1. Blogging, with wallet status/plan/code due Tuesday: 1h/day = 7h
2. #trilema + blogs reading + participation: 2h/day = 14h
3. Investigate undelivered pingbacks (from last week): 1h and no later than Wednesday
4. Wallet development: 15h total, deadlines TBD
5. Training development + delivery: 20h
Making for another packed schedule of 57h; working efficiently will be key.
This was a tough week. I think if I look back later I will find that it was positive and productive overall, but at the moment I find my thoughts more focused on the negatives.
Perhaps then I should start with the good parts. From my overloaded plan, I completed: six blog articles, on all the intended topics and then some; won some auctions and made most of the necessary travel arrangements to pick up the goods; worked out photo-blogging with MP-WP; and began explaining and listing the next stages of development on my offline Bitcoin wallet. Besides this was: continued progress on training development and delivery; my first substantial discussion in #trilema, on the nature of my own distribution and plans for a Republican OS; substantial review and feedback for Robinson on his big article on our business plan; getting signed delivery instructions as promised to an eager asciilifeform; and communicating my difficulty in paying an invoice, which to my knowledge remains awaiting update from trinque.
My articles were inconsistent in meeting the length requirement, and at first I was getting to them at the very end of the day or later. As my Master put it, “you clearly push those out of sight and out of mind and you’d push them out of the edge of the world if only it were flat enough to allow such a thing!”
When she asked when I would switch to mornings, an inner negotiation ensued between my avoidant and slavedriving parts (perhaps id and superego if there’s utility in the Freudian terms):
“Eh, I’ll do it some time soon…”
“But you gotta be specific and have deadlines to hold yourself accountable.”
“Okay, next week then :P”
“But why can’t it be done now?”
“It could, I just don’t wanna.”
“Well is that a good reason?”
“…”
So indeed I started the next day, and it’s mostly been a pleasant change, though of course there’s now worrying the evening before. It was good to see confirmation of what I had suspected, that “your writing problem is not with quantity but with topic and on tech you can and do write just fine”. Specifically, it’s the things that flow from a driving inner necessity to express them that come most readily.
The other failures were researching apartment options (again; at this point I think I’ll just go ahead and see what the landlord has to say; I know I’ve already got a pretty good deal, there’s a lot I appreciate about both the place and the management, and there’s bigger priorities now), investigating undelivered pingbacks (again), and keeping up with ALL the reading in a timely manner at least at a first pass. Today’s would-be blog article is also an embarassment; I said that I would apply the time toward a larger upcoming item on the wallet, but I now must admit that this didn’t happen (exactly as my Master perhaps saw coming). And to state the obvious, these reviews are still getting pushed to the last minute.
1. One-hour daily blogging. Topics lined up: finish “Road to Ossasepia” and WoT series; Saturday’s hiking trip; my IRC client.
2. Finish research on Uruguay logistics, finalize personal valuations of the NSA/Pizarro surplus, fund deedbot wallet, place bids (plus manual raises if needed): 6h
3. Script/test blog image uploading: 1h
4. Research apartment options: 2h
5. #trilema and blogs reading: I’m getting the sense that I need to start taking this more seriously. Thinking to try 2h/day.
6. Investigate undelivered pingbacks (bumped from “time permitting”): 1h
7. Plan next stages of development on my Bitcoin wallet / inquire whether there are options I’ve not yet considered: 4h
My main shift this week, at my Master’s direction, was to boost my writing to a daily routine, with a blog article to be published at the close of each day’s one-hour slot, even if that means getting things out in small slices for now.
diana_coman: jfw: how’s the writing going taken like that in 1 hour chunks?
jfw: it’s been a struggle, but of a healthy sort I reckon.
jfw: A confession is that today’s was the first without existing draft material to work from, and I didn’t make it near the minimum word count by the bell. Since what I wanted to say in the segment was fresh in mind and words were flowing, I opted to take more time to see it through, ended up at 2.5h.
diana_coman: hm; as a once off it’s fine but it shouldn’t go on like this; and ftr, the lower limit I set there is …lower than usual, specifically because you have this problem.
Getting six installments1 published in this manner felt way better than the goose egg of the week before. I’ve still had some anxiety each time, but of a more manageable level. On the review I found I’d quite forgotten the subsequent comment about the greater gains from quantity over polishing, and my analytic mind got to be annoyed all over again. I’d also like to move to the morning routine, though so far I’ve at least managed to pull it back from being the last thing in the day.
