honestly don't remember if I bought this one this year, but I think so. Either way, I did not write a single thing it in, even though it is out of the cellophane.

Bloc Rhodia Nº 16 (dotpad, A5, ringed)

Dotted, 80g/m²
This is technically not a notebook, but more a notepad. It's by my knowledge the only dotted notepad on the market, and the paper is nice. I already had the same sized dotpad Nº 16 without rings, but I wanted a new one because I wanted to take notes and work, and the lined notepads they provided were just not up to my taste.

I never really pulled out any paper of it, so I know the first sheet is dated 4 March 2024, as that was my first day at work. Sometimes I did write down a date. The last written pages contain notes from my first D&D sessions as a DM, in May 2024.

Leuchtturm Classic Pocket (A6) "Fox Red"

Dotted, 123 pages, soft cover, 80g/m²
Again one of those I don't know for sure I bought in 2024, but at least I started using it last year. The first page has notes about a D&D session in which I played the character Voks, on 11 May. This was a session with a Eurovision theme, and I'm glad I have some paper notes of it. That was also the purpose of this book for me: notes about RPGs, so that I can avoid using the Rhodia dotpad for it.

The book also contains notes about sessions of Pirate Borg, Mausritter, Delta Green and goes as recently as 6 November for a session of Cloud Empress. There is a folded sheet of Rhodia dotpad paper in it with a rudimentary character sheet for my Cloud Empress character "Bloody". I will try to continue using this book for specifically this purpose of RPG notes in 2025.

Moleskine Cahier Pocket Black

Ruled, three cahiers, 70g/m²
This is the beginning of a little graveyard. Between May and August, I was compiling a portable DM-kit: a set of tokens and cards I can use as a Dungeon Master / story teller during RPG sessions. For this, I bought a small case that's originally intended to house a portable hard drive, and I stuffed it to the brim with pencils, wooden game components and index cards. (I will not include all the index cards I bought in this post.)

For this purpose, I also got a new set of these Moleskine cahiers. I have a lot of them, in various states of being written in, so I just wanted some more. My perfectionism decided at the time that there was a better option out there, so I did not end up using them.

Leuchtturm Jottbook Double (A6) "Light Grey / Black"

Dotted, two cahiers of 59 pages, flex cover, 80g/m²
These two nice dotted cahiers did fit perfectly in the aforementioned hard drive case. But what is more: they have more pages (I think, the Moleskine is unnumbered) and they have dots! As you might have noticed, I love dotted notebooks.

I just looked at the two now: the Light Grey one is unwritten, the Black one has a few unclear notes, written in one session I DM'ed. But hey, they are more perfect!

Bloc Rhodia Nº 18 (dotpad, A4)

Dotted, 80g/m²
I know, I keep going back and forth. This is again more a notepad, but somewhere in the same timeframe I bought it because as a DM, I wanted to write my notes on big dotted paper that would lay flat behind my DM-screen. Hence the A4 dotpad, no rings this time.

Leuchtturm Classic Paperback (B6+) "Black"

Dotted, 219 pages, hard cover, 80g/m²
This one I bought because I wanted a notebook to write in at work again. Previously I had been using the Rhodia dotpad for that purpose, but I disliked the fact that I was using a notepad as a notebook. If you never pull out the pages, why not have it bound? Also: I wasn't really taking notes at all anymore at that point, and I wanted to change that.

I started at the end of July and used a whopping 6 pages of the notebook, as I broke my foot in the beginning of August, which in turn changed a lot of habits around work, most notably the fact that I had to work from home for a while.

At the end of November, I bought the book The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Caroll, which made me want to start one. Since I only used the first six pages of this notebook (making it therefore already imperfect), it became the perfect starting point for me. It has been my Bullet Journal all throughout December and I just started January 2025 on page 48.

Leuchtturm × Bullet Journal: Pocket (A5) Black

Custom dotted, three cahiers of 46 pages, flex cover, 80g/m²
I just had to instantly buy this the moment I saw it lying down at P.W. Akkerman. It's a set of three small booklets with dotted pages, but with the special extra dots at the middle of the page, so you can easily divide the page in two by drawing a line through those. And maybe their most distinct feature: they are designed to use sideways, in landscape orientation.

I haven't used a single one of these... they just look too pretty. But I am sure that this partly influenced me to (again) look at the Bullet Journal method, even though it was months after the purchase.

Leuchtturm Classic Pocket (A6) "Stone Blue"

Ruled, 187 pages, hard cover, 80g/m²
Yes, you read it correct: ruled. I bought this small book for a specific purpose: I wanted to work out a bit more and wanted to log exactly what exercises I did during that. Some Youtuber recommended using "an ugly cheap notebook" for this, so I went with the ruled version.

I instantly hated it. I don't really comprehend how the same company that makes the best dotted notebooks of all time, can also make a ruled notebook with the annoying text 'DATUM/DATE' on top of every page. As if every day takes up exactly one page? Sometimes I have more to write, sometimes I can fit three days on one page. Leave me alone!

