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12/25 Minimal Monthly β The Vacation Paradox
Published 20 days agoΒ β’Β 2 min read
December 2025
Minimal Monthly
Hello, hello!
I'm writing this from vacation, my first proper break in over two years. And here's the weird part: the first five days were kinda miserable. I felt more stressed than when I was working! Restless. Guilty. Totally unable to relax. And then, of course, I got sick.
It wasn't until day six that something shifted. I finally started to actually unwind.
Turns out this is completely normal. Research has shown it takes about eight days for people to fully let go of work stress and responsibilities. Your body literally needs time to downshift from fight-or-flight mode. Some people, like me, get sick in those first few days because their cortisol levels finally drop and their overworked immune system catches up.
So if you've ever felt guilty about wasting the first part of your vacation feeling anxious instead of calm, you're not broken. You probably just need more than a long weekend to actually decompress...
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Mixed Bag 'o Links
A little roundup of fun things that caught my eye across the web this month:
You might know Allan Carr's famous book on how to quit smoking, but one Redditor found it surprisingly similar to kicking a different habit: phone addiction!
"Size of Life" is an absolutely beautiful, interactive scroll through the scale of living things, from an amoeba to a blue whale. The most impressive part is that all the illustrations were hand-drawn, no AI involved.
If you do want to see some top-tier AI, Google Lab's experimental Mixboard is a nifty tool for visually exploring and refining ideas, and it can now turn your concept boards into presentations with a single click. A must-try if you're a visual thinker or if you need something more interactive than Pinterest to collect ideas.
Call me strange, but this is one of my fave videos of the whole year: a humanoid robot sorting parcels for a solid hour. Itβs monotonous, weirdly hypnotic, and the brainfarts the robot occasionally has are riveting. I watched the entire 60 minutes. I'm not even kidding. π
Marshall Haas sold his startup for $52M and poured that success into building his dream home. This video tour of the interior is stunning and really leaves nothing to be desired. A bit of house envy never hurt anyone, huh.
Moving soon? Ton of boxes in the cellar? The Hoardo app might be the solution to the "what's in this box again?" nightmare. It lets you scan and track exactly where you've packed your stuff, so you can find it later. Cool app idea from a vibe coder, and 100% free.
This Insta video on the Japanese art of gift wrapping shows the philosophy of tsutsumi: wrapping with care and intention. π
And finally, a "life hack" for the modern age: how to get rid of your old TV effortlessly. The trick involves the box from your new TV and the reliability of local package thieves. π€¦π»ββοΈ
Wishing you a very Happy New Year! See you in 2026 β¨
Thank you for reading. If you have any comments, feedback, or would like to be featured in an upcoming issue, hit reply and drop me a line.
Influencers took the concept of a minimalist lifestyle mainstream. Then it started feeling elitist. Now it's evolving into something more flexible and personal.
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