Solo Technology

[This is a bit of a followup from "The Troubles of Keeping Up" from early May]

I’ve slowly been making minor changes to how I do things and the things I do in search of a bit more simple life. While this is truly a joyous time to be a technical aficianado (or geek), it can also be a bit too much at times. I believe I had reached one of those times this year. What are my big earth-shattering changes thus far?

In early May, I went back to paper for tracking to-dos and such. That’s been working out quite well. No more wrestling with electronic versions is a plus -and- turns out it is nice just to have the paper around to quickly scribble down other bits of information from time to time. Almost like using a Day-timer again in that I can glance back through my lists and quickly figure out what I was up to those days. In fact… I’ve actually toyed with the notion of going back to the Day-Timer or Franklin scene for calendar and notes too. But I don’t think I will — I recall what a pain in the butt repeating appointments could be and with all my co-workers on Exchange server, keeping our availability online is priceless when scheduling meetings. If I went paper for that, I’d have to double enter everything anyways. Doesn’t seem like it would simplify things, does it?

Along the lines of to-do’s, I installed a wiki at work a couple months ago. In general, that’s gone over quite well and has even seen some use from groups outside the tech folk. It’s also been a good place to keep my own little project related tasks. I just set up some pages under my personal area and make faux checklists in the old ” [ ]” style. Then they become “[x]” when I’ve completed the task. Simple, effective and the project folks in the office can easily see where I’m at without having to ask. And it helps fulfill my inner need to build nested outlines. I love project task outlines.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I discovered the joys of podcasts and quickly got hooked on a bunch of ‘casts. Even found a wonderful program to help manager and listen to my podcasts via pocketPC called FeederReader. Lots of good stuff out there, and trying to keep up drove me nuts. For some reason, once I’d subscribe to a podcast, I couldn’t allow myself to miss an episode. So I was constantly fiddling with my subscription list to have enough to last me each week without having too much or not enough. Ugh. I’ll miss some of those podcasts, but life’s a lot less stressful just hopping into the car and turning on the XM Radio instead.

Minimizing my RSS subscriptions has been interesting. I think I’m getting on top of it though. My goal is to get to where I can check it once or twice a day and not be over-whelmed. Although it pains me, the digg subscription had to go. I come across some interesting stuff there from time to time, but the sheer volume and need to wade through some not so great content made that a no-brainer. Granted, it took me until this morning to figure that out… habits are tough.

Managing my work schedule is always a challenge. And it was out of control enough that our CEO and my “boss” started hassling me to find ways to cut back. After much discussion, I’m trying out some new stuff this week. Instead of rushing in to the office to check the nightly operations tasks and servers each morning, now I check from home. Seems simple, but it shaves hours off of my work day. Get up, check the work stuff around 6:00 or 6:30. Leisurely prepare for the day, handle email and other “daily task” type stuff from home, and then drive in around 8:30 after the rush. So far I’m liking it. Couple that with a bit of a goal to not be the last one there each night and I bet my avg hours will drop well below the 60 or 70′ish that I’ve been doing for so many months. Frankly, I’m a bit burned-out and this can only help (heh - until the next big pile of projects heading my way hits!).

I quit tobacco use again. Yep, again. This time I hope to make it more than a few months. The stress of hiding it from friends and family doesn’t help anything, nor does the self-loathing that starting again causes. Day 13 so far and feeling pretty good about it. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that craving nicotine when stressed has nothing to do with true stress — it just means you’re craving nicotine and your body gets stressed. So yeah, no more of that crap.

What else? Well, you’ve probably noticed I don’t consistently put up 2 or 3 blog posts every day here anymore. Yeah, that’s cost me some readership but it also has made my evenings a bit more relaxing. I definitely will continue to post tech stuff as it interests me but I’m not quite so gung-ho to chase every bright shiny object any more.

So there you have it. That’s what I’ve been up to. How about you — any tips?

2 Responses to “Continuing Simplification”

1. Peter on June 22nd, 2006 9:41 pm
   

   You’ve got some great tips there that I’ll have to give a try too. I’m also a bit burned out, but I’ll likely get some slack time now that my latest class has come to an end. I’ll be taking the next 8 weeks off, perhaps even 16, from school and enjoy the rest of the summer. So, get the boat yet?

2. chris on June 22nd, 2006 10:05 pm
   

   Hey Peter! Will have the boat 3rd week of July. Can’t wait. That’ll be another reason to cut back on working too much.

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