Category: my projects

Mini-Update

Batch 3 of Project B is complete — so those affirmations might be worth something.
Since they appear to be yielding results for me, I’m afraid you will be getting more of them. Don’t worry because there will be other content. Or perhaps that is a reason to worry. I don’t know.

Technically batch 3 isn’t ready to ship, so to speak. I’ve finished writing and editing them (5 stories). The follow steps are still required, but they aren’t inhibited by the powers of procrastination and avoidance to the same extent that actually writing them is.

  1. Quality Assurance — i.e. Angie to read and comment
  2. Implement suggestions from QA, above.
  3. Final QA
  4. Typeset stories
  5. Buy paper (and ink, since my printer is running low now)
  6. Buy frames
  7. Print, cut paper to size, place in frame
  8. Package and post — except Stuart’s, since he’s coming up to Joburg quite soon.

Danger Danger, Neil Robinson!

So this plan of mine to avoid aimlessly drifting around on the internet, and to actually Get Things Done TM has been working quite well so far.
Except for today. Today I thought I’d bend the rules a little. Today I said, “I can read the headlines on the Mail & Guardian news feed, as long as I don’t follow them, because otherwise I’ll lose track with what is going on in the world.”

But then a particularly interesting headline jumps out at me and says, in its sultry, seductive voice, “Click…” A pause as it draws breath in slowly between its teeth, making a gentle hissing sound. “Me…”

So I’m not allowed to do that now either.

Project Update

Last project update happened in March. It should be relatively easy to tell that no updates on progress will tend to indicate no progress.
Considering the time that has lapsed since the last update, progress per unit time has been dismal. Fortunately, progress hasn’t been negligible, and I’m hoping that by writing about the small amount of progress I have achieved, I will be spurred into action.

To recap:
I’ve dropped office and work related things from this whole structured procrastination strategy. These are personal projects, for my own benefit. Not for the benefit of any other entity.
This leaves me with the following items in the structured procrastination list:

  1. Project A — Write the novel, “The Adventures of Commitment Man”
  2. Project B — Write 100 word stories for family and friends, and present them as gifts
  3. Play chess online
  4. Blog every day
  5. Take camera everywhere, and pretend to be a Japanese tourist

How are things going then? Since the last update on 9 March, some progress has been made, but not a hell of a lot:

  1. 903 new words were written, bringing the total number of words to 20,043. Appalling.
    So that you can get a full understanding of how appalling it is, consider that this is on average, 15.84 words per day — even though I wrote all of those words during one of the days since the last update.
    The average number of words per day, since I started NaNoWriMo, back in November, is 100.34.
    The shame of it.

    1. I also mentioned the creation of a handy mind-map plot and character diagram affair. Added nothing to it. At least it didn’t waste more time.
  2. One story completed. One. This is just not good enough. How am I ever going to make something of myself if I carry on in this fashion? The answer, naturally, is I’m not. Perseverance is key.
    It seems, at this rate, that some recipients really will get their gifts at Christmas — or worse — not at all.
    However, although only one has been completed, there are two stories waiting for editing (which in practise is hacking off up to third of the story, so that it meets the 100-words-long criterion).
    There is also 1 half-written story, and another waiting in the conceptual phase.
    In summary: 1 complete, 2 waiting for post-production, 1 in production, 1 at proof-of-concept phase. All this, over just 59 days. Bah!

    1. I’ve decided to break the family batch into two, in order to make it a little less intimidating. Thus, there will be a 5 story and a 4 story batch.
  3. Chess. There have been some games. I am bad at chess on-line, generally because the games are too fast-paced.
    How do I quantify my progress, in terms of actually playing chess on the server? I suppose I can post my rated games stats. Then, the next time I arbitrarily feel like giving you all an update, I’ll post them again. Then my loyal readers can see for themselves how apathetic I’ve been. Apologies for the icky formatting. I’ll look into it. Perhaps a screenshot will be easiest.On for: 9 mins Idle: 0 secsrating RD win loss draw total best
    Blitz 1069 141.5 15 39 3 57 1508 (28-Nov-1998)
    Standard 1998 350.0 2 2 0 4
    Lightning 1225 196.3 9 28 0 37
    Wild 1859 271.9 3 6 0 9
    Crazyhouse 1341 345.4 0 5 0 5
    Suicide 1346 350.0 2 12 0 14
    Atomic 1562 198.0 1 3 0 4

