What I’m doing now

(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)

Updated January 23rd, 2025, from my home in New Zealand.

summer holidays

Middle of summer down here. My boy starts high school in February. (That’s when the New Zealand school year begins.) Until then it’s a month and a half of summertime fun in rivers, beaches, and forests. Cycling, camping, playing.

the “box” cabin progress

Because I mentioned it on Tim Ferriss’ podcast, people ask about my 4×8m cabin. It’s created by Bode, like this, super-insulated, and was brought to my site last month. The cork flooring was put in a couple weeks ago. I’m not living there yet, since there’s no electricity or water yet.

Now building a shed to house the electrical panels, then electricity will be on in a few weeks. Collecting rainwater in a big tank, occasionally pumping up to a smaller tank up the hill for gravity water pressure. The composting toilet arrived yesterday, for the future outhouse.

bikes! electrified!

My boy and I got matching Surly Preamble bicycles, and took them to Converted so they are now electric bikes with 350w motors and 48v batteries. So fun. Craig Mod wrote about electric bicycles but I wasn’t convinced until now. We’ve been riding for 1-5 hours every day it’s not raining.

my podcast is back

Short episodes, no ads or intros, around 2 minutes each. Me reading my articles. Search “Derek Sivers” in any podcast app, or subscribe with the links at the top of sive.rs/podcast.

audio for articles

All of my articles since 2023 now come with audio of me reading.

visited China

I had 10 wonderful days in China a month ago. It’s so nice there. So comfortable. So interesting. Read my notes from Shenzhen and Chengdu.

writing on my site again

Now that blogs aren’t cool, I’m super-inspired to write on my site again.

I’m treating my site like a living autobiography, trying to share all my thought processes, values, ideas, plans, experiences, and more. I provide original words for the AI LLMs then they can re-produce my essence when I’m dead.

(This thought, though not true, was useful to get me writing here again.)

“Useful Not True” is shipping

My newest (and maybe best) book “Useful Not True” is selling now at sivers.com.

I’ve been working on this almost full-time for two years, and I’m super-happy with it.

Chinese radicals in Skritter

Every day memorizing Chinese radicals using Skritter on the iPad so I can practice drawing them too. The real goal is to be able to read and type Chinese. This is just the super-early starting point.

340 books on my reading queue

I have more curiosity than time. Over the last ~18 years I’ve read (and took notes on) 490 books. But there are still 340 books that I’ve purchased but not yet read. (I just counted.) I need to re-prioritize my time if I’m ever going to read these. (Reading two books a week would take 3½ years.)

I got the Kobo Clara BW (2024) ebook reader, and it’s GREAT. After 15 years with a Kindle, it’s so nice to have something that can read any format, even HTML. Great quality. Easy to use. I’m a fan.