More/Less

And a newsletter update

Happy Wednesday!

There are some new subscribers here to The Best of Intentions and I wanted to say thank you for stopping by, and hitting subscribe.

And to everyone, welcome! I hope that you enjoy today’s post 🤩

Sarah xx

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I came across this more/less list a couple of years ago, when a friend shared their list with me. More recently, Emma Straub did her own here.

While it feels like this is the type of thing to complete in a new year resolution-y way, January was a weird month as I was ill for most of it. And thinking about a list related to more/less is something that I can see myself referring back to, unlike a list of resolutions.

Plus, I am a big fan of lists.

If you enjoy this piece, or also love making a list, let me know - what you would add to your more/less lists?

Photo by Thomas Bormans on Unsplash

More

• Reading

• Filling my cup after periods of socialising

• Silence

• Creative writing

• Music

• Photography

• Cooking

• Exercise and appropriate rest

• Spending time with loved ones

• Saying no to things that I don’t want to do

• Saying yes to things that I do want to do

• Henry Cavill (should I go and see Argylle? Some of the reviews have been mixed…)

Less

• Alcohol

• ‘Shoulding’ over myself

• Judgement of myself and of others

• Overthinking/procrastinating

• News scrolling

• Facebook

• Time on my phone generally

• Time with/thinking about people who drain my energy

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Housekeeping

And now for a newsletter update that relates to the theme of more/less.

My original intention for this week’s post was writing about writing, and a bit about how Substack and newsletters fit in with my writing. A topic that had been on my mind for a while. So, I wrote a lot of words and threw spaghetti at the wall.

I then left the post to rest for a few days, while I worked on some other projects.

However, when I returned to the original post, a few things didn’t sit right, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what. My gut was telling me that it needed to rest for a little longer, and so I am planning to post this next week.

Yet, this decision did get me thinking about writing, Substack and newsletters, but in a different way to the original post that I had in mind.

I am a massive over-thinker (see above), and I am my own worst critic in terms of judging/critiquing my writing (also see above). I believe that some of this stems from working in academia, where I have been trained to think and write in a particular way.

Therefore, I have decided to try and prioritise a little less overthinking and critiquing my writing in terms of my posts.

So what does this mean for this newsletter?

When I first started writing here, I saw it a bit like a notebook, where I could write essays, tell stories, and have a bit of fun with writing. Then I started overthinking a whole bunch of stuff, details of which I will share in another post. But the long and short of it is that I want to return to the fun!

My intention is to continue to post regularly, but I plan to include some posts about other things such as some of my photography, creative writing, and stuff that I have been enjoying.

I am perhaps overthinking things in my desire to make some sort of announcement to you about this. I mean, it’s not like I am radically changing the direction of this newsletter!

But then, old habits die hard, right?