It’s November 18th. Winter is already making an appearance here in Scandinavia. My hands start to get cold when I bike home, the few leaves that remain in the trees are falling, and the darkness arrives before the workday is over. Recently, I quit my job because it didn’t fullfil me and, for once, I’ve decided not to rush-into-the-next-thing. I’ve decided that, for the next 4 months, I will encourage my own creativity and see where it brings me. I’ll try to build my next thing. I’ve called this period… the Winter of Output (inspired by Andy Kong’s Year of Output).
I’ve always had an immense creative energy and an attraction for interdisciplinarity. I’m proud of it. Nonetheless, it makes it difficult finding a job that satisfies the different creative desires that I have. I’ve tried pushing that creative energy to my free time while conceiving work as what-gives-you-money. It didn’t work. It didn’t work because I kept having the feeling that I needed to confine my own creative desires to a second plane. Arriving home tired after a long day, feeling my brainpower already drained, and still needing to push for my personal projects became terribly frustrating. I had no energy to pursue what I wanted to do. Therefore, I am going to try something different.
I’ve always had the feeling that with time and focus I could transform my ideas into something useful that would make for a living. If that’s the case, I could accommodate my many creative desires into it. In other words, rather than accepting the external structure that is usually given to us and hoping that it fits me, I’m going to try to define my own structure.
The Plan
For the next 4 months -until Spring arrives, March 21st- I’ll embrace my curiosity and solely focus on creating. Electronics, 3D-desing, hardware, software, random gadgets, math proofs. Anything works.
There is just one simple rule: In order not to fall into procrastination, every weekday I’ll share an update of my progress together with my learnings on my Twitter/X.
I’ll also keep a personal notebook that I’ll use as an ideation place, draft notes and diary. I will use it to verbalize my thoughts and monitor the progress. The format of a single notebook for everything is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks.
If by Spring 2025 I’m not in the path to becoming self-sustaining, I’ll accept that creating your own structure is not a matter of effort or time but rather a matter of luck, and I’ll go back to the successful and steady work life I had before.
Buy Me a Coffee
I plan to open-source all my work, from electronic schematics to code and 3D designs. I also plan to write technical blogposts and share pictures of my creations.
If you find this kind of content inspiring or you just want to support my mission…
I’ll be having no other income these months so I’ll be tremendously grateful 🫶.
Winter of Output - Log of Days
18th November
Setup personal blog using Hugo and defined the rules for the Winter of Output.