It's a tool, not a life
Getting my time back
Highly Enthused is a newsletter, once a podcast, concerning all the best things to consume in life. It’s written twice per month by Sophie McComas-Williams and Sophie Roberts, and today’s dispatch is written by SoRo! The majority of each newsletter is free, but there are five extra recs in each for paid subscribers. That’s often where the gold nuggets lie. Thanks for being here!
The theme for 2025 so far seems to be “everything all at once”. Holidays! Weddings! Work projects! Torrential rain! I keep trying to catch my breathe.
Luckily Japan felt like a long exhale. Two glorious weeks of onsen hopping, sashimi, standing sake bars, volcanic grasslands, two person karaoke sessions, snow in Tokyo, hidden pottery towns, ancient kilns and early cherry blossoms. We fell in love with Kyushu, the island all the way at the bottom of Japan, it’s main city Fukuoka closer to Busan than Tokyo. An island that has 50% of Japans hot springs, multiple active volcanos, incredible seafood, and the loveliest people. I enjoyed it so much I’d happily do the exact same trip again. I’ll write up a bonus newsletter with our highlights soon.
Now I’m home I’m treating April (my birthday month) as a mini fresh start. Working on some new years resolutions (more below) and trying to reset the tempo for the year. Wish me luck on that one.
When we got back from our trip, I was so glad to be cooking again and I was ready for some different flavours. I had some chicken legs in the freezer and so I flicked through a few of my cookbooks, eventually deciding on the Chicken Musakahn in Falastin. Honestly this cookbook just gives and gives. The chicken is so easy - the spice mix is insanely good and it’s so quick to put together. There’s no marinating time and it cooks in the oven in 30 minutes or so. While it’s in there you’ve got time to cook down a pile of red onions til they’re sweet and caramelised, toast a handful of pine nuts and roughly chop some parsley. The recipe calls for it to be served on a pile of crisped up flatbreads - the juices from the chicken soften them so you can pick up pieces of the chicken and the onions and scoop them into your mouth. (I had to go without the flatbreads, but my fellow diners seemed to really enjoy them). If the onions seem like too much of a faff for a weeknight, just make the chicken and serve it with a chopped salad and the flatbreads. It’d still be delicious!
I’ve been wanting to tell you guys about Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley since last August when I got sent a proof, but there was still so long before it came out. It’s officially published in Australia this week though, so it finally felt like time! (Full disclosure - Jess is a friend, so I am biased!)
The book is a “literary love story”, set in East London over the course of a decade. It follows Coralie, a young Australian woman who moved to get away from a bad situation at home, as she meets, falls in love with, and builds a life with Adam, a charming British journalist. So far, so simple, but what I love about Jess’ work is how she really situates it in the political reality of the time. We’re always swimming in it in our real lives, but so often the characters in the books we read seem to be in a completely alternate reality where no one doomscrolls the news or has opinions about Brexit.
Beyond just capturing the political texture of the last few years, the book also explores identity, and how love and family and work change us for better and for worse. It’s also funny, and littered with the kind of literary references designed in a lab to make me happy (The Cazalets!).
I’m going to be in conversation with Jess at Better Read than Dead on the 29th of April (my birthday!). Tickets are just $5 - or $40 including a copy of the book. Come along and watch Jess and I deep dive into the book, and if you do make sure you come say hi!
For the past 4ish years, I have had a crippling phone addiction. Like my screen time was so bad that I’d read articles by journalists ‘confessing’ to how bad their screen time was, and I’d be like..my screen time is significantly worse than that. It’s been a New Years resolution every year for the past 4 years, but even though it makes me feel terrible, makes me feel like I’m wasting my life - I just couldn’t seem to change it.
Then the other week at work a colleague casually mentioned the Opal app, and said it was the only thing that she and her teenage son had found had helped to limit their phone usage and I downloaded it on a whim.
When you first download it, you complete a quiz including your current screen time and your age, and then they calculate an estimate of how many YEARS of your life you’ll be staring at your phone for if you keep going the way you’re going. Guys, I felt sick to my stomach. Literally physically ill.
The app itself is fairly simple - you set recurring or one-off blocks (of varying severity) on key apps for set periods of time, and the app monitors your usage and shows you how much focus time you had vs how much distracted time per hour. I’ve had apps to lock me out of my social media before, but there’s something about this one that has really worked. (Maybe it was just the horrifying number I saw on the screen, but whatever I’m going with it.) I’ve cut my screen time by almost two thirds. I started and finished two books last week. I spent three hours with Andrew organising our record collection and didn’t pick my phone up once. My new mantra is “my phone is a tool, not a life”. Join me here on the other side. (Use my referral code for 30 days free - HYSWM)
A quick-fire rundown of the miscellaneous finds we’ve loved this month. In this edition: sparkling tea, a classic film for Friday night, Korean lipgloss, a taste of the old internet, and a current potato obsession.