A month ago, I came up with a system to improve my productivity, a variation of something I used years ago, that seemed to work quite well, though I kept… not using the system. But thankfully, the new variation has been extraordinarily useful and seems to be sticking. So I thought I’d share. It all revolves around a giant sticky note on my desktop, which at present, looks like this:

Before I get into how and why this is structured the way this is, it must be understood that the whole thing is built around the fact that my memory is very, very bad. If I do not work on Tinselfly for a week, I will forget what I was working on last. If I do not work on Tinselfly for a month, I will forget I ever worked on it. And if I’m not constantly reminded that I came up with a system to make me more productive, I will not use my own system.

With that in mind, my goals were to come up with a system that:

• I wouldn’t forget to use.
• Was error tolerant.
• Had very little overhead.
• Encouraged me to practice and improve my skills generally.
• Made sure I made progress on specific projects.
• Encouraged me to reflect on my progress from time to time.

 

So here’s how it works:

Every time I open my computer, I see this sticky note. It’s actually kind of hard to hide. Projects are listed in bold, with tasks indented underneath them. Whatever project I need to work on next has a * in front of it. Yeah, Blog has a * in front of it right now, so I’m blogging.

When I sit down, I work on the *’ed project. If, for whatever reason, I can’t — forgot to bring headphones to the coffee shop and can’t do video tutorials or I’m having software issues — I’ll put a * after the project name to remind myself to try to squeeze it in later, and move on to the next project. So right now, I’m behind on Play — I’m having trouble getting Metroid Prime running on my Wii.

So I’ll work for at least half an hour and at most a full hour, and then move the * to the next item in the list. Rinse, repeat.

(Not all the ‘projects’ are projects really — some are just general activity guidelines, and those are in square brackets.)

If I follow my own rules, this usually works well. But that’s a big if.

* * *

My biggest problem is following my own time constraints. With that in mind, I’ve gotten a simple timer app where I can type in a time limit and I see a progress bar showing how much time I have left right on my taskbar. It opens when Windows starts up and is visible at all times, which, again, is super important, because I’ll forget to use it.

As I write this, I’m running out of time on Blogging. 😉

That has really helped me remember that I have time limits.

My second biggest problem right now is burnout: when I came up with my rules, I wasn’t getting much done at all and the idea of burnout was the farthest thing from my mind. So in many ways, this is a good problem to have.

I think the proper solution to that is to take breaks between tasks. The way I’m working right now, as soon as my time’s up I excitedly update my sticky note, move onto my next project and restart the timer.

I will instead try setting the timer to some fixed amount, like five minutes, and use that time to… not do much. Or at least not much that’s project related. Check mail. Catch up on social media. Do housework. Getting away from the computer would be good.

I’ll try that for a while and see if it helps.

Last weekend, my wife and I went to London and Paris. It was my second trip overseas, and our first trip ever to a non-English speaking country where we didn’t have someone along who was a native speaker of the country we were going to.

I was excited about seeing museums and eating yummy food and checking out the architecture of these places of course… but mostly, I was excited about trying to speak to the locals in Paris, in French, as much as I could.

* * *

The first thing I notice when I get to Paris is, I’m not thinking in French. Of course I’m not thinking in French; I’ve got nothing but three months’ worth of free online classes with a computer voice as a teacher.

But I kind of feel like, if my French gets better and I go back some day, I might expect myself to start thinking entirely in French.

Some day.

* * *

We get to the hotel, and I’m nervous because I don’t actually know how to say I’d like to check in. So I say to the hotel clerk, in very, very quiet French, ‘I have a reservation?’ She asks if I speak English, and everything proceeds in English from there.

Which is fine. Yes, I have set myself the goal of trying to speak French. But this is not about me. This is about us. This is about communication, in whatever way is going to be the most efficient, and, if the situation demands it, whatever way is going to be completely error-free. In a restaurant, I could mispronounce the word for ‘chicken’ and get served scallops for dinner, and it wouldn’t be a big deal, for me, anyway. But when checking into a hotel, understanding exactly how things work is pretty important.

Any clerk or waiter or shopkeeper in Paris will certainly speak better English than I speak French. So English is the way to go here.

* * *

Our first meal goes spectacularly well — not a word of English is spoken between the waiters and us.

It probably helps that I’m pointing at the menu as I order.

What’s odd about the whole affair is that I’m understanding little of what the waiters are saying. It’s all context. If you’ve just sat down and the waiter asks a question, he’s probably asking for your order.  French waiters generally don’t stop by and ask you how things are going or if you want anything else unless you flag them down first… so if you wave at a waiter after your meal has arrived, he’ll probably come over and say something like ‘what can I do for you?’ and you can ask for whatever it is you want without entirely understanding the question.

