System default: curiosity

Hey there, hope you’ve all had a great summer! I took an unexpected but much needed break from a lot of personal projects (including this newsletter) over the past three months and I’m feeling so refreshed and creatively inspired as a result!

This break helped me realize that there are some changes that I want to make to curiOS going forward. The main shift being a shift in tone. My initial goal with this newsletter was to provide you actionable advice on a regular basis about how to build systems in your life to help you navigate productivity with a wellness lens. Turn out, this felt pretty limiting and intimidating. Limiting because it feels like a pretty small scope to write about and intimidating because I don’t feel like an expert of productivity or wellness and the whole idea of being an expert in the first place feels a bit… icky. Also, when it comes to the actionable advice bit, I’m starting to feel like everything doesn’t have to be broken down into actionable lists, I mean aren’t we already all drowning in lists of to dos and should dos? So the tone is going to shift and this newsletter is going to feel a lot more like a letter between friends that an instruction manual.

When it comes to the consistent basis bit… well that hasn’t been happening now has it. I love that this newsletter has gotten me to write more in general and now I’m writing on a daily-ish basis, whether that’s in my journals, working on my fictional book, or writing half-formed ideas for this newsletter. I was inspired by what Ali Abdaal shared in a July issue of his newsletter formerly called ‘Sunday Snippets’ and now called LifeNotes. He shared his friend Paul Millerd’s approach to consistency with his newsletter which is to “Write most days, publish most weeks”. Going forward, I’m hoping to do the same and publish most weeks but I’m not holding myself to a regular schedule. I hope we can all embrace the little bit of chaos introduced by my newsletter popping up in your inbox a bit more randomly going forward!

Lastly, I mentioned that the topic of productivity from a wellness lens felt limiting, so that isn’t going to be the only thing I write about anymore. After all, I’m not a brand or a media company so why am I acting like one? I’m interested in showing you more sides of myself; the other parts of me that make me the multidimensional person I am and (I hope) would make me a good guest at your future hypothetical party. I’m leaning into the idea of curiosity that is referenced in the title of this newsletter and let’s see where that takes us! Expect there to be a lot more variety in what I’ll be talking about going forward and I hope you enjoy it but no hard feelings if you skip an issue or unsubscribe completely. 💖 

I’m working on some fun new stuff to share with you next week-ish, I can’t wait!

xx Alex

PS. Let me know what you think of these changes, I’d love to hear your thoughts and make this newsletter more of a conversation between me and you.

PPS. Oh yeah, and go draw a flower!