Field Notes 6 // Christmas, reflection, and bowling

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Happy new year!

Christmas is a special time for the obvious reasons, but also because it’s the only period you’re off work at the same time as everybody else. Inboxes are silent and there’s no worry about what’s going on in the office without you. For a couple of weeks, you can live one life instead of two, relax, and reflect.

I wound up at the bowling alley a couple of times in December. It wasn’t planned, but I enjoyed it more than I expected. Bowling is an “easy to play, hard to master” game, and fitting with the theme of focus and reflection, is fast-flowing enough that nobody has a chance to look at their smartphone. Even in a modern alley, this lends it a delightfully old-school feel, and the sound of clattering pins is one of the most satisfying out there.

I’ve decided I’d like to consume more long-form creative media in 2026. Pluribus and business books are fine, but something about a great movie or novel especially appeals to me. I realised this when I watched two classics in a day - Home Alone and Die Hard. They’re not haughty, artistic films, but they do have very tight scripts where every line is simultaneously full of character and connected to the plot. The mood of these films evokes a feeling I can only describe as “openness” - they serve as a reminder that there are infinite possibilities out there, and most people really do want the good guys to win. It sounds cheesy, but you walk away on the same frequency as the world, feeling the common thread connecting us despite modern life’s challenges.

When that mood flashes by, it changes how I see my own writing. Most tech articles are disposable - something new happens on an hourly basis, trends change, and things get dated. But I’ve lived through a few decades of tech progress, and looking back, the best tech writing has that same tightness. Every sentence earns its place, and the broader themes have that same human connection. That’s a place I’d like to reach with my own articles.

Enjoy the journey – if you find joy in the attempt, your happiness won't rest on the outcome

I spent time this break going through my 2025 notebooks - full of quotes, thoughts, and half-formed ideas jotted down from articles and podcasts - looking for patterns. I’ll pull together a blog post soon, but one lesson that instantly stood out is that it’s necessary to enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Much like I found with bowling, you must thrive on the process of iteration, honing your technique a little each time. If you find joy in the attempt itself, your happiness won’t rest on the outcome or the final score.

In that spirit, I’d like to take my blog (and the Field Notes newsletter) more seriously. This means more regular writing and stronger promotion. I’m not fussed about numbers (this isn’t my day job) - but I want to publish high-quality writing on the site, and it would be nice to build a small readership of engaged, like-minded people to discuss ideas and gather feedback.

I hope everybody has had a similarly relaxing and reflective period and is embarking on an adventure they’re excited about in 2026. In case you lack the motivation to get out there and do things, or you’re sitting on the fence about whether to chase a dream, I’ll leave you with a quote I encountered in December that inspired some of my thinking about the new year. It’s from Steve Jobs’ final months, lifted from Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Things that left an impression

• I finally read the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. I was only 14 years late to the party. It’s a fantastic book, and what really shines through is Jobs’ inspirational dedication to building quality products at Apple over simply making money.

• Naval Ravikant returned with a new episode of his sporadic podcast with some largely practical advice on hiring and building a strong team to do difficult things. Some of his advice around finding and retaining “A players” echoes that of the late Steve Jobs.

• Thomas Ptacek wrote a brilliant blog post that demystifies AI agents by breaking them down to their bare bones and reconstructing them, beginning with the simplest possible agent and getting progressively more complex, with tips on hurdles like managing context windows.

• James Dyson had a wide-ranging conversation on the David Senra podcast, but most interesting were his thoughts on hiring. It can be worthwhile to hire young recruits, he said, because they join with fresh minds, while experienced hires with more expertise can also bring along bad habits from their previous companies.

• I read Alchemy by marketing visionary Rory Sutherland late last year. It’s a book on the unconventional, explaining how the modern world’s obsession with data reduces every problem to numbers and excludes the complexities of human psychology. There is still room, he argues, for intuition, innovation, and general weirdness.

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