Tiny Experiments Overview

I got the inspiration for tiny experiments from Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s book Tiny Experiments . There is a lot more than just tiny experiments in the book, and I strongly recommend reading the whole thing.

The appeal of a tiny experiment rather than a goal for me is that it comes from a place of curiosity - a “maybe” or a hypothesis. There is no failure in a tiny experiment. Only learning.

The basic format of a tiny experiment is distilled down to:
I will [action] for [duration].

The book refers to this as a pact.

Time blocking was my go-to method for getting through my to-dos when I was working. It served me well, but now that I am retired, have fewer small, separate pieces of work and more control over my day, it is feeling a bit too restrictive. I do still want some structure to my days, and I have a number of projects that I want to complete this year.

I have learned a lot from looking at other people’s working hardware and software, and I wish I’d started recording mine years ago. However, in the spirit of “the second best time to plant a tree…” this is my current hardware and software stack as of June 2026.

TL;DR: Long time Windows user trying an alternative to Windows 10 on hardware that Windows 11 won’t support. Part 1 covered why and how the install was done and Mint tweaks on initial load. This post looks at initial impressions, basic software replacements, lessons learnt and next steps.

I am probably over the top in wanting to keep a close eye on our finances. They are slightly more complex than the norm as I follow a modified version of the barefoot investor “buckets” system, we have a hobby business, and a loan to a family member that we are tracking. Until recently this was managed through separate spreadsheets. This was OK, but when we needed to find out our annual expenditure for pension forecasting, getting to the number was time-consuming. We are moving into retirement now and may need to look more closely at expenditure in various areas. I wanted a better way to look at this.