What Jamie gets up to outside of work

Work Is Only Part Of The Picture

If you spend enough time online, it is easy to look like a person is made entirely of output.

Posts, projects, opinions, shipping notes, comments, updates.

But that is never the full thing.

Outside work, I am mostly interested in the kinds of routines that put me back in proportion again. Nothing especially dramatic. Usually the opposite.

Walking. Looking. Reading. Watching something good. Getting out of my own head. Letting the day slow down enough that it stops sounding like a dashboard.

I Walk A Lot

Walking is probably the most consistent answer.

I like walking through towns, quieter streets, edges of parks, older parts of places, anywhere the built environment still reveals how people actually use it. I notice shopfronts, lettering, broken wayfinding, odd little workarounds in public space, benches in the wrong place, signs that are somehow both over-designed and unhelpful.

That may sound suspiciously like work in disguise, but it does not feel like work. It feels like paying attention without needing to turn everything into a task.

Good walks make my brain less noisy.

I Like Ordinary British Rituals More Than Grand Ones

I am not especially interested in turning leisure into a performance.

I like the ordinary stuff:

• a decent cup of tea when the weather turns
• a wander round a bookshop or charity shop
• a train ride with no real need to fill every minute
• a supermarket detour that somehow becomes a full reset
• a Sunday that stays slightly under-planned on purpose

There is something very British about making a whole emotional recovery out of weather, tea and being left alone for an hour, and I think that is basically sound.

Films, Writing And The Things People Make Carefully

When I am not working, I still end up drawn to things that have been made with care.

Films are part of that. So are essays, interviews, strange corners of design history, good album sequencing, old interfaces, cover art, title cards, transit maps and books that sound calmer than the internet.

I do not always consume those things with a professional lens. Sometimes I just like seeing what careful people do when they are trying to make something hold together properly.

That is restorative in its own right.

I Try To Keep Some Space That Is Not For Posting

One thing I have become more protective of is keeping parts of life from becoming instant content.

Not because everything needs to be secret, but because some experiences become flatter the moment you start packaging them while they are still happening.

A walk is different if half your attention has already drifted toward how it might look online later.

A conversation is different if you are quietly editing it into a future anecdote.

So part of what I do outside work is maintain a bit of distance from that impulse. I still notice things. I still make notes. But I do not think every useful moment needs to become public immediately.

The Best Reset Is Usually Smaller Than People Think

I think a lot of people imagine balance as a dramatic change of state.

For me it is usually smaller than that.

It is:

• stepping away before my head turns brittle
• choosing a quieter evening over another hour of noise
• reading something that does not ask me to react
• walking without trying to optimise the walk
• letting boredom exist long enough to turn into thought

Those things sound modest because they are modest. That is why they work.

Outside Life Helps Me Recognise What Matters In Work

Oddly enough, getting away from work is often what helps me do the work better.

It reminds me that most people do not experience the world as a set of production systems. They are trying to get through a day, make a choice, understand a page, trust a message, protect their time, and not be overwhelmed by badly designed friction.

If I lose touch with that, the work gets worse.

So the things I do outside work are not separate from the values underneath the work. They just keep those values human.

I Am Trying To Build A Life That Is Not All Interface

I spend a lot of time in digital spaces, which means I have to care quite deliberately about not becoming entirely shaped by them.

That is probably the simplest way to answer the question.

Outside of work, I am trying to keep a life that still includes weather, place, silence, films, streets, books, tea, half-formed ideas and enough unproductive-looking time for my attention to come back properly.

That feels less impressive than constant output.

It also feels more real.