Reflecting on Søren's Blog

Cancelled Subscriptions

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0000

I stumbled upon Matt‘s blog post from last year again, where he lists what he spends on subscriptions each month.

I am not a fan of subscriptions. It’s less transparent how much money you spend - and you own nothing. It’s one of the reasons why we bought our car, and didn’t lease.

And for the same reasons I cancelled a few subscriptions this week:

Netflix: We watched everything on the list. No need to continue paying unless something is released we want to see. If needed, we can re-subscribe any time.
Disney+: Disney cancelled that for us. They asked for a significant price increase, I said no, worked last year but this time they cancelled our subscription. Fine for me.
Apple Music: I prefer Apple Music over Spotify. At the same time, I don’t feel like paying for two music streaming services that we barely use at the same time. We can share one account. As we have the better deal with Spotify, it stays.
iCloud: to be honest, not yet cancelled, but soon. I bought a new NAS that will replace the photos backup. Without photos, I barely need iCloud storage and can cancel the subscription.

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January Recap

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000

The fist month of 2026 is the over. Time for a quick recap on my ambitions.

Walk 10k steps per day: In January I walked an average of 11.5k steps per day. Wow! The last week I felt sick and concluded at 8.2k steps. Next week, I need to move more to catchup again.
Run 300km: Dividing 300km by 12months means that I need to run 25km per months. In January, I jogged 26km - slightly above target. Same as above, I paused all activities in the last week. Getting healthy first is more important.
Cycle 500km: To achieve this, I need 43km on the bike per months. In January, I cycled 34km. Below target but expected. More cycling during summer.
Drink 0 alcohol: I had one beer. Close.
Fast 14h per day: I was not tracking this properly in January and thus cannot tell. Will move the app to the Home Screen.
Read 5min for 30 days in a row: This is a big win. My current streak is at 38 days - all days of January included. I can put a checkmark on this. What helped me come back to this habit is that I switched to reading ebooks in the Apple Books app on my phone. A device I have with me all the time. Instead of wasting my time in news apps (I don’t waste on social media anymore), I read a few pages. Time well used.
Visit 1 new place: I have not been to a new city, but I visited an Indian restaurant in Erlangen for the fist time and was amazed by the delicious food (608 Makhani)
Write 25 blog posts: I wrote five articles in January. Aiming to keep this spirit.

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2025 in Statistics

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

The new year is a few days old. A good opportunity to look back.

Out of the different Replays, Reviews, Recaps and the Health App (why doesn’t it have a year recap, Apple?), I collected a few statistics.

Run

I ran 113km
the average distance per workout was 5.14km. The average duration 33min. The average pace 6:31
The longest run in 2025, was 10.2km

I want those numbers to be much higher in 2026.

Cycle

I cycled 1.183km.
the average distance per workout was 20.75km. The average duration 66min.
The longest trip was 136km.

Those are „biased“ by the trip to Venice.

Health

I gained 5kg
I walked an average of 7,980 steps per day. That’s almost 3 million steps.
The maximum steps per day were 23k
I tend to get up at 06:00

I aim for 10k steps and a decline of kilos.

Podcasts

I listened to podcasts for 245h in 2025
In total, 215 episodes from 18 different podcasts

I don’t have statistics from previous years but my gut tells me that 2025 wasn’t a peak year for podcast listening.

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2026 Goals

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

1st of January is ideal to think about the upcoming year. We all know that resolutions don’t last long, so I am not calling these resolutions. They are targets, goals, elements of a contract with myself.

Below, is a summary of things I want to achieve in 2026.

Achieve an average of 10k steps per day. This is a ~25% increase compared to 2025, where I landed at roughly 8k
Run 300km. This is ambitious, as is more than double of what I was running in 2025. However, I have a 10k and a half-marathon already in the calendar and need to train for those.
Cylce 500km. This is about 50% of the 1.200km I cycled in 2025 - but I won’t take the bike to Venice this year.
Continue the zero alcohol habit. I barely drank in 2025, I think it did me good, I want to continue this.
Continue Intermediate Fasting. Same as above. I feel that it helps me, I want to continue. I may throw in a few days of complete fasting. Eager to try that once, but am not sure yet.
Achieve a 30-day reading streak. I started reading more. I have set an easy timer of only 5min - hoping that this will make the goal realistic. Maybe something I can already check-off in February.
Visit at least one place I’ve never been before. I am thinking of a city or country, but in worst case it’s a museum or gym.
25 Blog Posts. This is probably a joke for most of you, but for me it’s hard to find the regular slot between family, working, and volunteering to sit down and write. In 2026, I want at least to write something here every other week. To make the first 50%, I may write monthly status reports on these goals.

