Thirty days without sprint boards feels both liberating and disorienting. The first month of sabbatical life became an exercise in clearing space, rebuilding routines, and mapping the next chapter in Otaru, Japan.
Week 1 — Clearing Commitments
I handed back my badge, archived the recurring meetings that no longer applied, and built a personal operations review to replace the corporate calendar. Mornings shifted from Slack triage to longer journaling sessions that surfaced where my energy actually wanted to go.
Week 2 — Testing Local Range
Day trips to Bowen Island and Whistler doubled as system tests: could I work from a backpack, capture field notes quickly, and reset without the usual urban noise? The answer was yes, which nudged me to catalogue what a longer Asia stint would require.
Week 3 — Rebuilding Practice
Meditation moved from ten-minute app timers to thirty-minute sits with a sangha in East Vancouver. Afternoons alternated between yoga classes and writing drills. I reopened my Mandarin notebooks and sketched a curriculum that pairs language study with research topics.
Week 4 — Scouting Otaru, Japan
Instead of booking flights, I drafted a scouting brief: month-to-month rentals near the harbor, train links back to Sapporo, coworking spaces with evening access, and winter routines that keep creative work moving. I’m testing a “three active projects” rule—one technical skill, one research question, one travel experiment—so the sabbatical stays focused without becoming rigid.
The through-line is simple: stay curious, stay moving, and document each iteration so future-me can see how the experiment evolves.