About

A field guide to keeping less and noticing more.

Niksen is a quiet, unhurried journal about minimalism, herbalism, and the practice of being present — one small experiment at a time.

niksen, Dutch — doing nothing, on purpose.

the windowsill, late afternoon

I work in tech. For years my job was, more or less, to add things — features, meetings, notifications, urgency — and I was good at it. It also moved at a speed I never quite chose, and somewhere in the hum of it I stopped noticing my own days.

The turn came the winter I could no longer name what I'd done with my week. So I started subtracting: first the possessions, then the commitments, then the constant low hum of half-attention. What grew back in the space was small and green — a windowsill of herbs, a habit of noticing, a slower relationship with time. Some of it has felt like healing, the inward kind that doesn't announce itself.

This blog is where I keep the notes: what I've let go of, what I've planted, and what paying attention has taught me about which things are actually worth keeping. Nothing here is prescriptive, and there's no name on it on purpose — it's just one person's field guide to a lighter, calmer life, offered in case any of it is useful to yours.

What you'll find here

Minimalism Notes on owning less — what I've let go of, what stayed, and the quiet math of enough.
Herbalism A beginner's windowsill: growing, drying, and brewing simple herbs, one forgiving plant at a time.
Living in the moment Small experiments in attention — leaving the phone behind, doing one thing, noticing the light.