I’ve discussed time before and how I’ve been making changes in my life, to reduce distractions and improve my productivity. But it has come to my attention that that is not the only area I am weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Now, this isn’t to say I will be abandoning what I said. But I’ve had several warnings over the years about my treatment of my friends. And I think I need to actually fix that. I want to be a good friend, not a bad one, and that requires adjustments currently regarding my own life.
I have been a ‘late bloomer’ much of my life, via the standard “Gifted kid to underachiever” pipeline. (Not to say I’m not still gifted. Put me back in a room full of third graders and I’ll annihilate them all again!) There’s a saying that life begins at 40…but how about for once, I get started on something EARLY?
The pressure on this has been building a while, and I’ve not been blind that I needed to improvement, but the actual follow through on that left much to be desired. And while the lesson was there…a lesson cannot be learned if you aren’t willing to accept it.
But now that I am, I’m going to be making some changes. How that looks, I’m not sure yet. I’ve been trying new task tracking systems. Habitica helped a lot in the past, but the website has stagnated for years in features and at some point my task list got so large it was itself inducing decision paralysis. So I’m going to be moving to new systems for tracking at least some stuff in better methods, and trying to have some accountability buddies. Sandy got me into Finch a few weeks ago.
Other things I’m going to work on are better defined rules and plans for my time. Not to the minute, but broader ideas, and decision helping, and prioritization. And external help or suggestions will be appreciated, for sure, but a lot of this is just…going to be making some hard choices. Reducing ‘junk food’ social interactions for publicity and focusing more on what I want to do, and devoting more time to those closest to me.
So there’s going to be a top-to-bottom analysis of things. What I do. How I spend my time. Ways to reduce distractions, improve efficiency or focus, or segment workflows more discretely. Ways to not wander off to fritter time away in random chats. Stop looking at social media.
Not that this will be easy. There will inevitably be some harder choices as this goes on in various ways. I know what I’m setting in stone as future commitments…but some things will inevitably have to go. But this change needs to happen because now that I’m at a good spot in my life with regards to creativity, time, and work…I want to produce, do things I can show off, not keep them in my mind palace.
And this is the perfect moment this year to make this commitment, the moment of the (northern hemisphere) winter solstice. So this is my commitment to banish the darkness in my own life.
We’ll check back how I did sometime next summer. Hopefully, at 0225 local on June 21st.
If you might have ideas on how I best achieve this, let me know by sending a message to blogsquawk[AT]vershaft.com