I have here workouts from 23 September to 16 December. It even went to Gran Canaria with me. 16 December does mean that I fell off the wagon a bit, and to that I will admit. I have been doing undocumented workouts, but writing this bit makes me realize I should return to this humble booklet.

Leuchtturm Classic Paperback (B6+) "Port Red"

Dotted, 219 pages, hard cover, 80g/m²
I distinctly remember buying this one after I broke my foot, at the local Athenaeum Boekhandel here in Bijlmer, because I believe I bought it while in the wheelchair. There was also a bundle of stories by queer people that I bought with it. I recently rediscovered the unopened paper bag with the two inside in a pile in my living room.

The notebook is still in cellophane and I think I will use it as a future Bullet Journal once my current one fills up. (I only rediscovered this one when I already started using the black one, but I think picking the black one was the right choice anyway.)

Leuchtturm × Bullet Journal: 2nd Edition (A5)

Custom dotted, 206+ pages, hard cover, 120g/m²
No. I did not in fact buy this one, nor will I in the near future. In the past, I might have done it, but my current Bullet Journal includes a list of "to impulse buy" at a later date in the month, which successfully kept me off on this one. I love the custom dots, I love to support the original creator of the method, but no, I think 120g/m² is just way too heavy paper for my needs. The page count is quite a bit lower than the classic Leuchtturm, and I still find the book just too bulky.

Since I broke my foot on the 4th of August, I've been writing weekly notes about what happened in my life. I must admit I mostly wrote it for myself. On the 1st of December I started a paper Bullet Journal (a minimalist and functional one), which I might blog more about this month. Since I started with that, I struggled to keep up the weekly notes on top of the journal. So therefore I now follow suit with Henrique's habit and start a Monthly Digest. Let's see if I can make it to 12.

Health

Let start with what made me start the weekly notes: my foot. I think I still make progress, but progress is slow. Last month I had still a lot of soreness and even a bit of pain in the mornings. I am still experiencing a bit of that, but it has diminished so much that I don't really want to call the morning feeling "pain" anymore. I still don't dare to run though.

I've been walking on barefoot shoes all month, so that's still going strong after almost four months. In addition to new Injinji toe socks, I also got a cute little stool for Christmas. I use it to sit on while at home, but at the moment of writing I'm sitting on the floor on a small cushion, with my laptop on the stool. I'm very pleased with the setup.

The goal of floorsitting is to increase my mobility. I noticed that my lotus pose is really improving, for example. Another thing I did and tracked in the Bullet Journal: every single day of December I did a forward stretch. In November I could not touch my toes while keeping my legs straight, and now I can. I will continue to stretch in the new year.

The training of my arms got a bit of a hit during Christmas time, but I did notice how much easier some of the exercises became, so I'm not demotivated to continue that too.

Life

In my Bullet Journal I now keep a list of every day of the month, with a one-line summary of the day, which gives me a very neat overview of what happened.

The weekend I stopped my weekly notes was actually the weekend I went away to Appelscha with friends, for a weekend of boardgames and Hunnebed-viewing. There were other boardgame nights too, notably the night that I played three games of Root and the night were we played Blood on the Clocktower at G.'s house with 11 people and G. as our beloved story teller.

It was of course also a month of family happenings. Aside from the obvious ones, on 21 December I went to Den Haag for the opening of the exposition of new members of Pulchri. My mom is one of them, and I was very happy I could attend for this special moment for her.

I also survived both my second month at my new job, as well as our kerstborrel, so that's nice.

Reading

I'm still reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, as I have been since mid July. It's just a big book and since Gran Canaria in October I have had my mind on other things (such as my new job). It's a really good book though, so I will continue reading. I'm now at chapter seventy-three, so I am nearing the end. (I know, and then there is a second book if I want to.)

I did finish Polysecure by Jessica Fern this month. I am still not sure if I identify as polyamorous, but the book is more about attachment theory (which I value) and non-monogamy in general (which, by lack of a partner, I am). I really liked her approach of not defaulting to "you should find The One" as a solution to all problems and the book was very helpful to me. Recommend reading to anyone, including those in monogamous relationships.

I also finished The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Caroll, which I started on the well timed date of 30 November. This meant that the next day, I started a Bullet Journal in an "old" Leuchtturm 1917 dotted notebook on 1 December. It's an interesting read, even though I already knew the method before. There's enough reflection in there that I might want to reread it in 6 months time. (Yes, I just added that to my Future Log.)

Finally, I started in Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, but I didn't make enough progress to talk about it this month.

Intentions

I wanted to add this to Henrique's template: my intentions for the next month. As I stated before: I want to continue stretching and working out. I would also like to focus a bit more on eating healthy too, as I notice I have more energy the following day if I do. (I won't publicly describe how bad my current habits are here.)

On my habit tracker for this month I also added "reading". My new job allows me to travel by public transport a bit more, which gives me a good solid 20 + 20 minutes of reading. On the habit tracker I will just add a check mark if I read any page at all, at any place. Let's see if that helps me finish The Name of the Wind.