Some are ambitious, others hopefully simple. The balance shall keep the motivation high. I’ll use this post as anker at the end of the year for reflection.

Do you set goals?

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No news over Christmas

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000

I am a political person. Not actively, but interested. On a regular day, I check the news a couple of times a day.

The one thing I miss about Twitter is that when using it, I felt ahead of the curve on what was going on in the world. Newspapers are slower. I had to adjust to this, but see the benefit: I am not stressed about every little thing anymore, when read what makes it into the news a couple of days later.

Over the holidays, I tried a more extreme approach. I check the news once per day. In the morning. Mainly skimming the teasers, reading one or two complete articles.

And I have to admit. This really did me good. The transition from a stressful work week to come down into Christmas mood takes a few days, if not the whole week - but not this year. Disconnecting myself from the world, being present in the moment with my family, a true game changer.

Something to repeat next year.

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On Blogging Platforms

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Over the holidays, I was thinking about my blogging workflow. Looking at my statistics for 2025, I got the feeling that my setup is too complex and that it prevents me from writing more.

I thought about moving away from my self-hosted hugo blog on uberspace to a hosted service, where I could focus solely on writing text.

While looking around at the different options, Bear Blog and Micro.Blog quickly became my favorites. They both come with their own pros and cons, but neither is a perfect fit for me.

I read Robert’s blog (and if you don’t yet, you should), and he recently switched from Micro.blog to Bear — or at least, that’s what I thought.

I wrote him a message, and within a couple of hours I got a reply. He didn’t respond directly via email but instead published his answer as a blog post. (Love it 🧡)

Now I know, he didn’t switch, but is using both platforms for different purposes — a perfect setup for him.

Carlos jumped in on the conversation.

Reading both their posts, helped me a lot. I want something where I can easily create a draft and publish it from every device. Often, that will be a mobile device. And while that is possible for Bear, it requires me to open their website. There’s no app or indirect way to publish. I haven’t tested that properly, but it feels cumbersome. I won’t write in the web interface and having to open another app and copy stuff over … I know myself. This won’t work - unfortunately.

Because on the other hand, I liked the look & feel, the possibilities and clarity of Bear more than Micro.Blog. MB has a mobile app and thus a convinient way for publishing, photo posting is simple, but it lacks - I guess on purpose - features. Micro.Blog includes a strong “social” aspect — something I’m glad I reduced. I feel this could become a trap for me.

What does that mean to me? Both are wonderful services. Thinking about it, I assume my challenge is not the tech, it’s finding that regular slot between family, work, and volunteering to sit down and write. Thank you Robert and Carlos for helping in that decision.

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My Blogging Workflow as of mid 2025

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Recently, Robert wrote about his updated blogging workflow. A good opportunity to update mine, too.

I wrote about my blogging workflow in 2020 and 2023.

Not much has changed since 2023. I use hugo for this blog, hosted in a repository on uberspace.

To create a new article, I …

take my iPhone. I would love to write more on the Mac but noticed that after long working days I barely want to spend more time in front of a „computer“.
go through Reminders & Notes. The 2023 article mentioned that I‘ll try out obsidian for draft creation - which I did and dumped again. Apple Notes is available on all my devices, convenient and thus my choice for creating drafts for blob articles. Reminders came in recently. An article from flip.de recommended using an iOS Shortcut in combination with a reminders list as an alternative to Pocket (the meanwhile shut-down read-later app). When I find something interesting on web, I use the shortcut to create the „read-later-reminder“ and when I am in the mood for writing, I go through that list and create a draft in Notes.
create bullet points in German. Within the note, I start by creating bullet points in German. Although the blog is in English, I find it easier to create the initial draft in German. The 2023 version mentioned that a draft can stay multiple days, weeks or even months in this state - but this is no longer the case, as long as I am not interrupted during the flow.
write paragraphs. Once the initial idea for the type is layer out, I copy them over to iA writer, create the front matter (title, tags, etc.) and start writing - English - paragraphs. I do one (!) proof read iteration.
start the git magic. iA saves the markdown in the local version of the git repository created by the Working Copy app. I open Working Copy, hit „commit & push“ and wait a few seconds. Here, I wrote about the post-hook that builds the blog after every commit.
Done

