22 hr 90.12%
It's a strange feeling to be lethargic in front of a computer screen. I'm already sitting down. I'm not very physically active so the feeling of sluggishness is strange. Perhaps, it is only strange because my status quo is often much more enthusiastic towards making things happen via the computer.
Right now, its another reviewful day as this week comes to a close a bit further below the working norm. The explanation? It was a surprise to suddenly be spending so much time hanging out with folks during the week. It transformed a 7 day week into a 4 day week, and it shows.
It's about time to contemplate the other half of this keeping-track business. Time spent information isn't as useful until I know how I spent that time. This brings me to the following two concepts.
The Weekly Throughput
I've designated it as the number of things that I complete during the week. This is a bit more difficult to track than to just clock in hours but with a journal it should be much simpler. Every program I write, every letter I type, every movie I make gets recorded in some form here in the journal. What awaits is a better way to track these weekly items and measure how much I'm getting down versus how much I'd like to get done.
That second concept requires the knowledge of a whole second idea...
The Idea Surplus
I often exclaim that there is always so much more to be done. What I'm always referring to is the fact my Idea Surplus is extremely large compared to what I can possibly hope to pull off in a week. This means that the number of creative ideas, (the raw material for movies, stories, programs and projects) is always growing without bound. I can try to write everything down but eventually the lists get so monstrously large I lose sight of the bigger picture and often don't return to the individual items.
(The number of writing ideas suffered this fate.)
The question I have is just how much excess creativity do I yield every week? And if I were to hypothetically stop generating new ideas and start spending all my time realizing the ones I have... How long would it take to complete them?
It should be possible to answer such a question considering I have collected information on the time it takes me to produce such things. It would be a simple matter of taking the production rate and multiplying it by the number of items to obtain the final time.
I have a feeling it might be more than my lifetime.
I think I should start to consider ways to narrow the lists and pull out the best things to try and do... but that's only as necessary as the Idea Surplus claims. Suppose for example that it tells me I'm really 'not' as creative as I think and that my wasteful hours have lead me to believe I have so much more to do. In that case, I could plan to take care of everything and be that much closer to a much more effective Throughput. And I wouldn't need to spend much time pruning the list. I would however need to learn to emphasis review... which is what Sunday posts are for.
Are you beginning to see why I'm on a quest to know these numbers?
Production Rate
h hours to produce u units of x
Now how many d dollars does that make?
Intermission in the middle of the day.
Walk, Movie,Nap, juggling (wake up exercise
7 hr 18 min Intermission in working or at least
until I'm sitting back at my computer. Only on a break I suppose.
That's not unlike the time I would be using to get up and go to work and class. It's just that I get to use those same hours for my own purposes. A common mistake is to believe there is more time on a break... when really the hours that were filled with class are simply filled with some other distracting activity.
I get it a lot.
When people first find out I live alone.
They stand back in horror, mouths gaping... well not necessarily but it's generally a mild shock to them. They tell me they can't live like that. A good friend of mine is actually giving up her singles apartment in order to move in with people.
And it reminds me why I like the solitude so much. It's a focus thing.
Long hours with unbroken focus is a necessity for achieving the things I aim for. Debating the fact with me won't get anyone very far.
17hrs social
5 of those very very soldering oriented.
5 or so more were robotic related.
I'm reluctant to reduce any social activity considering this is the last semester of college.
I have confirmed its an hour to an hour and a half to write a good post.
Ouch. I also note the hit count for the site increased dramatically after the pictures of that female with the hoop went up. Go figure.
My favorite part of that post...
Hmmp. Let's see. Pick the highest friction coefficient you can and use it to cover this flimsy weak material. It didn't help that the instructions weren't complete. If the instructions had some magical way to get these LED's through the tube I would have loved to read it. I think what I did read was something along the lines of, "Part H: Insert the whole electrical assembly into the tube carefully."
What they should have said was... "Try futilely to push the LED and wire assembly into the tube. You'll find you can not do this without getting the wiring stuck and then having to pull it out and push it back in several more times. You will then grow frustrated and shake the whole tube violently until by the grace of god the wire slips down to the end of the tube. You will then find it stuck in the middle. Now is a good time to cut a coat hanger and try to force the wire down the tube. Too bad this won't work for when you push the wire in you can't pull the coat hanger out without first pulling all the wire back out. Next, you'll grab a hacksaw and slice into the hoop halfway in order to somehow manage to push the wire in half the hoop then the other half. Thus, completing the step but leaving your hoop useless and un-satisfying."