Tag: productivity

Stop Procrastinating

Daily writing prompt
What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?
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There is irony here. Big time. I just got to work. Thanks to insane traffic I was a couple of minutes late. I’m caught up now though. I have a lot of stuff I want to plow through this morning, but here I am writing a blog post. Foreshadowing? Oh yeah. Big time.

One small improvement. Hmmm. Just one? I can think of a few. How about doing something to tweak the ol’ work ethic? How about we try to cut down on the procrastination. Work now, flake later, rather than the normal vice versa. I feel like that would go a long way toward making me feel like a better human, in the purely professional sense. I haven’t been missing any deadlines lately or anything that demands changes, but I also feel like there have been times when the nose should have been squarely on the grindstone and it hasn’t. Case in point… I am writing this now while I should be doing some paperwork. Ugh.

I should be more attentive to my wife’s needs. I should be quicker to help out with anything my kids need. I should be more attentive to my father and really just be there for him more than I am. That’s a big source of guilt for me. Anything related to my father is a source of guilt. Ugh, again. I’m trying. I am failing often, but I am trying. I should initiate talk with the kids more than I do too. Just send them each a text saying little things like you rule and I hope you’re kicking ass today. You know, little things.

Okay, stop procrastinating. Get back to work, Mr. Red Head. Get some stuff done.

The Best Time of Day

Daily writing prompt
When do you feel most productive?
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I’ve actually thought about this topic quite a bit in recent years. I may have even written a post or two before. The answer is, simply, that I used to know the answer but I don’t anymore.

In my younger days I was 100% a night person. Through high school and college (all the different times) and even into the start of my career in programming I did my best work at night. When we got to 8:00, 9:00, or even later, my brain would clear up in some weird way and everything became noticeably easier for me. Writing, working on math, reading comprehension and retention, analysis, writing music, playing music, it all worked better later at night. That was my time to do my best work. It was clear and obvious and it always worked for me.

Today? I still can do good work later at night, but is that when I am most productive? I think now it might be early in the morning. I had to change my daily routine after the gastric bypass surgery. I needed to start exercising every day and I needed to make sure I had breakfast, where for decades prior to surgery I rarely if ever ate breakfast, and that lead to my days starting earlier and earlier. Now I find that very early in the morning, we are talking sunrise early, I am able to get a lot done. First it was exercise, then it was exercise and just random things around the house, then I added guitar playing and writing and recording, and now I even sometimes will log into work a few hours early and get some things done.

It is a really odd feeling for me. I had about 50 years worth of feeling like a vegetable early in the morning and now I’m suddenly full of piss and vinegar* at the start of the day and I don’t know what to think of it. It also means I need to go to bed earlier in order to not be comatose by lunch time, which by extension means much of my usual best time of day is spent sleeping! What the hell is up with that, Robert?

So the answer to the question of the day is an honest I don’t know. Can a person have two most productive times of day? Or is it possible that my best time is slowly transitioning from the traditional time to a new time? I don’t know. If I ever figure it out, I’ll share the news with you all.

*I am pretty sure I have never used the phrase, “piss and vinegar” before. I don’t think I have ever spoken it or written it or really even thought it… and somehow using it here makes me feel like more of a senior citizen than I have ever felt prior. I am 10 days away from my 53rd birthday… is it possible that on some subconscious level I am totally buying into the idea of being a crusty, grumpy, old man? It very well could be!

Stomach Ache the Next Generation

Bad reactions to food on Sunday and Monday. Migraine on Tuesday. Bad stomach aches all day on Wednesday. Mostly okay except for a bad lunchtime food reaction on Thursday. What does the shit roulette wheel have for us on Friday?

Another stomach ache. But it feels different today. It’s not an oh I think I might be hungry kind of ache. Today it’s more like a you are disagreeing with something you ate last night kind of ache. Lots of gas, eating doesn’t help at all. I’ve had eight ounces of water, a protein bar, and a little protein snack. Still feeling it pretty much exactly the same as when I woke up.

Shit.

The good news though is that I have watched the season two premier of Yellowjackets. You know that show, the single most fucked up thing on television at this point in time? Yeah, that one. Great freakin’ show that is seriously disturbing while also really funny. No spoilers but the first episode was excellent and the last second reveal at the end… ewwww.

I checked the forecast for the weekend. Guess what’s not going to be out in the morning on either Saturday or Sunday. Go on, guess. You know it… the sun. No sunrise pics for me this week. It’s getting to the point where I might start taking this personally.

If we go to California in the fall, should I think about making a photo book for fun? Not like, oh I took a bunch of pictures so let’s throw the best ones into a book type of thing. More like planning out what I want to see in it and then trying to take pics that make it happen. Something like that. I’m sure I can get that done super cheap through Shutterfly or something. Maybe I can talk Jen into going up to the mountains a lot this summer and I could do something similar there. Just a thought. I like projects sometimes, you know? Like creative projects and stuff. I’m old, leave me alone.

The cats are in the cellar with me but they are avoiding me. I don’t think they like me very much. Sad face.

Unrelated productivity note: I am watching a youtube video of a guy using a folding camera from 1940 with a discontinued film format that expired in 1970. He’s in his home office talking about how he handled the ISO on the expired film and he’s standing in front of a white board that’s hanging on his wall. That’s super cool, of course. The stand out thing though, is that he has a Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator velcro’d onto the white board. Oh my god my nerd brain just exploded with how awesome that is! KaBoom!