Today is a day that will change my life forever. It's a culmination of a bunch of events that have happened to me over the past few years. And for all that is going wrong with the world on a macro level, my micro-world has been full of great things. But I'm getting ahead of myself. To tell you where things are and where they're going, I have to take you back…

Several years ago, things weren't going well in my life; it was a mess, and everything was stressful in all the wrong ways. Life needed to change. So, I started making changes to improve things for my family and myself. It was a difficult path,^[1] and something I thought I'd never recover from. Of course, those around me – specifically my family – would often remind me that things would get better with time; the pain that I was feeling and had been feeling would be temporary, and life would improve for me. At the time, I was in a deep dark hole and didn't know how life would get better.

But through patience and therapy, I started getting out of this hole and seeing how much of life was improving. As part of the coping and then healing process, I had buried myself in my work when I could while focusing on being a single father. And that effort with work started to bear fruit. I started to get recognized for my abilities and was given chances for more responsibilities that others in my position had not been offered. And recently, for the second time in a year-and-a-half, I have been promoted. I'm responsible for a lot, and I even have a new and exciting challenge at work ahead. Things with work couldn't be better.

And for the first time, my personal life is matching how great my work life is. Life has been amazing, and I'm in love. It may be a bit cliche to say, but it's a love that really is too deep for words; they simply would not do justice to describe the feelings we have for one another. I don't know that I could have asked for a more perfect person in my life. I'm still in awe of her on a daily basis. I cannot fathom how I've done anything to deserve her as a partner. She's the most amazing person I've known: she's beautiful, smart, compassionate, supportive. When we decided to move in together, we didn't know that the pandemic lockdown would be starting the next weekend. Throughout the pandemic, she's been a mother-like figure to my sons and met any of the challenges of life with poise and grace. Being together so much during this time has only cemented our love, and I knew the answer to a question before I even asked it at the end of last year.

Planning a wedding in the midst of a pandemic isn't ideal; in our situation, there are people from other countries that we would want to come celebrate with us. We decided to wait until near the end of 2022 to tie the knot with the support and company our family and friends. But the more we planned, the more we realized that we could not wait another day to marry each other. We still want the big event, but it feels right on so many levels to do something small first. So we decided to get married earlier than our original date in a small outdoor ceremony. Looking over the days that made the most sense, we chose to get married in March 2021. In fact, later today, we're getting married.

This is also significant because today is also my 40th birthday. If I'm being honest, I've never been a fan of my birthdays. I'm sure there's something in my past, but now that I'm old, I can't remember. But what I can remember is that it's just never been my thing. But this year, I'm making the exception. I'm getting the greatest present I could have ever asked for, and I'm starting a new chapter in my life. When today is said and done, I'm hers forever. My life is about to get even better. The best of my life is still yet to come.

This is 40…

Well, hello.

It is with heavy hearts (and overtaxed livers) that we tell you we just don't have it in us anymore to keep on going. It's time to take Fundamentally Broken out behind the woodshed and put it down humanely.

Go ahead now, turn away. You don't need to see this.

The past year or so since we last recorded has certainly had some ups and downs. It came a lot of new responsibilities for both of us at work, and frankly at home too. Our lives — like everyone else's — were disrupted beyond any rational comprehension, and we found we didn't have the bandwidth to get on and record conversations anymore. We still talk almost every day, and Tim often says "fuck, why aren't we recording this" and we laugh, but the honest truth is that we're just not interested in producing this type of content for an audience right now, and collectively we just don't have the time.

So we hatched a plan to keep the show alive in spite of the fact that we weren't going to keep doing it. Seth suggested we find a new home for it on the Internet Archive and Tim looked into it. The Internet Archive is something that the world desperately needs, and we always find delight when we head there. In fact, it's one of our annual donations because we believe in the mission and the people behind it.

We've created a page and the show will be available there from now on.^[1] It doesn't make sense to keep paying for podcast-specific accounts for a show we aren't doing, and this way, it's still available for the eleven people (looking at you, Japan) who might ever want to hear it, and it becomes a part of the great ocean that is the 1s and 0s of the past.

We'd personally like to thank everyone who did listen. Your feedback and enthusiasm was a constant surprise to us, and we really appreciated it. We started the show because we thought there might be a place for a simple, honest conversation about a lot of things that interested or troubled us, and the response we received was that we were right about that. It resonated with people, and that was encouraging.

But like in all things, time and life change who we are and what we do, and now we set this little ship ablaze and push it out to sea, gazing fondly as it floats further from us.

Maybe we'll do it again someday. Maybe we won't. That's the beauty of the future. You just never know.

