time-management – untitled atm

087b – january rambles

I want to write, I need to write. And to do that I need to accept that the only thing I want to write about is you, at the moment. Well not just at the moment. Since a few days actually. And I imagine that will continue for a few more.

In a way, you’re a muse.

And maybe that’s why I’m already attached to you, the idea of you, etc. I don’t want to do this. I want to see you. Not through my image, but through yours.

Anyway, stomach is upset so I can’t get rid of feelings in any other way except by ranting about them on here.

I wonder how we can cultivate a better relationship with our muse(s)? All the people that I’ve liked and loved have always been a source of inspiration for me in terms of art and creative work, and yet.. it’s futile to think of your relationship with different people as something in your control. It’s really not. That’s generally the beauty of it. That they (or your interactions with them)make you feel things you wouldn’t have felt otherwise. And I’m not just talking about romantic feelings, though of course yes, they do generally dominate the muse-world.

I need to figure out the main tasks I want to be working on from next week onwards because essentially I didn’t really get anything done this week. Journaling and music journaling is something I’m automatically finding myself doing a good amount, and that’s great, but I’d like to use these two things as tools for the next few weeks, and not aims. I know that most people swear by the idea of “keeping yourself busy” and I think that’s something I need to follow and be strict about over the next few weeks as well. I think this also means going back to being a bit more routinely with work, etc. The way I’d been able to do back in November. Honestly, it’s the winters that has completely fucked up everything for me. I don’t know why I feel so cold and why this seems to be a bigger problem for me than it is for most other people I know.

I’m hungry, too, but anything I eat makes me feel terrible and I don’t know how to solve this.

Someone once told me I’m very slow with things, and I feel like it’s true, but I don’t know how to be better at this. How does one be faster at things? I think I need to automate food, sleep and chores to the extent that I can. It’s really coming in the way at the moment actually.

I’m also experiencing the need to call onto rationality. I feel like I’ve been spending a lot of time with feelings lately (I also feel like I’ve mentioned this here before) but I’m not sure how to be rational. Or how to access the rationality that I know I have in me.

Rick Rubin says we write to see things we already know. I suppose we can keep writing until we’re able to incorporate the things we need. Hope this makes some sense. That’s it from me for now. Cheers xx

065b – building virtues

I often talk in detail about my vices on here. But the other path to self-improvement is (of course) also building virtues. And that’s understandable, some of my vices were bigger (or more important for me to look at) than these “lacking” virtues. I also felt like reducing certain vices might automatically help me be better at certain things.

And maybe, to an extent, that’s true.

But I really want to list down some of the qualities I really want to keep in my conscious realm so that I can regularly work on them in small or big ways.

Patience (and Curiosity)

This is the more urgent, most important one for me. I think I have improved on this a lot already, but there’s so much more work to be done here.

I find myself getting really antsy whenever I feel misunderstood, or understood but “not fast enough”. I even want to be calmer during discussions that are important for me. I want to use more “I” statements as much as I can. I want to approach conversations from a place of curiosity and understanding, and not just attempt to disagree and talk about what “I” think.

I think some of the other things that I’m doing will also help with this a lot (and will feed into them as well). For example, getting better at instruments, getting better at my “worldly” desires not being met (right away, or at all).

(Heated) group discussions or arguments with people I care about is where this bothers me the most because I just end up feeling bad about both the aspects— 1. That I lost my cool and 2. That I might have hurt or made someone else feel bad.

I know it’s okay to “feel” strongly about certain things, but overall I really want to get better at hanging around in the space between the feeling and the response. That’s where all the magic lies, I think.

Discipline

I’m actually not very sure about this yet. I am certain this is important and can play a big role on my overall productivity, satisfaction and general health (physical and mental).

When I say discipline I primarily mean sleep. Everything else I’m still okay around.

But there is also this very real thing that I really am naturally more productive post noon. Earlier, I used to think this is a circadian rhythm thing but here in India there’s also very real practical factors around it all. There’s definitely a lot more distractions during the day-time (especially noise and domestic workers coming in and out sometimes). I get a good amount of work done from 10pm-2am.

The only way productivity would remain the same if I were to shift my sleep schedule is if I were able to wake up by 8 am latest. This would mean sleeping by midnight latest. Don’t think that’s something I can do at the moment. But I suppose I can still set a limit of 3 am on the “when should I sleep by?” question. This involves getting enough of writing, music and reading done in the day for me to feel satisfied.