When I’m watching a subtitled film, I frequently just… don’t read the subtitles. With many movies you can get a good chunk of the characters’ meaning just from context, their body language, inflection, stuff like that.

Doing that while interacting with real-life people? That’s a really interesting experience.

* * *

After lunch, we go shopping. The first store we go into has a big, chatty American in it, who starts talking to us in English as soon as we walk in, and we respond in kind, so the shopkeeper knows immediately we’re English-speaking Americans. I’m a little relieved. I don’t know how to say ‘can I try this on?’, and while I can ask ‘how much does this cost?’ I wouldn’t understand the response as I don’t know French numbers.

After having been in London for a few days, and then Paris, I’m shocked at how flat the big American’s speech sounds. It’s almost like a monotone in comparison to French and British English.

* * *

* * *

Our second meal goes almost as well as the first. I make a point of not pointing at the menu when I order my crepe celtique and jus banane, and the waiter seems to understand me fine.

Thirsty later on, I can’t for the life of me pronounce the word for ‘water’, so Marie says it in English. And later on, Marie wants more tea, but we don’t know the word for ‘another’. So after calling over the water and some gesturing at the teacup, the waiter says, ‘another’?, and we nod and say ‘yes’ in French… and then the waiter tells us how to say ‘another one’ in French.

We’re surrounded by three other tables of English-speaking people, all of which are speaking to the waiter entirely in English.

I start to feel a little smug.

* * *

The next day, things do not go so well. Oh, they start well enough.

The waitress comes by to take our order, but I say, ‘a moment please’ because Marie and I are having trouble deciding.

The waitress comes back in a couple minutes and she asks if we’re ready to order now. I actually hear the French word for ‘choose’ this time and am totally thrilled. I order, having trouble pronouncing the name of my meal, and I ask for some fruity tea, and I’m feeling reasonably good about the whole thing —
— and then the waitress informs me, in English, that I’ve ordered a drink that isn’t on the menu. Oops. I’d misread the menu section describing what teas and juices were available. The entire meal proceeds in English from then on.
It’s at this point that I realize that this is all very exhausting, which I didn’t expect. It’s not just about how many words I knew when I got to Paris; I have to be alert and focused, or my recall and comprehension will be terrible. All this trying to find the right words and listen carefully to French speakers has me a bit fried, and it’s starting to show.
* * *

When dinner rolls around, Marie and I are completely drained. We’re staring bleary-eyed at a menu outside a brasserie when a very enthusiastic waiter comes out and asks us point blank what language we speak. We say we speak English, and not a word of French is spoken at our last meal — expect when Marie asks for the check in French, which earned us a thumbs-up from the waiter.

* * *

* * *

In many ways, I find language to be a bizarre thing. The sounds we make with our lungs and throats and teeth and tongues have no intrinsic meaning; they’re just sounds. Wind. Scratching. Popping. Musical tones.

Learning a new language and practicing speaking in real-world situations has been a little like starting with these arbitrary sounds and watching them, right before you, transform themselves from noise into something meaningful and beautiful.

It’s kind of magical. I consider myself very lucky to have had this experience, and I look forward to experiencing this more.

Some people have formative experiences. Among other things, I have a formative logo, which I’ve just seen for the first time in thirty years. Always an odd experience, seeing things like that.

* * *

When I was little, we had this computer. And we got magazines written just for users of this computer.

Every issue had code for simple games; if you typed the code verbatim into your own computer, you could play these games. I did this a few times.

This particular issue about ‘education with the home computer’ had a game called Robochase. I don’t remember the gameplay at all, but I do vaguely remember the instructions screen, which had a logo that looked like this:

This is me.

This is my life.

* * *

To make that title card, you didn’t use a graphics program or anything. You did it in code.

See all those DATA statements with incomprehensible gobbledygook after them? Those are custom letters. A font, if you will. E0F0F8F0E0F0F8 is an R. F8F8D8D8D8F8F8 is an O. But it’s not a whole font. It’s just the letters you need to spell out ‘robochase’.

And one of the first things I did with a computer that wasn’t typing in a canned game or playing an existing game, was try to fill out the rest of the letters in this sort of Tron-ish font.

I don’t remember how far I got, or how good my results were. But I remember that I tried. I found this endeavor far more enjoyable than playing kickball with my friends.

And being a programmer, and puttering around with game projects, and having an interest in making fonts, and typography, and graphic design in general, this is a big part of who I am.

* * *

I love being able to dig up stuff like this. The stuff that made us. Not that it’s a particularly straightforward process. It’s taken years for me to find a pdf of this magazine.