For me, this works and I noted that more complex (proof-reading and validation) procedures lead to not writing at all. A downside of this process is that the first time I see how the post will look is when it‘s available on the website. Thus, there is often a second iteration of steps 4 and 5, where I fix typos, add missing links or headings. Then, it’s really done 😅

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Centralization

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Roughly ten years ago I ditched GMail, and started the journey of hosting important software myself. The shutdown of Google Reader made it clear to me how dependent I became on Google and their services.

I tried different web hosting services - but always came back to uberspace. They are a small German company, offer SSH access to the server, have an incredible support team and their “pay what you want” policy is really great.

Over the years, I hosted miniflux as an RSS reader, tinyurl as an URL shortener, NextCloud for contacts, calendars and reminders, Ghost as a blogging software, and many more.

I realised that it requires commitment to keep the lights on on all those services. I needed to check if new updates are available, run the updates, renew certificates, do OS updates on the server, … For someone experienced with this not a big task, for sure, but for me it became a burden.

Slowly but steadily, I started using managed software again.

Today, I use iCloud as the backend for my RSS feeds (although I am not super happy with performance), my calendars, contacts, and reminders. It just works and is something less I need to take care off. Thinking about it, I think email and this blog are the only services that I have not yet handed over to one of the big companies again.

Of course I am aware that I am dependent on providers - again - and especially get more and more caught in the walled garden that Apple so nicely creates for us. For now, it works for me.

I have changed my tech stack multiple times in the past. It could very well be that at some point my personal evaluation between comfort and dependency swings in the other direction and I’ll start hosting once more.

Garrit has similar thoughts.

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On To-Do Management

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 06:00:00 +0000

About a week ago, I read the blog types from Andy and Birchtree on To-Do Apps.

Andy wrote that he’s given up on fancy apps and just uses simple paper & pencil to organise his todos.

I’ve given up this week and gone back to paper and a pencil and I feel unbelievably organised and flexible, day-to-day.

In his reply, Birchtree points out that he read articles like this a lot before. Being just a couple of days into a new workflow barely feels odd (otherwise you wouldn’t have changed the workflow or blogged about it).

“I thought I needed a task manager, but actually pen and paper are more than enough”; “An iPad does everything I need from a computer”; “I only use the built-in apps on my phone and I’m fine”; Insert whatever example of someone moving to something that’s less powerful or less polished

I can agree with both and my personal to-do management is a mix of simple and fancy.

I use Reminders (personal) and Todo (work) for the overall todo management. Whenever I think of a task, I note it in the app - being sure that I won’t forget it or write it on a piece of paper that lands in the trash before I completed the task. I also use the app to add recurring tasks.

However, when it comes to planning the current day, I use a blank piece of paper, open the app and copy the tasks I want to do today.

This gives me the flexibility to easily add and complete tasks during the day. With the only overhead that I need to “sync back” completions to the app in the evening or the next morning.

I will continue to read Andy’s blog and see what his learnings will be. Maybe he finds a trick or two that I can add to my workflow as well.

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Rituals

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 17:00:00 +0000

This article is part of the IndiWeb Carnival for August 2024, with the topic Rituals. Thanks, Steve, for hosting it.

This is the first time I am participating in the Indiweb Carnival. Rituals seemed like an easy topic to discuss. I wanted to write something about Christmas and how we usually spend Christmas Eve, but it got me thinking a lot in the last few days. Good topic, Steve. 😄

The question I have been racking my brain about is: do I do rituals - do I rather keep traditions - or do I just have routines?

What I found out quickly is that I am not the only one asking this question. A quick DuckDuckGo research revealed a couple of websites comparing the terms.