    Total time online: 2 days, 1 hr, 32 mins
    % of life online: 0.1 (since Thu Jul 2, 17:00 ??? 1998)

  4. Blog every day. Success rate on that has been 26.32%, although this doesn’t take into account multiple posts on a single day.
    Is just over a quarter any good? If 26% BEE ownership is good enough for the Department of Minerals and Energy, then it’s good enough for me.
    Aren’t logical fallacies great?
    And isn’t it great when I use the term, “logical fallacy,” but in all honesty am not completely certain of it’s definition.
  5. I am not a Japanese tourist, although I do have a minor guilt complex about the camera, and do tend to take it to more places than I may have taken my previous camera.
    764 pictures taken. That’s 12.95 pictures per day. Not sure how many photos the stereotypical Japanese tourist takes in a day. Google is no help on this. I assume it’s probably quite a young research field.

When I started writing this, it was meant to be a motivational piece for myself. It seems a little self-deprecating, when I look at it now.

Some focus is required as to which project is most important. Is the structured procrastination strategy really effective, in the long run? Am I really achieving a great deal of useful, meaningful things.
Honestly — no. I’m not getting anything done.
The question that follows is: what do I want to get done? Is there an end goal for each task? Yes. There is.

At this point I should probably apologise for the excessive waffle (although it is waffle group, and you knew that when you bought the tickets). Feel free to give up at this point, and go about your business (as if you were somehow restrained before). I usually try to remain at least somewhat coherent in what I write. I offer no such guarantees from this point on, at least today. What I write now is information I need to keep a record of for myself, and that I can refer to. By putting it out on the intertubes, I can try to make it binding. It’s in writing. I’m committed. I have to stick to it.

Right — back to the end goals of each task. What do I want to achieve? Let’s use those handy numbered lists again.

  1. I want to write a novel. I know that I can. I know there’s a market for the kind of thing that I like to write. Look at the internet. The geeky, fanboy, in-joke, population of the internet is just waiting for me to finish commitment man, so that they can ingest it ravenously, and be somewhat amused. And hey, if amongst all that quirky entertainment, I can also make some sort of point, that’ll be great.
    And if it makes me a little money, that’ll be even better. For myself, I just need to finish writing the damned thing. I passed Chemical Engineering Design — I can do frigging anything, and that includes writing a full-length book.
    Desired end-product: A complete, unedited novel. I’ll worry about making it publishable once it actually exists.
  2. Show my friends and family that I care about them by giving them gifts that I created, and not just bought, pre-packaged, just-add-water.
    This one is actually quite easy. By making the stories short, it isn’t a huge mountain to climb to achieve the end result. The most difficult part is figuring out what to write. What topic to choose. What event in our shared past to focus on? What aspect of the person’s personality to celebrate? And then, having chosen that thing the story is to highlight, condensing all of the details of those shared experiences into something so brief. That’s the hard part. 100 words just isn’t enough, but if I let myself write more then I’d probably never have finished one of the stories.
    Desired end-product: A gift for each of the people I hold dear. This is tricky though. As I get to know certain people better, it becomes clear to me that I need to write these previously unknown, but now well-known people a short story. Have I got myself into an endless cycle, out of which I can only break by refusing to get to know anyone else? Will anyone really be offended if they don’t get their story, but that other person did? Do people really care that much about me that they’d get offended over something like that?
    Desired end-product — revised: A written gift for each of the people I held dear at the time I devised the project, and whose names I placed on The List. If you weren’t on The List at the outset, you may have to cope with not receiving a 100 word story.
  3. Nothing to achieve here. I don’t take chess as seriously as I used to. It’s fun to play, but I don’t feel the urge to set quantifiable goals, like rating improvements, or number of games played, or any of the other stuff I could set. This one is truly a structured procrastination device. I’ll play chess, when I’m avoiding the Project A and B — which I should try not to avoid.
    Desired end product: None
  4. Blogging every day? What for? I’ll blog when I feel the need, or have a compulsion. The only reason I can think of blogging every day is to make statements of affirmation.
    Desired end product: Blog when I feel like it, otherwise make an affirmation every day (although this might begin to annoy my readers, I suspect it will get me to work on Projects A and B with more vigour)
  5. Take photos. This means getting away from the damned, cursed, evil, computer machine and its collection of tubes to other places that suck away the time and leave a would be project completer without completed projects.
    Desired end product: Take photos of the real world. Get away from the virtual one.