Part of the fun is the random other stuff you discover along the way. An ad for floppy disks. An article about how great computers will be at teaching mentally disadvantaged kids.

And once I see this stuff I’m made of, it all becomes a little more mundane, and it’s reminder that every mundane thing I do still makes me, for better or worse. I’m well out of my formative years, but I’m still being made by the things I surround myself with. So I’d better make sure I’m being made of the right things.

Lots of half-written drafts sitting in WordPress right now, which is a pretty appropriate metaphor for life right now: disjointed; half-finished things are piling up; I’m trying to keep things moving but there’s lots of friction to overcome.

It’s easy to overcome. I just clear my head of all conscious thought, and accept the slog.

This always works.

And yet, I have trouble remembering to do it.

If I’m having trouble getting motivated, it’s usually not because I hate the slog — that’s just an excuse. It’s because some part of me thinks that whatever I’m about to work on is not worth working on.

Which is to say, some part of me believes that very little of what I’ve been working on lately, is worth working on.

* * *

As long as I’m feeling rambly and introspective, let’s talk about what I think has been my biggest problem lately: context. Some examples of this being an issue:

• During board games, I’ll forget whose turn it is, or what we (in a cooperative game) were trying to accomplish.
• During work meetings, I will be asked a question and will have trouble answering because, while I understood the question, I will have forgotten what we were talking about that led up to the question being asked.
• Reading books, I frequently forget where the characters are and what they’re trying to do.

I like keeping my head empty as much of the time as possible. And while that keeps me calm and focused, it can also lead to issues like the ones above I guess.

As for meetings, my solution lately has been to keep notes during the meeting. I still get to stay in the moment, but if I’m asked a question, I can quickly peek at my notes to see what the context is.

* * *

It occurs to me that my favorite video games can easily be played in a contextless sort of way, and you’re not asked to remember a lot about what you’ve previously done. If I play a level of Alice or Amnesia, I don’t really care what the last level was. I just want to continue from where I left off. Conversely, playing something like Mass Effect or any MMO, I have to remember what skills my character currently has, what I have equipped, and maybe where I was traveling to… and I have trouble keeping track of this stuff and it gets frustrating.

* * *

If I had an RPG-like ‘stat’ for my ability to have fun, it would be like a 1. I turn everything into work. Which is not to say that I turn everything into something stressful; work can be calm too. But calm work is different than fun.

I mentioned earlier that I thought this One Game a Month thing might be good because I might actually relax and just make things I’d find fun to play, rather that trying to change the way people perceive this whole industry.

And I’m still hesitant to do this, because I’m thinking of these games as just benefiting me. And I’m not worth it, I think to myself. The work has to be for someone else to be worthwhile.

But really,that’s not a well-thought-out argument. Yes, the work would be for me, initially. It’s not like there would be anything stopping me from letting others enjoy the finished work after I’m done. The problem here is that I’m only looking at the most immediate, direct beneficiary of the work. It’s kind of short-sighted.

 

There are days I find nothing more soul-crushing than cooking. It’s tedious. It’s overhead. A fulfilling life, I think to myself, is one with as little overhead as possible.

But I’ve been enjoying cooking more lately. I realized a few years ago that, when faced with tedious drudgery that’s never ever going to go away, the best thing yo can do for your own sanity is to devote more mental energy to it: to learn to do said tedious drudgery more efficiently, and with more panache that you can be proud of.

So I can manage my time more efficiently now, have more pots going at the same time, pick dishes that have a high work-to-tastiness ratio, and generally have a better time of it than I used to.

The latest part of this process has been trying to work with raw ingredients more. While it’s convenient to work with pre-packaged tortillas, pie crusts, pizza dough, dips or suaces, I suspect, in the end, it will be more convenient to keep a constant supply of flour, butter, cream, eggs and yeast around, most of which I’d have around anyway. In theory, there would be fewer staples to manage, more things I could do with said staples, and less stressing out about, say, having a pre-made pie crust in the freezer if I decide on a whim I want to make quiche.

It will get worse before it gets better though.

Tried my first from-scratch pie crust last night, and it was frustrating and time consuming and didn’t turn out that great. There will be a lot of waste here. I haven’t had to outright pitch too many meals or parts of meals, but it’s certainly happened, and that’s never fun.

Some days you break the hollandaise. Some days the hollandaise breaks you.

If I do this, I have to accept that what I’m doing is not simply incremental learning; it’s making things noticeably worse for myself, so I can eventually make things better. I think I just starting doing this, without really accepting that I should expect this to be fairly frustrating for a while.

But if I can get through this here hump, I think I’ll find cooking just a little more rewarding.