To start with, I’m looking at a new generic article title. The articles that are a great bag of all the crap rolling in my noggin. The reason is that while they often start their short life as a ‘project update’ or ‘my thoughts’ on something or some situation, they often devolve into an explanation of my thought process. I find studying my process to be a good way to improve by process. That being said, I can’t spell miscellaneous reliably, I never liked etcetera, potpourri gives me a sinus headache and I also can’t spell it. Today I’m staying with Deep Thought. I threw in a number as I’ll probably think about reorganizing everything someday.
Back to very serious business.
It was my birthday so I took the last week off. This would have been the perfect time to work on some projects, but alas that wasn’t to happen. This brings up the why.
I go through bouts of exhaustion. The (mental and physical) depression of manic deppression. Admittedly this is a self-diagnosis, but I think it might be on point. I get overwhelmed by the tasks I set myself, so I delay working on them. I also love disorganization as I believe over organizing removes some spontaneity. These two together mean that I often have piles of things to go through to find what I’m looking for. The third leg of laziness is probably akin to a fear of failure. I delay a lot of tasks that don’t have a set expiration date, as I collect more information or flesh out ideas more. This is where deadlines help me, and this why my career doesn’t parallel to my personal life. I think there’s a fourth, but I can’t remember what I was thinking right now.
As usual this article now goes into a discussion of what I should do to combat this lethargy.
Step one is I need to organize myself in a way that embraces disorganization.
As an aside, this is being written over the course of multiple days, weeks, maybe months before I hit publish.
Secondly, this a discussion of process, and we can’t think of process in a lab. This post is an example of the issue, with it being disordered and a bit disjointed. We’re not talking Faulkner or Joyce, but maybe an intro to Great Expectations.
Back to what I was talking about earlier. I’ve blogged all this before and I’m still missing it. I think I know what the fourth item is, not sure, but I’m getting happier with the fit.
I have various anxiety related idiosyncracies. I live life by a set of capricious rules. Not on the level of OCD, but ones all the same. I have nervous twitches, I’ll walk 20 minutes to save myself standing in one place for 5 (the joy of public transportation). I dislike interacting with strangers, and pointedly avoid it.
…and then there’s the more obvious coping methods. I have no issues with avoiding stress. My main ways to unwind at home are reading and playing video games. I’ll have a beer; I’ll take a nap. Really, I’ll do anything I can to avoid stress in the home. When working on a project, that can get to the point where I focus on inconsequential details to avoid the big things. For example, I’ll meticulously decide which side of a board goes up, and then bang it into a wall with a couple corner braces.
So, let’s call this stress. When I have something I do, rather than just mumble at people about, I need a timeline. I believe on some level that the best way to guarantee that a job is wrong, is have it be late. There’s occasions where more time can be had, but you only beg for a delay on birthday presents so often. It doesn’t have to be a hard timeline, but it does have to be… public? Defined with a deliverable? This will obviously present as stress, but I internalize that, so it’s cool.
There’s a very large caveat though. The time has to be kept in short increments with multiple micro deliverables on more aggressive projects. As an example, shoes. Any time I have foot pain or shoes developing holes, I think now’s the time to make shoes. As any cobbler will tell you, this is no minor undertaking, or at least I assume so. At a minimum, there are measurements to take, molds to make, materials to choose, and patterns to pattern. This is before there a single thing on a foot. Since I aggressively walk on concrete for the majority of my day, from commuting to my work, I have a limited timetable to turn a dream of shoes into a reality. Oh yeah, this example is because I need to get on this. Tonight I should start taking my own advice. Micro deliverables. Time tables. Project map.
Next, I’m not sure if this is a next situation, but I’ll run with it. Next, I need to accept bad results. At work, I have to do the best I can with what I have. Failure isn’t an option, but meh results definitely are. Just today I was working on something that fell into the good enough for today category, but was actually shit. At home, I’m concerned about wasted efforts, so I research. And research and research and think and research and think and plan and research and think and plan. No deliverable there. Nothing. So I need to do a thing. I need something bad, something good, something tangible. I need to focus on the creation and not the result. I think I currently combat this by, when stressed, watching videos of not so serious makers making things. This Old Tony and Simone Giertz are great examples. Jesus, where I’m drinking a nice pint right now totes turned claustrophobic. Some people need to close out their bills the fuck away from me.
