Interest and passion management: an iteration

I will be iterating a lot on this. Jung and MBTI enthusiasts, get ready for a trip fueled by inferior Te. 

This is a great article that has given me some good tips for balancing everything. 

- schedule: So far Trello is working out pretty well for me as an organizational tool. I don’t think I’m going to change it at this point. I am trying to follow an autopilot schedule with weekly planning on Sundays and do stable mucking for mosquito tasks — this is difficult, but I do see at least some degree of forward momentum. I want to start working by 8:30, not 9:30, so I will need to work on that. I’d like to get up at 5 every morning but I keep falling asleep during work. The key, I think, is to cut off at bedtime no matter what, and stop reading Reddit and Facebook while getting ready for the day. It freaks me out when people tell me about having children because that will put a major wedge into my goals, but, well, I’m not there yet. Sucks to be a hopeless romantic sometimes but I know exactly who I’m looking for. I just can’t seem to find her, and no I will not settle for anyone else. Also, every time I watch Bluey I’m reminded of how cool kids can be. 

- work: need to code more efficiently, check the internet less, and focus on those 30 to 50-minute blocks. I am struggling a bit figuring out how much I should be working with my mentor vs. independently. But, I absolutely love my job.

- writing: for the first time in goodness knows how long, I achieved my 429-words-per-day goal 3 days in a row, while traveling home for Mother’s Day. Then I failed on Monday lol. I’ve found that I can do it in about 35 minutes if I don’t care too much about quality or logical consistency. If I do, it takes more like 45-60 minutes. I generally am not going to have this amount of time moving forward, so I am just going to have to get faster. I haven’t touched HGHL or poetry, but Carnivile is plodding along at its usual glacial pace. 

- reading: I try to read fiction for at least 5 minutes before each writing session. This year so far I’ve finished Pages of Dust Volume 1 and an Everest book. I’m reading Skyward and a show control textbook currently. I read nonfiction before falling asleep. Fanfiction, well, I am still behind on that, but I’ve started the next chapter of AoR. And I haven’t figured out a good paradigm for my 318 readings which always take a while. Also I don’t think I’m gonna have time for a third writing group so I might just go radio silent there for a while. Most likely I will stay on the Discord server though. Idk...

- computers: honestly the main focus right now is trying to hurry the hell up and get my basic math review out of the way. My dad wants me to do his website but that’s gonna take a while. Then, either Google, CompTIA, further security studies, or MIT OCW. I’m not really sure how I’m going to approach this yet, but the main focus should be finishing elementary math within the week. I don’t want this hanging over my head at the Grand Canyon. 

- art: trying to alternate between 2D and 3D each week, so I can actually come to senior film in the fall having learned something. Drawabox is predictably taking forever, but I will bite that bullet. 

- music: simple. 5 minutes per day alternating clarinet and piano. Longer sessions on Sundays: piano, clarinet, singing. A part of me wants to aim for an auditioned ensemble but I’d have to ramp up, so probably not until I’m more comfortable with my level of art and writing skills. I miss band and church choir but I’ve heard nothing about either of them restarting...

- Spanish: I don’t have a lot of time for this right now. Basically I am trying to listen to Spanish music for an hour a day, often while coding, and I might add a focused session on Sundays but I haven’t yet. 

- running and athletics: yeah, I’m fat and slow right now. I’m trying to ramp up to 20 miles during the week and 10-13 on Saturdays. Maybe I will lose weight again. Need to get down to 145 which is about 20 pounds lighter than I am currently. Blisters are making this a pain. I’m technically lifting 3x/week but not for very long and I need to get better with that. I have a SCERA Park Pools pass and I intend to use it starting on Memorial Day Weekend. I have Grand Canyon coming up and I hope to PR for the Freedom Run 10K in July. I have no healthy eating habits other than trying to force myself to drink veggie shakes (they’re not bad actually) and I have a major weakness for junk food. I try to walk 2-3x/day and do a swing and lunge matrix for injury prevention. As far as my physical appearance in general, I should get a nice tan this summer, but I need to move somewhere where I can always have that. Also other than weight loss I need to do something more about my hairline, and I will not touch finasteride with a ten foot pole. Rogaine is at least doing something and I need a dermaroller.

- internet: I’m really far behind on this. I have a bunch of FB messages and emails from old friends that I haven’t read or replied to, too. I cannot seem to be as consistent online as I used to be in 2010-2011. I need to free up my Friday nights in order to get better at this. 

- gaming and tv: as always, I have little time for this, and am constantly behind as new games and shows come out. I am trying to walk 3 times a day — otherwise I’d watch or play during my dinner hour. I need a solution beyond chucking it all into Friday/Saturday night — but then again, maybe that’s the best solution I have. Also there’s physical games like my Legos which I hope to spend more time with. 

- mosquito tasks: forever the bane of my existence. Having two cleaning blocks last summer made my apartment quite nice but it obviously took away from my focus areas. For some reason I keep not having time to shop on Saturdays which inevitably screws up at least one weekday, and I lose the 7-9 PM block very easily. Need to fix this. There is also a ton of old crap in my fridge and I keep forgetting to order things I need off of Amazon. And I forget to check the mail all the time too. 

- imagination: working on tulpaforcing strategies and spending time in my imagination. You won’t see much of that here. I need one big visualization block on a Saturday or something. Maybe this Saturday after a quick morning stint at Lagoon. I haven’t lucid dreamed consistently in a while, but I at least have them here and there. Working on it. 

- just in general: I need an hour per day of art and either coding or math, then 30 minutes per day of writing. On top of that, exercise in the morning, scriptures, and 5 mins music, 20-30 mins imagination after work. Everything else will simply have to fit into the cracks. 

- theme park design: we had to nix the Cornell competition this year. 2 club members disappeared and 1 fell ill with covid. Well, we did what we could, and next year we are actually going to own those master’s in architecture students that keep winning the dang thing. The other areas of study should bolster this one, which is why it’s not quite its own area of study. But I’m trying to do PLCs and learn design concepts, plus work on my own ride ideas. I will be spending ample amounts of time at Lagoon, SCERA Park Pools, Splash Summit, Cowabunga Bay, the Utah State Fair, Cherry Hill, and various rec centers with outdoor pools this summer. 

Whew! That was a trip.

In short, not ideal, but on paper I’m doing well I guess. Never give up, never give in, obsessively iterate and keep going. And after all, it’s early. I can still make this summer memorable.