1460: Flexitime

Jan 17 -- TimeWhere’s all the time gone?

I’m not talking about the year zipping by — we’re still in January when I last checked, so things are proceeding at about the right pace there — but instead I am talking about the time within each individual day. I know that reasonably speaking each day absolutely isn’t any shorter than it normally is, but it certainly feels like it at the moment for some reason. I feel like I used to be able to fit more things into the day, whereas now I seem to spend the majority of the day working, a little while chilling out in the evening and then before I know it it’s after midnight and I should be sleeping.

This is, as you might expect, somewhat frustrating. There are things I want to do, see. Lots of things. And, as any respectable human being in the 21st century will almost certainly tell you, there is rarely enough time to do everything you want to do. This seems to be a particular issue at present.

Perhaps I’m just trying to squeeze too many things into too short a space of time, and I should be more realistic about things. In fact, let’s try a little exercise: let’s list all the things that I want and/or need to do, and determine which of them can wait a bit and which of them I can probably squeeze in to the time I have. I am thinking out loud here, which is probably terribly tedious to those of you good enough to still be reading at this point, but eh. I’ve started, so I may as well finish.

I present, then, in no particular order, The (Possibly) Definitive List of Things I’d Like to Do (Perhaps on a Regular Basis), 2014 Edition, Not Including Things to Do With Other People.

  • Finish watching the anime Clannad. (Eminently doable; I’m watching an episode with breakfast and sometimes lunch each day right now, and there’s only 20-something of them.)
  • Watch the anime series Ghost Hunt, Hell Girl and whatever I’ve been adding to my Crunchyroll queue over the last year or so. (Also eminently doable; do not start until Clannad is finished to minimise confusion.)
  • Study Japanese. (Currently attending weekly evening classes, and have just signed up for a second semester; in order to progress further, I both want and need to set aside some time each week for self-study, not necessarily every day, but at least two or three times a week, I’d say. Perhaps this is something to do in the morning.)
  • Make my game. (Haven’t worked on this for ages, but still really want to get it done. At the same time, I find it difficult to believe I will ever get it done. Again, a case of setting aside regular time each week, I think; perhaps on days when I’m not doing Japanese self-study.)
  • Play the visual novels and dating sims I have on my shelf that I haven’t even touched yet. These include Saya no Uta, Tokimeki Check-In, Yumina the Ethereal and a number of others. (Requires a think. How can I fit these into daily life? Should I finish some other games first, or treat them more like “books” and, say, read in bed or something? Or perhaps play them when I would “normally” watch anime?)
  • Repeat plays of visual novels I haven’t seen all the paths of. These include Aselia the Eternal (super-long, lots of paths), Deus Machina Demonbane (quite long, few paths) and possibly some others. (See above.)
  • Play the bajillion PS1, PS2 and PS3 RPGs I have on my shelf. There’s about fifteen years’ worth of games there. Fuck next-gen.
  • Play more music. (Stop making excuses and set aside 30-60 minutes a day to do so. The piano’s right there.)
  • Finish ZHP on PSP/Vita. (Need to not be playing any other RPGs first in order to concentrate on this, and perhaps even start again altogether.)
  • Get my Final Fantasy XIV white mage to level 50. (Eminently doable at the rate I’m going.)
  • Write something long-form, either a non-fiction book on some aspect of gaming (perhaps visual novels) or a novel, then publish it somehow. (The latter I’ve sort of done for the last few years on this blog each November, but more planning and editing is required to make something worth paying for.)
  • Forgive the few people who have wronged me and for whom I hold grudges. (Never gonna happen. I don’t hold many grudges, but the few I do are, to me, entirely justified.)
  • Get back into walking, running, fitness, some combination thereof, without getting demotivated that they don’t obviously make me any smaller.

I’m sure there are more, but I think that’s probably plenty to be getting on with for now.

Whew. I think I might need to go back to making myself a schedule and trying to stick to it again.

#oneaday Day 138: Time Ticking Away

It should be abundantly apparent to most people by now that time is not a static thing and it moves at different rates according to what you are doing. The expression “time flies when you’re having fun” is absolutely true, but so, too, is the lesser-known “time crawls when you’re in a German lesson.”

