Playing in sandbox mode
A little hack for gaining yourself a "bonus year"
I’m writing this on the train back from Paris to Berlin after a very hectic week, watching the countryside blur past, and thinking about my experiment to treat the last few months of the year completely differently than I normally do.
For me, December is usually like hitting “pause” in a video game. I stop doing, start planning, and wait to hit “play” again in January. There’s nothing wrong with that, but this year I tried a little hack my girlfriend uses for running her own business.
She calls it the bonus year.
Instead of hitting pause, it lets you switch to sandbox mode.
The bonus year (aka sandbox mode)
In November, she reviews the year, decides the main story arc is complete and tells herself: you’ve done enough.
From that moment, everything until January becomes a bonus level. Low-stakes time to try things without pressure. She picks one or two things from her “next year” list and does the smallest, scrappiest versions of them until the end of the year.
Because it’s sandbox mode, nothing’s at stake. It’s all extra XP and a chance to play around. Hence the name. It’s like having a little bonus year tacked on at the end.
This year I tried it myself.
My bonus year side-quests
Side Quest 1: Video podcast - I’ve been wanting to add video for months and kept planning to start “properly” next year. A few weeks back, I treated it as a bonus year experiment instead. I shipped a tiny solo video in a day just to figure out the mechanics. It wasn’t perfect, but it let me play around with the setup and gave me confidence to record several video episodes ahead of next year that I’m genuinely excited to release.
Side Quest 2: Paid subscriptions - Another “maybe next year” item that I decided to try now and see how it felt, rather than letting it sit on a list for later (or never doing it). The result was a handful of very lovely readers and friends upgrading to paid subscriptions!
Both experiments felt frictionless because I’d removed all the pressure. I was just playing around in bonus time.
Your own bonus year can start right now
Today is December 12th, which means there are roughly two and a half weeks left of 2025. More than enough time for a little bonus year.
If you have something on your “next year” list, consider this your friendly nudge to switch to sandbox mode and play around with the simplest, scrappiest version of it right now.
Good stuff this week
On account of all the gallivanting around Paris this week, I haven’t had much reading time, so this will be short:
Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog, from Escaping Flatland, one of my favourite newsletters from the wonderful Henrik Karlsson.
Caitie Delaney made me want to go find a retro calendar for 2026:
I'm thinking about my side quests right now, and sometimes I feel lost. I liked the idea of just going for it.
Love this!