Time-Management

Since I’m not yet ready to cut out some of the things I’m wanting to fit into my day, the only other option I have is to get better at “managing” my time. I know that I need at least one (ideally two) focus blocks of 2-3 hours in a day. This means no people, no texts, no social media, etc. I get one block from around 2-5pm on most days and I get another from 10-2am. These two blocks, ideally, can be enough.

Okay, just updated my calendar. I think I need to get stricter with keeping this updated.

Organisation

This I suppose is the sister virtue to time-management. Here’s what’s been working so far:

I’m satisfied with my “noting down” ideas pipeline.

When it’s thoughts I just drop them in my Notes app (mostly on my phone) OR sometimes if I’m not using my phone I’ll use my journal. And I regularly scan my journal for any leftover ideas and transfer them to my Notes app.

When it’s music stuff or if I don’t feel like writing I simply use voice memos. This works fine too.

Also sufficiently satisfied with tracking my expenses.

Only other thing that eats up some time and bandwidth is planning for social outings. I do of course like to spend a good amount of time with friends and family and planning for that sometimes gets to me. But I don’t think I can change this TOO much right now, so maybe it’s fine. Maybe working on time-management might just suffice.

033a – flights, again

Well, I’m in a 5-hour flight again. Flying to Boston. We’re going to attempt to catch some fall foliage in and around New England. I’m really excited, this has been on my “list” for a while now. It’s also my last fall in the US for the short-medium term, so of course, it’s extra special.

I’m not sure the timing’s great though. I have a couple weeks to prep for interviews etc., and managing that along with work is going to be a little hard. And for some reason lately, I’ve been wanting to create more and more content all day, all the time. Not sure why I have so much to express suddenly. Could it be possible that our brains go on overdrive in whichever universe we immerse them into?

That is to say, if I cut off all contact with music, poetry, photography, etc. for a couple weeks, I’ll be able to focus on work and interviews? I should give that a real shot.

I suppose it’s okay though, I’m sure life will work out one way or the other. Worst case I just end up going to India instead.

My laptop’s going to be out of juice soon, what a pain it’d be to have to dig into the depths of my backpack to take out the charger.

I met someone amazing the other day. I’d really like to see her again. I haven’t asked yet, we’ll see how that goes. I’m realizing that the full (overt) vulnerability thing might be a bit tricky when it comes to dating, etc. I post a lot on the internet, including this blog, but what if someone I’m currently seeing comes across it? It might be a little crazy to have so much information about someone before really getting to know them.
Although, I think about the various people I follow online, and I suppose if I did meet them in “real life”, it’s not necessary that I’d fuse their “work” with them. While it’s true that everything we create is in some ways a part of us, that’s all it is, right? It’s not necessarily our identity.

Anyway, I realized last night that I’d like to share more of my poetry with more people. I’d like to participate in open mics as well. I’ve found a virtual open mic coming up the next weekend and I think I might try to attend that. Man, life really is short, isn’t it? So much to do, such little time.

This flight thing isn’t too bad though, it’s nice to get this sort of focus time where I don’t really have to do anything, so I’m free to do anything I want – under the being-a-thousand-miles-away-from-earth constraints, of course.

I just checked my word count, we’re already at 500 words. Could it be.. could this actually become a 1000-word post after many, many months?

My phone’s been out of storage lately so I was unable to download offline music for this flight. (I mean I thought I’d downloaded it but only once when I was up in the air I’d realized that wasn’t the case). But the coolest thing just happened. The flight wifi details state that it doesn’t support audio/video streaming, but I tried to play something on youtube and it worked. I wonder if it’s a bug or a feature. I’m not telling them though, not trying to find out.

In other news, I think addictions are a little crazy. I think I’m softly addicted to the feeling of being seen. While I’ve now accepted that it’s completely acceptable to share your work (or thoughts and feeling), etc., as much as you’d like to, I’d still like to be at peace even when I’m not getting to share it? As soon as I got on the flight today I felt restless. I immediately wanted to purchase wi-fi and talk to people.

Could I.. what if I’m more extroverted than I’d thought? Ah just kidding, I hadn’t met anyone in 2 business days, even my introversion has limits.

Holy shit, I just saw the most orange cloud of clouds I’ve seen in a while. And the whole thing looked especially insane from above the clouds. Don’t think I’ve seen something like this. Will add pictures once I reach earth.

Anyway, I just realized I still have a whole 2 hours to go in here, so I think I’m going to use this time to peruse some interview prep material to easy a little bit of my stress and worries. Catch y’all later, humans.