~ Seth & Tim

I get asked often for what's on my Home Screen: what apps, what wallpaper, what layout. Now with iOS 14, I'm asked about my widget setup as well. I've shared some updates through posts and social media sporadically. A lot of my current setup is visually unchanged (except the wallpaper), but I wanted to cover the why of the Home Screen - where apps/widgets are placed, what stacks are being used, and now I'm using them together for a more streamlined, productive setup.

I'll state this now before we go further: I'm going to cover my iPhone Home Screen. The iPad inexplicably didn't get the same treatment, so the uses of the widgets there aren't the same. The multitasking aspects of the iPad don't lend it to the same use case as the iPhone, which I actually like: these are ever-diverging devices, both with their set use cases. Back to the iPhone…

I try to keep as few Home Screens as possible. I prefer the minimalist approach rather than having multiple pages to swipe through. On iOS 13 I kept 2 Home Screens: the main page – which was usually blank – with a 3-icon dock, and a second page of folders to house my apps. With iOS 14 and introduction of the App Library, I'm back down to a single Home Screen. I like that I can swipe to get to the Today view, or swipe to get to the App Library. Everything is a quick swipe away.

I've retained the 3-icon dock, because that's what looks right to me. I've used this time to experiment with a 4-icon dock, but it feels off. Call me neurotic, but that's just how I see it. As I said in my Drafts review for iOS 14, the use of a Drafts widget negates my need of the icon in my dock. So I now had to rethink how I use the dock. And with the change in iOS 14.3, which allows Home Screen shortcuts to be run without bouncing into the Shortcuts app and then to the app you wanted to be in, I decided to start putting apps at my fingertips.

I created two launcher-style shortcuts: these shortcuts present a menu of apps in compact UI; when one is selected, the shortcut kicks over to that app without going to Shortcuts first. I don't know that I would have done this before the change in 14.3, if I'm being honest. The icon on the left is for media and consumption apps; the icon on the right is for social and web-related apps. I am using icons provided in the echoes pack on Gumroad, which I've found to be aesthetically pleasing and matches my wallpaper (which I modified) as well. I like that I can tap the icons and go to multiple apps without having to slide over to the App Library: sure it's easy to do that, but I also avoid seeing the badges on app icons there and keeps me more focused during the day.

My widget layout has changed a little since the summer betas. I use 4 small widgets and one medium on the Home Screen, all with stacks and without Smart Rotate turned on. I placed the widgets in their respective locations based on use: it would never make sense to me that I put a Drafts widget all the way at the top when I access it all the time. So the order of importance always starts above the dock and works upwards. All of them have a specific function and different apps within; all of them contain one "blank" widget, which is from the app Clear Spaces – but more on why that is later. I think the best way to show you is to have the layout with the stacks and the titles of each, and then explain them.

Calendar: this stack has the calendar to see my next events, as well as a Castro widget to quickly access my queue. This is pretty much self explanatory.

Weather: I use Carrot Weather as my weather app because it's the best weather app for me. I have two different widgets: the first is forecast so that I can see the forecast for the day, and the second is a daily forecast so I can view 5 days of weather if I need to look at that quickly as well.

Task Management: I've been using Reminders more and more, thanks to some deep integrations with task assignment. It's not perfect, but it works. I've tried GoodTask and even used it for a while, but until Apple provides the tools to developers to fully tie into the full feature set, I'll be staying with Reminders. I have two Reminders widgets, one for the Today smart list and the other for my Grocery List. The remaining widget in there is for Drafts, which brings up my Work workspace where I keep my work tasks.

Health: I'm doing my best to be better, I really am. To help me improve, I'm using FoodNoms for food tracking, Fitbod for my workouts, monitoring my rings with Activity, and keeping my diet steady in a shared note with my girlfriend for our meal plan.

Productivity: I have 2 different Drafts widgets and 2 Shortcuts widgets. For Drafts, the first widget is for my workspaces and a few quick actions for adding tasks/drafts or searching. The second widget is a few of the same actions, but adds a few additional actions I use from the widget. I've been set on these for a while, but I have some plans to change them.^[1]

With all of the widgets, they center around an idea of having a clean Home Screen. It's something that I've always enjoyed. But I also like having a productive screen as well, and this method gives me the best of both worlds. In all of the widgets, Clear Spaces is at or near the center of the stack to allow for quick swiping up and down to get to a different layout. As I go through my day, I may change the app that's there to give me a visual cue to focus. I might keep my task manager on work rather than my personal when I need to focus up on work things. I might keep FoodNoms on the screen to make sure I'm keeping track of my food intake, but I'm a quick swipe away to my meal plan so I can know what's ahead for dinner. But as I get through different aspects of my day, I always swipe to the Clear Spaces widget in the stack to have a clear Home Screen, almost like checking off a task. When I'm done with that particular area of focus for the day, it can simply go away. And the next day, I wake up and swipe my widget back in like it's March 294th.