My most recent article getting started on an overview of the WoT also fell short, this time on the word count axis. Factors that may have activated my over-caution here were my perception of the foundational importance of the topic and recollection of earlier flailings on it.
On Tuesday I conversed for a couple hours in the channel, mainly with Diana Coman who steered an inquiry into my computing projects and interests. Topics included parts for workstation building, Gales Linux in comparison with Cuntoo, “upgrades”, Scheme, software cleanliness versus limitations, making own FGs, BIOS hacking, and what I like about computers.
Discussion continued on Wednesday mainly around the upcoming hardware auctions, with BingoBoingo suggesting the personal trip to Uruguay route if I were to win, and Diana Coman broaching the thought of Robinson and I switching business plans to running a proper ISP. I committed a major communications blunder in breaking the news of changed weekend plans then running right off to something else (and just as she was trying to sign off for the night, to make matters worse), and was properly taken to task for it on Thursday.
On Friday I processed the fallout of Robinson’s ill-fated rescue attempt on asciilifeform as best I could, and was glad that my input at least lead to some further clarifications.
Of the remaining items from my plan:
2. Re-read of http://ossasepia.com/2018/02/06/its-only-words-and-assumptions-and-priorities-and-ouch/ – comments and log references: 2h
is done;
3. Test/script blog image uploading (bumped up from “time permitting”): 1h
6. Prepare to negotiate next year’s apartment lease. At minimum, start researching options online: 2h
were dropped. On the second I at least spoke with a friend who owns some rental properties, whose assessment was that what I could reasonably expect to save for a place like my current one would be around $50/month.
1. Finish last week’s blog post reflecting on my path towards joining YHC.
Publish last week’s blog post reflecting on my path towards joining YHC in daily installments: 5h
2. Re-read of http://ossasepia.com/2018/02/06/its-only-words-and-assumptions-and-priorities-and-ouch/ – comments and log references: 2h
3. Test/script blog image uploading (bumped up from “time permitting”): 1h
4. Begin blog installments on my understanding of the WoT: 2h
4. Blog post on my understanding of the WoT.
From last week:
5. Investigate undelivered pingbacks.
6. Prepare to negotiate next year’s apartment lease.
At minimum, start researching options online: 2h
The elephant in the room would be
diana_coman: jfw: how’s it going?
jfw: diana_coman: not the greatest, I’m in the eleventh hour crunch again
jfw: draft is not finished
diana_coman: jfw: what does it lack to be finished?
jfw: I’ve got a bunch of context as to my original goals and steps but what’s lacking is much delving into the events of the month
diana_coman: jfw: in truth, it is a whole month indeed, dunno who exactly made it that.. long :P
diana_coman: but I’ll let you focus on it now then, no worries.
dorion: dunno who exactly made it that.. long :P << keks
jfw: diana_coman: ok. Assuming I make it out of this one alive, is there an upcoming assignment I should get in next week’s plan?
diana_coman: jfw: an overview of the WoT as you understand it.
jfw: alright
diana_coman: and do get out of it alive.
(the last of which I took as friendly encouragement with a hint of “you’d better…”)
And then
jfw: so my ‘reflections’ article just isn’t anywhere publishable. Got maybe 80-90% of planned content in the draft, but not reviewed at all, placeholder references and such. Trying to at least not snowball the mess to the review+planning but even that’s looking iffy.
And the draft isn’t that long anyway, ~1400 words. I’m uncertain how severe the failure on the article is by itself, given my lack of clue on the timing. But then I let my time management slip regarding Young Hands stuff in going for broke on the article and
2. Re-read of http://ossasepia.com/2018/02/06/its-only-words-and-assumptions-and-priorities-and-ouch/ – I’m through the article itself but reckon I should also include the (English) comments and log references: 2h
didn’t happen (with irony not lost on me, yes). What I will do to prevent this from recurring is to maintain respect for my time allotments and not rob from one necessity to cover for another mess.
The third layer of the problem I see is that I’m not getting anywhere if I can’t break this pattern of writing hangups (a past teacher once said – “your writing is fine, it’s just that you have to sweat blood to do it, huh”). I’m seeing I logged 14 hours on the outline – which turned out useful for remembering what things to write about but lacked a coherent flow and the draft ended up wandering pretty far from the outline – and 18h on the draft.