030b – creative queues and time management

I finally had a gin and tonic the other day. They charged us a fortune for it. We found a table outside and talked for an hour. There were heaters above us so the air didn’t feel as chilly as it generally does. The time was perfect, most of the evening crowd had gone home, but it wasn’t dead either. The city’s quite beautiful at night. The moon was out, it was a little foggy (as it often is), there’s enough voices to keep you grounded but not so many that you get overwhelmed.

I got back home and realized I can’t do something like that every night. I mean, I wouldn’t want to. Part of the magic just lies in the novelty of it. I need to be okay with the routine and the day-to-day as well. I want to be able to enjoy that. I can’t always keep looking for something exciting, new, wild (??) to do.

I got a haircut the next day so that was fun. I’d let my hair grow out for more than eight months now so that’s been crazy. Today wasn’t great though. I ended up sleeping in the whole day, missed all the sunlight – and the week’s kicking off tomorrow so I’m a little worried about how it’s going to go.

I’ve been worried about all the things that have been brewing in my head and taking up space. So much so I’ve ended up procrastinating on this post as well. Now that I’m finally in it though, it seems fine – it’s not as much material as I thought it’d be. (As usual, I guess?)

I don’t think I’m excited about being in tech. Even though it’s one of the biggest “things” in the world and I’m sure I’ll have a ton of fomo whenever I “switch” fields (if I end up doing it, that is), yet I think I want to accept that it doesn’t excite me enough. I just genuinely really want to be successful at a creative job.

But there’s the hard part, right? I can’t guarantee the success.

I’ve been debating about what the next “phase” of my life is going to be. Where do I want to be next, where do I want to go next? Summer’s about to be over soon and I’m going to have to start taking some decisions, eventually. The uncertainty’s eventually going to get to me.

Time management’s been a little hard. I think I’ve been all over the place. Between my social goals, creative goals, travel goals, relationship (??) goals and my job and chores – I feel like I can’t get everything done. I’m also aware that this is a common problem and that it’s okay, but I wonder if there’s a way to prioritize or set some boundaries or constraints at the start of a week to have some guidelines to follow as you execute? That sounds like a decent idea. I’m going to give that a shot this week.

Welp, I hit 500 words exactly. So I think that’s a wrap. Time to celebrate – I’m finally done with the 30k milestone! Hope you all have a good week ahead.

023b – frustration over the lack of time is generally about something else

Turns out there are limits to introspection. They’re not as straightforward as “I’m done now, I have nothing more to think about”, but more of a gradual decrease in the number of times you get triggered into introspective loops, daily, weekly, and so on.

Since I was mostly doing personal writing so far, my posting frequency has drastically decreased. I feel emptier now, in good ways though. It’s good for me generally, but not great for this “numbers goal” I had. I might have to consider sitting down to write even when thoughts aren’t coming up naturally. This means there’s going to be deliberate effort needed now. And we all know how bad most of us are at keeping things up when they get even a little tough.

I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix for the last couple weeks. I don’t think I watched a super unhealthy amount, but I do feel some sort of negative feelings around it, which could be worth paying attention to. The good thing is, the show I was watching is over, so I don’t have anything great (or bingeworthy) queued up for the next few weeks.

I think every time I feel frustrated about not being able to meet my writing goals, I think about time-management and end up on the “how do I make time for everything that I want to do?” question. But I think the truth is I’m not frustrated with the apparent lack of time, the frustration is simply about not having anything to write when I do actually sit down to do it. It’s a frustration about being distracted, about thinking of Y and Z while doing X.

I think the frustration is also about not getting enough engagement on the things I’m posting lately. Be it blog posts or song covers. Although I’m aware that I’ve been putting in less effort in “sharing stuff” and engagement is only in limited ways a reflection of the quality of my work, it’s still generally nice to keep getting engagement on it. Even though it might not be enough to create motivation when it doesn’t exist, I think it can keep the flame burning, so to speak.

I’ve been thinking about whether I feel ready for “society” in the post-pandemic world. There’s still a decent amount of time to go before I absolutely have to start working from office, but even then, it’s something that’s on my mind. I’d be excited to see some people, some old hands, some new ones, but I’m also anxious about some of my old worries that used to come up when I was going in to work everyday.

Lastly, feeling grateful. Grateful that I get to do this. A weird random thought about how I probably wouldn’t be able to carry on a lot of the things if I had kids and/or dependents? Not sure whether it’s true but feels like it.

Sometimes I feel like reducing my minimum required words to 500 from 1000 is a little hacky. Since some of the interesting stuff is only uncovered much later into a 1000-word post. I feel like 500 words come around even with some of the surface-level stuff, and it allows me to exit before I can get to the juicy stuff. But I’ll think more about this later. Adios!

