I'm back and here's how this blog will move forward
2025-04-12
Oh boy, it has been quite some time since my last article and this certainly wasn't how it wanted it to go, but I'm back now and that's what matters. So, let's talk a bit about what happened in the last few months, why I was really struggling (if not to say failing) to publish my weekly articles and how I will move forward with this blog...
First and foremost, I'm glad to say that nothing terribly bad happened during my absence and that I'm alright. What did happen though, was that I had my first exams in university, was searching for a new apartment in Stuttgart and was quite actively dating - all of which combined consumed almost all of my available time and rightly had a higher priority than publishing weekly articles on the internet nobody reads, even though I really enjoy writing this blog. Luckily enough, I succeeded at almost all of them and should (hopefully) have a bit more spare time in the foreseeable future to continue with my blog. Looking back, I also have to admit that stacking these three already individually time-consuming phases onto each other wasn't a good idea and I might have overestimated my ability to do everything everywhere all at once - leading to a continues feeling of being stressed out.
But let's talk a bit more about each of these three aspects individually, before examining my future plans. As for the university exams and their preparation, I can confidently say that this was the most stressful and challenging time of my life so far - just from this aspect alone, writing my Abitur was like kindergarten compared to this. Don't get me wrong, the main challenge wasn't that every course on its own was super challenging - in fact, most of them were quite manageable -, but that I had to prepare for 7 exams at once while still going to university and continuously learning new concepts, all of which were also relevant for the exams. This means that besides the roughly 35 hours in university each week, I also had to basically spend all of my available spare time learning and preparing for the exams. Granted, I was willing to do this from the get-go and created a studying schedule ahead of time, but what I didn't expect was the feeling that even the planned 120 hours of preparation aren't enough and I will properly barely pass my exams. Luckily, this feeling didn't turn out to be correct and most of them went pretty well, but not having written a university exam before I really wasn't sure about their difficulty (turns out they are doable, just not in the time provided and thus you really have to pick the exercises you're most comfortable with and can work through the fastest). What I ended up doing was learning even beyond my planned schedule and thus having to sacrifice sleep and social interactions in order to keep up with everyday life (at least I didn't skip my physical exercise unlike some peers). And this is the only thing I'm really regretting - sacrificing on non-negotiable aspects of a healthy life (sleep, sport, social time and rest in general). Thankfully, I now have a better understanding of what my next exams will be like, will start preparing even earlier (basically from the start of the next semester) and won't compromise the abovementioned hard requirements of my body and soul for university. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very willing to spend almost all of my free time studying, but nothing more than that - if I'm not able to get along with this, I'm also not willing to and have to look for something else, that's clear to me know.
As for my housing and personal relationship situation, I don't want to go into too much detail, but I still have some general thoughts I would like to get out of my head. I'm currently living in a student hall of residence offered by my employer, which certainly was the right decision to just be on site and especially connect to a lot of people in the beginning, but isn't good for my long-term happiness and mental state due to the rather limited space I have, a lot of small inconveniences and the rather remote location making long train travel necessary for everyday life. Thus, I rather quickly made the decision to search for a new, bigger and brighter apartment together with a colleague, but I didn't expect the housing market in Stuttgart to be so fucked up. Everything basically runs via an online platform called ImmoScout24 and in order to even remotely have a chance to be invited to view an apartment (not even to mention to get one) you have to subscribe to their paid service so that your application shows up on top of the message list. Convincing a landlord to rent their property to two students is never easy of course, but a lot of them beautifying the key data (like size) of their offerings doesn't make it easier. Nonetheless, after over 100 inquiries and at least 10 tours, we managed to get a really nice one offered by a friendly family living next door starting June 1st. This means that over the next 3 months we'll move and have to arrange our new apartment - so stay tuned for some content about that. In terms of dating, I can also confirm that it is a fucked up "market" running either via sketchy dating apps like Tinder or Bumble (Hinge is quite acceptable in my experience) or asking out strangers you casually meet. I wasn't able to find the right girl yet, but am confident that I will find her at some point. One thing I certainly learned is that I enjoy meeting in person much more than endlessly texting beforehand - this way you can get an idea of the person much faster and thus save your efforts for someone whose worth it.
So what have I learned from all of this and how will this blog move on? Well, first and foremost I noticed that even my abilities and stress resistance aren't endless - there's a set limit to how many things I can do and thus in the future I will focus on one life-changing project at a time. This means that especially during the semester, I just don't have the resources to start another personal project, have to distribute my energy responsibly and draw a clear border around my non-negotiable habits (exercise, social time, sleep). Luckily, the housing situation is about to get resolved and I'm much now more relaxed about both my performance in university as well as relationship situation - all of which should make the next semester more manageable. As for my blog, I'm absolutely continuing to frequently write new posts, but want to give myself the room to only do things I truly stand behind. This means I'm not going to force myself to write weekly articles even though I don't really have something to say, but instead will only publish new articles when something truly resonates with me and I feel like others can benefit from me sharing my experiences. This also means that in the future I won't only write about technology and productivity, but instead about everything that I'm currently interested in or that matters to me - so stay tuned! As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments down below and have a lovely day...