At least one thing is I haven’t really managed to apply the oft-given advice of “don’t self-censor on the draft, just let it flow”. Can’t say I know why, given I’m perfectly capable of speech and all! But perhaps a bigger one is the:
jfw: diana_coman: I report with some trepidation that I didn’t finish my outline last night. It wasn’t distraction, more of a sulking state where I know I gotta, but something in me just doesn’t wanna; then somehow I got unwedged and it started to flow. Clearly a time waste and I dunno what to say other than it’s a long standing pattern with my writing and I want to fix it. Gotta focus on other things now but I’ll get back to it with urgency tonight and remind myself not to pre-optimize.
diana_coman: jfw: treat the sulking state with a big ignore and – if need be – force writing ie just *write continuously* whatever until sulky-you can’t stand it anymore and rather than keep at nonsense will back off.
I tried the forced writing, which did “get the pen moving” and certainly felt better than just sitting there, but the momentum didn’t quite seem to translate back to the topic at hand. Seems like I need something stronger than “ignore it” – like, shooting it (yet not myself) in the head, or something. (Aaand it also occurs to me that a sufficiently developed set of “just don’t wanna”s would form the negative space of the detested “Just Want To”…)
Otherwise this week, I was privileged to see my pal Robinson interviewed and accepted to the club and to celebrate it with him. I did some reading in Trilema, Ossasepia and the #t log, mainly on the situation with asciilifeform, and contemplated, which hit me pretty personally given the aspects of him that I see in myself, for better and worse, and how much I looked up to him (and think I still do). At any rate I take heart from knowing that if there’s hope for me, I’ve chosen a promising (necessarily not easy) path for realizing it. (Though it’s not like his life is over or anything either, what.) Between Diana Coman, billymg and myself we got to the root of a WordPress editor bug that I and some others had noted, which turned out to be in the cleanup patches. Finally, I got to ponder the subtleties of what constitutes adapting man to machine or the other way around.
It’s been an eventful week for me. To capture a bit of context from the week before: I had been reading the channel log, contemplating whether I was serious about submitting to the mentoring relationship, and working on communicating more openly; my friend Robinson joined the channel after some prodding (and probably would have just fine on his own, but time was advancing and I was getting worried to say the least); I asked some muddled philosophical questions, which nonetheless turned out informative about Diana Coman’s approach; Robinson and I both ended up applying, though him first, with me perhaps looking for a few hundred meters of solid rock under foot.
This past Tuesday I reported for interview, giving a high-level view of my life story, with some back-and-forth, then answering questions for which my reading and mulling had at least somewhat prepared me. After over three hours of conversation, I found myself with a new Master and, not to waste any time, a blogging assignment drawn from my own plans to recount my steps in setting up the blog, a subsequent one to reflect on my month in the channel, and advice on the writing process.
On Wednesday I poked deedbot to verify my new inbound WoT rating, decrypted my Young Hands Club login credentials, verified the login, set a fresh password for the sake of testing and general precaution, got my blog an avatar as requested, (re)read the feedbot manual1 and imported my blog subscriptions, expanding most of them to include the comment feeds.2 I also spent some time contemplating the week’s writing task, though I hadn’t explicitly planned the time and other thoughts came up instead.
Mondays and Thursdays are presently my most regular “salt mining” days, though Thursday night I got started on outlining, where I recorded what I remembered of my steps. The idea was to supplement this with my notes and chat logs with Robinson to fill the gaps in the narrative.
The initial combing of chat logs I did on Friday, which produced quite a few extracts, but I found I was nowhere near where I’d imagined I’d be in having a draft done, and by Saturday morning I’d realized I had to report for my first thrashing. From this I’m learning that there are a number of habits I need to build or re-build (and I’d have to admit it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen any of the advice; apparently just seeing it given to others didn’t make it stick). In particular: (1) explicitly planning time-consuming things, meaning, reserving minimum time blocks for them in a written schedule; (2) paying closer attention to how they’re going relative to the allotted time and reporting at the first sign of trouble; (3):
diana_coman: jfw: you know, start valuing your time more, there’s not even a single second of it that you’ll ever get back
It’s not that I wanted to waste my time or anything, but at least I had been avoiding the discipline needed to prevent the waste.
I proceeded to allocate time for the remaining tasks of the weekend, getting the blog post as far as I could on Saturday and proceeding to the review and planning posts, and posting the work-in-progress, on Sunday (which I’ve now recalled is not advisable in general because it leaves little buffer before the deadline).
Work on what matters, so you matter too.