Ok, that was helpful. I’ve identified that the writing projects are what i really want to do. Getting away from the computer screen is also recommended, from time to time. Blogging and playing chess are not necessary.
File this under obvious, I suppose, but it has helped me to remind myself of these things.

Further, I think I need to stop reading crap on the internet. If I intend to read something, it must be printed — i.e. a book. If I intend to waste time reading crap on the internet, rather work on project A or B, or play some chess, or blog an affirmation. Or take a photo. or get back to work. Those are now the options.

Ok. Summary of the intended plan:

  1. No random browsing on the internet. Internet reading is to be restricted to information gathering for a particular purpose — and then stop. Stay away from slashdot.
  2. Google Reader will be not quite banned, but will be severely restricted. No more reading all the tech stories. Comic feeds are acceptable (I only have 3). Friends feeds are acceptable (because my friend’s blogs are updated intermittently, not constantly). That’s it.
  3. Email is still allowed. Links that I receive via email will be followed, but that’s it! No other random internet crap will be explored. No links from within linked stories will be followed.
  4. If I feel the urge to explore random crap on the internet at any time, instead I will do one of the following:
    1. Blog
    2. Project A
    3. Project B
    4. Play chess
    5. Take photos
    6. Read a book that I can hold in my hands
  5. Project A and B are going to be completed, and this kind of focus is the only way to get it done. I’m going Nazi on myself

If you’re still reading this, I’m flattered. But seriously, you’ve got better things to do too, so do them already. Procrastination will leave you withered and hollow at the end of your time, with no sense of accomplishment or meaning.
You know exactly what I mean. You know the way you feel when you wasted a whole day doing random crap that achieved nothing, or made no inroads into achieving something that you desperately would like to have edged closer to. You know you don’t want to go on like that any more — so don’t.

The waffle is finally over for today.

Project Update Time!

Haven’t updated the status of my numerous projects for a while, so I thought that I should.

What projects am I talking about? The structured procrastination projects, designed to make me an incredibly productive individual.

A quick overview of the tasks I set for myself:

  1. Office Work
  2. Office Admin
  3. Project A — write a novel, called “The Adventures of Commitment Man”
  4. Project B — write 100 word stories for friends and family, and give them as gifts
  5. Play chess online
  6. Blog everyday

And now an assessment of my progress in each category:

  1. Working consistently, most of the time. There are so many projects to do at the moment that there really isn’t any time to do non-work stuff during working hours (although, I am squeezing in this blog entry)
  2. Admin — not really happening independently of work. I think I shall simply lump this together with work from now on. Possibly, this reduces my structured procrastination capacity. But more on that a little later
  3. Hmm. Not going swimmingly.
    1. I’ve written an additional 1500 words or so since I conceived of this incredible plan to do stuff. A bit rubbish, really.
    2. On the plus side, I’ve started putting together a mind-map of the plot, characters, scene locations, and so forth. Things are getting a little complex and I decided I needed some sort of layout to help me keep things consistent
      1. Yes, this looks suspiciously like a sub-task to avoid actually writing the novel — but I’m convinced it’ll help get the novel written.
  4. Ah. Project B. It was going so well. Two batches written and distributed. Seven stories in total. Happy recipients. Those were the days.
    1. The family batch is waiting for me. It’s a big batch. 1 wife, 1 mother, 1 father, 2 brothers, 1 mother-in-law, 1 sister-in-law, 1 niece, 1 nephew. That’s nine stories. It feels like a lot, even though it’s only 900 words.
  5. Chess. Online. Not really happening.
  6. Blog everyday. Also not happening, but then I always knew that it wasn’t going to happen every day, so in view of that, this task is going quite well. Perhaps instead of blogging, I should focus on point 3 and 4 a little more. That’s what I really want to get done.

I also mentioned how I had been infected with dSLR attachments. So I went and splurged a little, and bought the Pentax K100D.

This allows me to add a task — 7. Take camera with me everywhere, and pretend to be a Japanese tourist.

