Mostly, I want to tighten up spending, hit the weights again, lower sugar and processed food consumption. Play less video games and read more quality fiction. Write more in my journal and a bit of fiction each day.
Career wise, I want to continue to challenge myself and learn new technologies-- even ones that seem difficult. I need to stay optimistic, and learn quickly, become more productive, without burning out. It's a fine line to walk.
This led me to take a break at the end of November. I have classes I'm planning to take in January. But so far the last few weeks have been nice forcing myself to _not_ look up tutorials or read articles on new tech stacks or project. I'd recommend it to anyone else who feels that weight of learning. Or anyone who may be trying to squeeze training into small segments of time. I guess I'd call it learning downtime.
Come January though, I'm jumping into self studied math (which I haven't studied since college), a bit of web dev (probably Rails), and a new language (maybe Russian).
If not possible, start with cold showers.
Your future self will thank you.
One September, I started to shower myself with cold water at least once a day.
It's been 4 years now and I haven't taken a single antibiotic since.
It also has a great mental effect - doing something a bit uncomfortable every single day makes it easier to do something else that's also uncomfortable.
Those two weeks of cold showers were some of the unhappiest in my life. The dread of standing naked in the shower with your hand on the knob. The involuntary spasmodic shivering when the jet of icy water hits your trunk. Panicked attempts to rinse off soap and shampoo that just don't want to foam in water that cold.
No. Never again. No.
The experience of cold water from a faucet is very different from the experience of a cold lake.
You cannot get submerged via a faucet.
You'll of course only get the lake experience in a lake. But you won't get the bathtub experience in a lake, either.
Rest: apply it to your life
Most days I do 20 mins first thing when I wake up. With 12 days, you could finish the beginner course if you do 1 session in the morning and one in the evening.
Both apps have free trials.
It sounds like you have a good opportunity to pause and reflect on your life and do what you mentioned in the OP: reading, running, and exploring the area.