Now, I know that a ritual is a set of actions or ceremonies performed in a specific order and manner (Source). Typically, they are formalized practices (repeatedly) performed at specific events and often loaded with symbolic meaning - like religious ceremonies, social gatherings or the marking of important life events. In a broader definition, rituals can include personal daily routines. Tradition is the broader term. It describes the passing of beliefs or behaviors from generation to generation. Rituals can be part of a tradition.

Before researching this, I had the feeling that a ritual always has a religious connotation - and thus I was wondering why Steve wrote about coffee.

Now, I understand that, while often performed in religious contexts, a ritual can also be a daily routine that provides a sense of order and predictability. Knowing this, I can totally understand Steve. While I am not that deep in the coffee rabbit hole - I do not measure beans by the gram nor stop the time the water needs to pour through the coffee - making myself a cup of fresh coffee with the portafilter is something that gives me a break in a stressful working day.

With this in mind, I consider the term ritual to mean something you do repeatedly to make yourself feel good. I don’t see a negative connotation (to answer at least one of Steve’s questions).

This means that my daily rituals include coffee brewing, but when I now think of my rituals, I think of dedicated family time. My family lives all across the country, we barely meet spontaneously. A few years ago, we decided to spend one week around the Easter holidays together. What others try to fit in on Christmas Eve, we aim to get from a longer time in a less stressful time of the year. This really works well, and I am always looking forward to the next repetition. 238 days to go.

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Giving Up Social Media

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 20:00:00 +0100

In one of his recents types, Kev asks if we could give up on social media

I have a love hate relationship with social media. In some respects it’s great, but in others it’s a nightmare. I’m wondering if I could give up social media entirely… (Kev)

Short answer is: Last week, I created a draft for an upcoming blog type that I am about to delete my LinkedIn profile and with that the last social media account that I still have.

I used Facebook the last time about ten years ago and finally deleted the account last year.

Instagram, I had. Deleted the account when they added too much advertising for my taste into the app. Probably around 2018/19. I created a new account during Corona - but quickly realized that it’s too much bling-bling for me. Last year, I also deleted this account again.

I used Twitter a lot. It was my favorite network. But since it became X, the balance on my timeline shifted massively towards the negative, aggressive topics. The „oh, this is nice and interesting" tweets became rare. Divorce was harder than with Meta. First, I moved the app icon to the second home screen on my phone and started using it less. Then I deleted the app and only allowed myself to use it via the browser. it took at least another six months until I deleted the account.

I think that’s about it. I am too old for all the fancy newer networks and thus didn’t too much to delete.

Being honest, I still have the Mastodon Account but I barely use it. In the beginning, I felt that I didn’t get the same cool stuff that I got from Twitter. These days, I am just used to not being among the firsts to know about a specific topic. Instead, I read more than 100 blogs via RSS and am more than happy with it.

So yes - I can totally give up on Social Media 🙂

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Do I need tags?

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 18:00:00 +0100

This blog is based on Hugo and comes with built-in tags. It even provides a page with a list of all tags used on this blog. Mine is not very polished, because I barely used it.

One of the reasons is me having a hard time coming up - not to speak of sticking with - a taxonomy. If I am being honest, I just type some random tags in the front matter when I start writing a new type. Pure gut feeling.

Question is: should I invest time streamlining this?

Hm. I think the answer depends on the potential benefit of a well structured taxonomy. On this blog, it’s mainly used to populate the „if you liked this, you may want to read …“ section below each type. I use it to find an older type - if I remember the tag - because scrolling through the tag page with less entries is faster. Apart from that? Good question.

Current plan is, since I am anyway working on a new theme for this blog (on the list since March), I will give the tags overview page a facelift and use the opportunity - assuming motivation lasts - to structure the tags, at least once.

In a few months, I will check if I was able to follow the structure or if chaos is back. And if the latter happens - does someone has a better idea how to solve this? 🤔

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Office vs. "Home-Office"

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 19:00:00 +0000

In a few days, my parental leave comes to an end and I will go back to work. This will confront me with the question how much time I want to spend in office or work remotely. Time for reflection.