How do I force myself to accept failure. In part it’s what I’m already doing in that I go around finding beautiful junk. This will be great if I did stuff with the junk I collect. Instead I hold onto the junk waiting for the time I have the right use for it. Since I’m concerned with wasting the resource, I never use it. I need to increase churn. Set myself a timeframe. Maybe designate a box. Write a date on it. Put junk in a box, toss the junk out use the junk. When the box is full, i then have 30 days to use it or toss it. Okay, write the date after I fill… nope. I have 30 days after I start the box. Churn. Or churn faster. I’ll be a little milk maid.
Imposter syndrome. I know I have it, unless I’m impostering being someone who has imposter syndrome. Is that meta? I could do self-affirmations, but I don’t believe them. I could do a brag wall. But that’s kinda weak. How to combat the problem? I want to say punch down, but I always thought that was weak sauce also. Ironically make shitty things. Already done by people much better than me. I just need to make things. The only way to not have imposter syndrome is to prove I’m not impostering. Maybe.
Another one just came to me. I’m not sure if it’s a coping method or what. I have a lot of specific irrational biases. The easy example is my hatred of the cloud. I’m not even sure if that one though is irrational. I’m biased against the flavour of the month. I’m biased against particular brands and vendors. Now, I don’t think this is something unique about me, just something to keep in mind. Since I’m biased against various things, I don’t use them. This is an issue when I’m trying to avoid a brand when the brand does something the easiest and fastest. The best specific example I can think of was when I was getting my first SBC. Rather than going with the Raspberry Pi, I went with the BeagleBone Black. The BeagleBone had roughly comparable specs, but with less community. I still think at the time the BeagleBone was the better choice, and in many situations still is. That being said, I now have three Pi’s. Oh yeah, this was my dislike of flavour of the month.
Related to the previous section, I’m cheap. I’d prefer to build anything I can then pay good money for it. If I do have to spend money, I nickle and dime myself to the cheapest I can go and still meet needs. This is great until I hit a Jan for to my cheapness. Awhile back I picked up a 3d printer, and while it works, it doesn’t work awesome. This is great because it means I’m learning how to compensate for it’s weaknesses, troubleshoot, and upgrade it’s components. On the other hand, this brand I’m doing that rather than getting perfect prints. I don’t think it was the wrong idea to be a bit stingy, but I ever what is be doing with it if it just worked.
This leads to next item, attention span. I don’t think I have anything like ADHD, but I like to keep my brain kicking along. This weekend worked out pretty well in that regards as I was able to hang out, sipping some beer and working on a few projects at once. Normally, I try to interject gaming during lulls in the action, but honestly, that doesn’t work. Soon I’m trying to slip in projects around load screens. This weekend though, I was soldering while printing. And by printing I mean figuring out what wasn’t working to snuff.
This of course only worked out because the Wif was it if town, so no asthma or social concerns. This is neither viable or ideal as an ongoing concept. I’ll put in outside concerns as being an issue. Did I work 60 hours that week and I’m tired? Is it after the quiet hour? Are there fumes?
Am I over concerned with propriety? Does anyone really care? Do I need to just get a fume exhaust fan? Do I need to schedule project time and then when on projects? Maybe. I think the next time I don’t get home at 8 and the Wif’s asthma isn’t going crazy, I’ll do about doing a 20 minutes test print. This will of course be a test of the printer and how viable it is doing it when she’s home.
I’m closer to deciding how the shoe soles will work. I’m thinking a two part sole, lower and insole, that sandwiches the edge of the shoe upper. Connect these with some bolts. This would allow for relatively easy swapping of the three main areas as wear takes hold, or more importantly, as situations dictated. Dressing up, put on the shiny tops. Going hiking, put on the hob soles. Getting a callous, change the insole. Is this germane to the subject of the post, no. Is this germane to the spirit of the post, yes. I wonder how bad it would be to walk on some m2 screws all day.
Tomorrow, during the prep for the feast of feasts, I’ll try a short run to see if there Wif takes issue. I did run this by her yesterday, so its not like I’m pulling a fast one. I just want her honest, this is fine or this is an issue.
The experiment was a success, though I’m damping my enthusiasm as the Wif was midway into a turkey at the time. Overall though, I think I’ve got one less excuse. I’m still looking into why my z-axis just doesn’t rise, but that’s a relatively small issue. I’ve also finally decided that, me being me, and me being a person who cares about form over function within reason, I’ll just use Blender. Parametric design is sweet and all, but it’s impractical for what I do. I’ll almost definitely rue this decision.
I think this ongoing part of already helping though. Other than some Kingdom of Loathing, my computer has been pretty much on point for work rather than play. This has been true for a week or two now. I almost feel this is past a manic phase and straight into a new paradigm.