So, without further ado, I present Two Lists Of Things That Make Time Go Faster And Slower Respectively.

A List Of Things That Make Time Go Faster

  • Having fun
  • Spending time with people you really like or love
  • Playing Arkham Horror
  • Playing Final Fantasy
  • Watching an awesome TV series on DVD
  • Sitting on the toilet whilst armed with an iPhone, book or magazine
  • Reading TV Tropes
  • Listening to an album… a good one, obviously
  • Going out for a “quick walk”
  • Going to the cinema
  • Clicking your heels together three times and reciting the lyrics to “Firestarter” backwards (I may have made that one up)
  • Being busy
  • Wanting to not be busy
  • Having something you want to say to someone stuck in your head, but not quite being able to say it.

A List Of Things That Make Time Go Slower

  • Staff meetings
  • Staff meetings in stuffy rooms (double effect)
  • German lessons
  • German lessons in stuffy rooms (see above)
  • Sitting on the toilet without any reading/play material
  • Listening to a boring person giving a speech
  • Boiling some water for pasta
  • Cooking something awesome
  • Going out somewhere you don’t really want to be
  • Hanging out with people you don’t really like
  • Working on something really, really dull
  • Being on the phone to someone you really don’t want to be on the phone to
  • Sending a text message to someone and you not being able to predict the reaction
  • Waiting for a phone call regarding a job interview
  • Watching a movie that is more than 2 hours long

There are, of course, plenty more. But it’s late and I’ve been working all day. Why not share some of your ideas in the comments? Oh go on. It’ll be fun, like social media.

#oneaday, Day 183: The Waiting Game

After something bad happens, it takes time for things to fall into place. While you’re thinking about the bad thing that happened, it seems like an eternity before anything will fall into place and make things seem the slightest bit good again. But then things do start falling into place. And the problem then is that they don’t do it fast enough. You can see your final destination, but you’re not getting there quick enough. There’s a big chasm made of time in the way.

Whoo, deep, huh?

Take now. I’ve pretty much almost totally nearly in a way kind of 95.7% decided what my next step is going to be. I know I said I’d do it by Day 200. But why wait?

Answer: because I have to. In order to take said next step that I’m 95.7% pretty much almost totally nearly in a way kind of decided about, I have to wait. Specifically, until next week. Next Wednesday is one of those Important Days that will determine what happens next. I’m not going to say anything about it for fear of jinxing it or anything. But let’s just say that the outcome of that day should hopefully determine my immediate future at the very least. Which is good. Knowing one’s immediate future is good. Knowing one’s immediate future is a positive thing is even better, and a positive outcome on this particular day in question will ensure a positive immediate future. I can’t speak for the long term, but right now, immediacy is what it’s all about. Hah. “Right now, immediacy is what it’s all about”. Clever.

So I must wait. It’s like I’ve got the Mac OS X pinwheel or the Windows hourglass/swirly Windows 7 thing in front of my life saying “WAIT! STOP! THINK! NO! DON’T THINK! I KNOW YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING BUT I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU WAIT ARBITRARILY!”. And there’s no way to Ctrl-Alt-Del/Alt-Cmd-Esc out of this waiting period. And turning off isn’t an option. I… wait, where was I going with this?

Oh right, waiting. Yes, it sucks. And we’re taught that from an early age. Birthdays. Christmas. Easter. “It’ll come quicker if you go to bed”. No it won’t. Unless I sleep until next Wednesday? That’s a distinct possibility, though ultimately unproductive and probably bad for… well, everything. Later in life we wait for a response from job applications (which rarely comes), feedback from interviews (I was supposed to have a response from the interview I went to on Friday today, for example, and haven’t) and to receive a text back from someone we fancy or to get a scary official letter or to find out if we can buy a house or if our finance has been accepted or… you see where this is all going.

An estimated 85% of our lives (I may have made that up. Which, technically, counts as an estimate.) is spent waiting. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just say “I’ve decided this! What do you think?” and someone could say “Yes!” or “No!” and then we could get on with something else. I’m pretty sure everyone would get a whole lot more done that way.

But no. Instead we sit here clockwatching.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Boom.