013 – it’s okay to value your time

I made a mistake. I was actually feeling really good about getting done with the day around 11:15 pm but then I dawdled. I dawdled and I checked my phone and then I started reading stuff on twitter. And now it’s 11:45. This isn’t a great feeling. I wanted to explore a bit when I’m at peace. I don’t want to fall into the trap of revenge bedtime procrastination. The only way I would be able to sleep on time is when I find enough time in the day to be able to feel “satisfied”. And that’ll come from being able to do a little bit of things that make me happy and give me personal satisfaction.

It’s good that I know this and I see this. It’s good that I recognize this feeling that arises whenever I dawdle and scroll for too long. At least I think it’s good.

I want to get a little better at valuing my time. Earlier I was pushing back against this a bit. Because I thought I don’t want to be overly attached to my goals and desires. But now I feel like there can be a compromise. I’m sure it’s possible to have goals and desires and yet be non-attached to them? I know this is a pretty ideal state to be in, so I’m not taking it lightly.

I was also questioning where the need to value my time was coming from. I know now that it’s coming from a recognition of unfulfilled wants and desires. One of the reasons I was fighting so hard against my day job was that I felt like it was leaving me with no time for all my other pursuits. Of course, the anxiety and stress was real too, but maybe it doesn’t have to be a wild change. I see what’s happening, I’m trying to find a compromise. I’m trying to see if valuing my time (and eventually managing it better) will help me be more satisfied.

Whenever I think about creative pursuits, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs comes to mind. I keep thinking about how I’m often sad and/or dissatisfied because I keep trying to fulfill the (self-actualization, esteem) needs even without fully fulfilling my (physiological, safety and belongingness) needs. Why are the bottom three rungs so boring to look at or think about? Maybe because I haven’t solved them. Maybe because they’re supposedly easy and I keep failing at them. We keep trying to hack at happiness.

But then I also remember seeing a few posts about how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is flawed. I also dislike research so I don’t think I’m going to look this up, though I do feel like it would be interesting to. (Well, note to self.)

I’m very glad that I’m not consuming mindlessly a lot these days. It’s nice. I think I’m not as addicted to scrolling and content anymore.

How do you set boundaries with your parents? I really love them and I genuinely like spending time with them, but I can’t figure a good way to seek and take their support without also inviting “parenting” in. I don’t want to be parented anymore, I just want some support. It’s a fine line. I’ve already had a couple of really tense arguments with my mother, and she’s barely been here two whole days. I remember it’d been the same way with my sister when she’d come to stay with me for a month around a year ago. But I remember making a shared document of working styles and communicating styles which had actually worked pretty well for us. Maybe I can do something similar this time too.

It’s already 12:30 am and I really wanna be in bed by 12:50 am. Can I try writing 400 more words in 20 minutes? I mean if I really just want to ramble on I probably could. What stops me generally is wanting to write something of relevance, something of value, something that ties in well with whatever I’ve written so far. Even though I’ve (way too) often told myself I don’t need to be worrying about all of that. I suppose there’s a part of me that thinks unabashed writing is lazy writing. And honestly, it probably is. But it’s probably better than no writing. Doing this day in and day out. This is the primary reason I really like my music teacher. She keeps asking me to sing and keeps reminding me how singing wrong notes is better than singing no notes. She gets it, she gets me, and she really “attacks” the biggest and the most primary fear in me. The fear of being bad.

I’m happy to have some of these structures in place. I think I do need to take some time out to set up a few more of these. I probably need monthly check-ins for admin tasks, large cleanup tasks, decluttering tasks. I know that getting these things done feels really good and yet I don’t do them enough. I think there’s something about batch processing not done right that just ends up being worse than the unideal alternative of stream processing.

I think at some point, somehow, I had just accepted batch processing to be the superior option for most tasks. This is especially true for chores. I would often skip daily chores and let them be a “weekend problem”. But when the weekend would come around I would often not feel like getting them done, sometimes just whimsically, and sometimes because it would feel more mammoth. So then I unconsciously shifted to stream processing for “all tasks”. Which then ended up crowding my daily life way too much. So now I gotta do an intentional evaluation of the treatment different kinds of tasks deserve.

Well, I’m kinda done. So it turns out I’ve started valuing my time again. I think it’s a good direction to be headed in. This doesn’t mean I would want to be crazy about saving time all the time and not be okay with wasting it once in a while, but in general, I would probably want to be at least a little aware of it. I still have 4 minutes to 1:00 am so I’d say not too bad. *pats self*