The situation

Before Corona, on paper, we were allowed to work one day per week remotely. In reality, this flexibility did not exist. Working from home was considered an additional day off.

During Corona the perception changed and the responsible parties came up with a new agreement. The 40/60 rule allows us to spend the majority of our working time remotely (60%) and expects us to come to office on two days per week - on average. The new reality is that there are people working in office almost 100%, while others are barely present. As long as everyone is happy - I think this is a great compromise.

Working Remotely Pros

I became a big fan of working remotely when I was in consulting. Every morning I commuted 90min to office, put a headset on and was in customer meetings for the following 8 to 10 hours. Seeing colleagues? Maybe for a 30min lunch break. Maybe. Most times someone was still in a meeting and couldn’t join. Still, our manager wanted to us come to the office. He needed to see his sheep. Corona came, and - big surprise - we got the job done from home, too.

Also in my current job working remotely comes with a lot of advantages. My commute distance is roughly 250km, working from home safes me three hours of time - one way.

In addition, my team is located in three hemispheres. We’re barely in the same room and thus need virtual meetings anyway. What is the benefit of driving around just to put your headsets on?

Plus, I can concentrate better when alone in a room instead of an open-plan office. But, being honest, that was my pre-parental experience.

Finally, I like the setup I have at home better. The chair is more comfortable, the screen larger, the keyboard more precise and the coffee tastes better.

Office Pros

On the other hand, being in the office with colleagues is undoubtedly beneficial. There is the social interaction (something I really missed beginning of 2020), the spontaneous meetings in the cafeteria or the elevator and of course the overhearing of conversations that might influence your own work. It’s easier to jump into an ongoing conversation instead of thinking who might be a good person to contact for this particular problem.

I also like having the possibility of after-work gatherings. Talking with colleagues out of the office, pushed me into buying my first automatic watch.

Further plus, you always have someone to have lunch with. For me, this is really important. Sitting alone in front of a meal - most likely doing something on the phone while eating, does not sound like an enjoyable lunch break.

And not to forget, if you work in office someone else pays desk, chair, mouse, keyboard, headset, electricity, internet, etc.. The additional room to work from in your apartment would not be needed easily saving ~500€/month in the region I live.

Final thoughts

One of the few advantages of Corona was that we could try working remotely. For me and many of my friends it wasn’t a realistic option before. And it seems that there are different types of people, some can work perfectly on remote locations, some need the office to separate home and work more clearly. I hope we can find ways of working that are flexible enough to fit everyone’s needs so that we can concentrate on what’s important and are not distracted by the circumstances.

My current approach is that I spend most of the time working remotely and try to meet all domestic colleagues once per months in office for a couple of days. Getting the best out of both.

P.S. In my omnivore I saw, that Kev wrote about this, too.

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🗓️ December 2023

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 17:00:00 +0100

🙍 Personal: This year marked the first Christmas with baby. In contrary to previous years, we spend the whole time at home and invited family and friends to our place. It was exhausting, but - with the usual exceptions - very joyful. Buying an extendable dining table beginning of the year was a good choice.

🖥️ Work: A few more weeks of parental leave. With the January report this section should become meaningful 🙂

🧑‍💻 Blog: I could keep the momentum and publish nine articles (incl. this one) in December. They tend to be short. It’s fine for me. I want to focus on publishing something, rather than having a perfectly assembled article. I hope that going back to work next month won’t influence this tender growing habit.

📗 Journaling: With some exceptions during my Corona infection, I jotted down my thoughts on an almost daily basis. I read the “How I Journal” article by mb and may write something similar in the future, too.

📚 Reading: I tried reading “Ikigai”, for the third time at least. Not sure if I will ever finish it. The topic is interesting, but the book is not pulling me into reading flow. I will give it another chance.

📺 Watching: We were not watching any series this month, and barely TV at all. We did not even have the time to watch “Home Alone” (but found out something interesting about it). I reduced our Netflix subscription to a cheaper one - may cancel it soon.

🛒 Shopping: No major shopping as we try to keep Christmas presents at a minimum.

🧳 Travel: This year, we went to the mountains before Christmas and spend the Holy Night back home. I wrote about the train trip, and the time in tue mountains.

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