Friday, September 01, 2006

Day 7

I felt my energy waning, but I perservered. Good wake up, was able to handle the work at my job calmly and with a relaxed, clear mind, went to the MVA, changed my registration, license, and voting info to reflect the move, went to the parking authority and purchased my parking sticker, finished up at work, made a healthy dinner utilizing leftover in the fridge that were on the verge of going bad, studied French for 1/2 an hour, worked on Fed10 for 1/2 an hour, worked on Upright for 1/2 an hour, worked on my essay for 1/2 an hour, good getting ready for bed (dental hygiene, scheduling tomorrow, and writing the blog), and maybe I'll read Crime and Punishment for a few minutes before going to bed. Keep reading Plato and all the great books Dan!

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Day 6

Remember, my "days" are a count of consecutive days living in a way that I think is excellent. Good wake-up this morning, worked at about %92 at work, browsed Le Monde for 20 minutes, sorted out my address change with a whole host of companies to whom that information is relevant, picked up a recycling bin from the city, worked on my novel for an hour (current title is Upright In The Field of Tyranny), cooked a lovely dinner, studied php and fumbled around with ssh for 1/2 an hour, studied my French, worked on my essay for 1/2 an hour, and now I'm getting ready for bed. I might get in 15 minutes of Crime and Punishment.
Two major issues were brought to my attention today. One is stress. Stressing out, or becoming anxious, is usually useless and a big waste of energy. I need to practice my Marcus Aurelius shit. Seriously. If I can just focus on what I have influence over and be stoic about everything else, then I'd have a lot more energy and thus a lot more influence. I don't want to get into this too much because I want to read. The second issue is giving each task enough time. I can allot 1 and a 1/2 hours for dinner, but I've found that to actually make something nice, plus a salad and maybe some bread, eat and have a real conversation, and clean takes at least 2 hours. Maybe I could do it in 1 and a 1/2, but I'd be rushing, and rushing usually makes me anxious, which drains energy, etc. etc. Basically, I need to experiment with tasks and determine the time that they require for completion comfortably. If I work at a reasonable pace I'll be the champion, because I'll be consistent, every day will be an excellent day, and even though I won't get as much done in one single day than I would if I were sprinting and trying to have the world all at once, I will have accomplished more at the end of the week by consistency than the alternative would after having burnt out after a day or two. I like my new approach and the outcome so far. Each day so far has been a 4 or a 5 in the old system. Yeah, if it's a "day", it's a 4 or a 5.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Day 5

Yeah, Dostoevsky is the shit. That's why I committed myself to reading all of his works. I have another 100 pages left in C&C, and then after that the only major work left of his that I haven't read yet is The Idiot. Everything else is either medium length or short story. Brother's K is incredible. Demons might edge out Brothers K for me as a personal pick, but if I had to put one of his works on the great books list, it would definitely be Brothers K. On my day.
Got up, didn't waste any time like yesterday, ate a full and nutritious breakfast, rocked work's face off, partially set up the utilities, figured out recycling for the house, wrote for an hour and a half meeting my deadline for today, read Dostoevsky for 1/2 an hour, did some grocery shopping, ate a nutritious and pleasurable dinner with the Temple radio station streaming live jazz into our kitchen from the computer, I did some stuff to help me become more effective with Fed10, I'm about to do a 1/2 hour of French, and then I'm going to go to bed on time to get my full 8 hours of sleep.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Day 4

Busy day, and hopefully the last one where I'm operating at an unsustainable output of energy. Got up, performed toilette a bit slower than necessary, ate a healthy breakfast, rocked a hard day at work, worked on my essay, filled up gas on the car, cleared up some paperwork with the landlord, did something else that I'm blanking on right now, cleaned up, made a healthy dinner, read Crime and Punishment for about 1/2 an hour, made lunch for tomorrow, and now I'm getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow will be a more healthy day, in terms of output vs. rest, and I plan on working on the program for 1/2 an hour.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Day 3

Still going strong. I got up promptly, performed my morning toilette, ate a nutritious breakfast, got half-way set up at work, kicked ass there (work is now an intense exercise from start to finish, so I exercised in the middle of all this), came back for a nutritious lunch, did some shit with my bank account, finished up at work, went on a big grocery trip, made a nutritious dinner, bought some necessities from the corner store, did the dishes, made lunch for tomorrow, did some laundry, unpacked a little more, made a list of the stuff I still need to do, performed my nightly toilette, shot a quick e-mail to the project guys, and after writing this I'll do a bit of French and go to bed. I'm tired, and I know I'm not resting enough, but right now is crunch time and once I get past this I'll be back on a normal, healthy schedule. I'm planning to take off two days this weekend, one of those being the holiday on Monday. I should definitely finish Dostoevsky by then.
I'm entering a writing contest, and to give myself time for that I'm splitting my writing time. My looming deadlines are as follows: by Wednesday night I want to have finished brainstorming on my essay, and by September 7th I'm going to be finished restructuring my novel and ready to work on draft 2. I also want to finish this moving in shit as fast as humanly possible, without giving myself a heart attack.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Day 2

Still going strong. Today I woke up, performed my "toilette", as I think Ben Franklin refers to it, with haste, ate a healthy breakfast, packed up the rest of my stuff, drove to Maryland, while I was driving I contemplated a question in my writing project, I got to Annapolis, unloaded my stuff, went back out to Trader Joes to get some necessary house crap, drove to Target to get our house furnishings, returned, cleaned the house a bit, set up some shit, ate a healthy dinner, cleaned some more, read Dostoevsky for about 10 minutes, and now I'm getting ready to go to bed. No programming today, and maybe not tomorrow either given my current schedule. Soon though, I'll be back in at my full strength.