I'm sure that there will be changes over time, but I'm really happy with my current setup. Of course, there are a few apps that are missing from widgets that I'd love. I'm getting more into photography, and I'd love to see an app like Halide develop a widget to open the camera into different modes for quicker access. I wish I could have a task management app where I could check off the tasks from the widget itself, like the old Today widgets used to be. And I wish that Apple would allow for a 4x4 small widget for Shortcuts and Drafts so that I can have more combinations and possibilities. I'll remind myself that this is just the first iteration of this, but it's something that I still don't understand 6 months into this OS.

But for now, I'm using widgets and Home Screen shortcuts to have more power when I need it. And when I don't, I can simply swipe away widgets to create a clear space for my clear mind. I've been more mindful of my day, and I think this new Home Screen layout has something to do with it. It just might work for you too.

I'm sure all of you have been hearing the same thing: "We have to get used to a new normal." I myself have been hearing this a lot lately as well. Whether it's a global pandemic, social injustices, the attacks on media or science, or changes in our weather due to climate change, there's a lot of "new" out there to get used to.

I've thought about this a lot as I'm getting older: norms change all the time. Our "new normal" – current crises aside – is much different than our parents grew up with. Much different than I grew up with. In the last 20 years, there's been a rapid change in our daily lives for what we consider normal.

Twenty years ago, I was in college. That's back in the days of AOL and dial-up.^[1] Communication was starting to really take off as "instant", with instant messaging and cell phones. It was just at the precipice of it, and back then it was exciting to go through. Now, most of those same services we started with are gone and have been replaced by new things. And those new things are now old and established institutions within our social lives.

Think of where we are today: we have instant access to everything. We are a society that wants everything right now. We always want the new stuff. We want change immediately. We want justice immediately. And we are at quite a crossroads. The people who are making decisions – right, wrong, or indifferent – are by and large from a generation who didn't grow up with instant. They have been adapting to a new normal for a long time, yet still want to hold on to the older ideals they grew up with. I'm sure that you and I will be doing the same as we get older.

We as individuals can adapt to a new normal at our own pace. Society not so much. Society involves more people and moves slowly, which is not the world we as individuals expect to live in today. As we are all striving to return to what "normal" looks like, we need to realize that things are changing rapidly and that a normal or a new normal might not even be what we expect. I guess for now we move forward as the pandemic rages, and wait patiently for what life will be like on the other side.

Maybe take a break from things online. Take some time to figure out connecting to others in the safest way possible. Reflect on what we are all going through.^[2] Do your part to help others through this, whether it be checking in on people or doing the simplest thing that anyone could: wear a damn mask.

Every year, I hesitate on jumping on the betas. I worry about the bugs, the data loss, and all the ways it can screw with my devices. Then, inevitably, I end up jumping on them around beta 2 or 3. When the releases come out in the fall, I usually delete the beta profile and do an install with the release version. I follow the recommended steps for backing up, then just install the OS and carry on.

It's been a long time since I've done a clean install: no restoration from a backup, installing everything as new, letting the cloud services work to bring the data back to my devices on a per-app basis. This is a time-consuming process, and the main reason I haven't done it in so long. It might be all the way back to iOS 8 since I've done this. Those many, many years of little inconsistencies have lead to a lot of cruft, and I think this is the year to do wipe the slate clean.

Playing around with the iOS 14 beta so far, the App Library is a feature that hasn't been my favorite. It doesn't organize the apps in the categories which I would: I think that a banking app should be in finance, not in productivity. I think games should be a category, which include the Apple Arcade titles as well. I get they are pushing a brand, but unless you stay subscribed, that advertising will go away. The search aspect of it is great, but I can also use Spotlight search to find the apps I need.

But where it doesn't live up to my desires, it does deliver on supporting a clean install. I don't have to organize my Home Screen as I add apps one by one. I can hide pages and pages of apps, and organize my true Home Screen. This takes away a ton of pressure and mental overhead that I don't need to carry with me. It will make the process far easier for me than ever before. And in that way, the App Library is actually a welcome feature for me now. I wish that same feature would be there on the iPad, but perhaps there are more plans for that in the future.

This year is the perfect time to do a clean install. I can finally shed the years of issues without having to worry about the time and effort required to get back up and running. I'm all for clearing clutter and minimizing what things I have in my life. And this fall will be no different.