Incidentally, I’m off to Limpopo this weekend for another wedding. Fortunately, I’m not the official wedding photographer this time — but I figure I’ll be taking a few shots of the festivities with ye newe acquisitione.

Project B running along smoothly

The second batch of Project B was partially distributed at a charming dinner gathering last night. Quinn, Gaby, Chris, Lena, Angie, and Michael were all in attendance.
Michael is out from Wales, so that’s what kind of sparked the whole dinnering thing off.

However, this is not the point of the post:

The point is that Batch 1 of Project B has now been published on my Deviant Art account.

An explanation of what Project B is actually all about is included with the submissions, so go check them out:

Things are proceeding exactly as I had foreseen

Excellent news. The next batch of Project B is ready for packing and dispatch.

This means, soon, I shall publish the first batch on Deviant Art. This is yet another motivational incentive scheme I have devised, using the concepts of both immediate and delayed gratification:

Consider gift batches x, y and z.
Consider gift recipient groups X, Y, and Z.On completion of x, x is presented to X.
On completion of y, y is presented to Y and x is published on Deviant Art so that X, Y, and Z can all read x.
On completion of z, z is presented to Z and y is published on Deviant Art so that X, Y, and Z can all read y.

And so forth.

By completing the first batch, I am rewarded immediately by giving it to the recipient. But, I gain further reward at a later stage from the same batch by publishing it once I deliver the subsequent batch. Double the reward, double the enjoyment at the end of the day. In your pants.

Those of you who are recipients of the completed batch should expect some mail. If you didn’t get mail, you might be in the next batch. And herein lies a further incentive angle — pressure from those who have not yet received, but have a rough idea of what to expect from checking out Deviant Art (although, there may be some delay in getting that up there, but I’ll let you know when it’s up).

Procrastination Progress Report

I think it’s safe to assume that everyone has the context of this post, but just in case the hyperlink to the context is provided at absolutely no extra cost (twice).

If you’re reading this then it’s quite obvious that I’m doing well at the “writing blog entries” task. It is no longer being procrastinated.

Obvious drawback is that other things are. Although, it’s not really that serious considering it’s the weekend. So, if I avoided blogging, then I’d should be working, but I’m not going to do any work on the weekend.

Of course, that means I should skip work and look at Project A.
Nah, skip that too.

Project B: looking good kids.
In earlier discussions with Quinn it was decided that I should incentivise myself by issuing the gifts to recipients as they are completed. Since this behaviour could result in certain people getting upset because “they didn’t get one,” it forces me to actually complete all of the gifts.
Further, we decided that they would be distributed in batches. The first batch has already shipped. The second batch is almost ready to ship (one story left to write, but I know what to write). This means I wrote one story and conceptualised another. Productivity people!
Now, there is some concern that this particular batch might require an additional item, in order to avoid disappointment. So scratch that: two stories to write, but one already conceptualised and the weekend is but young.

Chess: I have played quite a bit today, happily avoiding other activities. I’ve discovered a rather amusing variant that they play on FICS, called “Atomic Chess.”
Now that’s an allusion to the atomic bomb because when you capture a piece, it “explodes,” removing the captured piece, itself, and all adjacent pieces from the board (with the exception of pawns, which stay behind). Now, if you don’t really play chess much, this won’t be of that much interest. But let me just say this: I feel a more apt name for the variant would be “Suicide Bomber Chess,” because there are no ballistic-missile pieces in chess.
That’s a useful piece you’re blowing up when you make a capture.

Unrelated (although not, since it is procrastination but not part of the structure): I’ve spawned a halfhaggis Flickr account. It has a couple of photos up that a posted to test whether F-spot integrated with it properly. It does. I’m mighty pleased because it’s so easy.
Perhaps I’ll start spewing out photos there on a regular basis. At least then, those who care, have a chance of actually seeing some my photos.

Enquiring Minds want to know

The blog isn’t dead, it merely stands dormant.

I hear you argue that Satan’s Poodle is dormant too. I’ll level with you on that — Satan’s Poodle is edging towards extinction. Although it may be revived, don’t count on it until I finish other projects I’ve set for myself. More on that shortly.
Anyway, Waffle Group ain’t the poodle, so those enquiring minds need not fret about Waffle Group’s endangerment.

There are a number of reasons why this blog is unlikely to be updated regularly for a while, but things will trickle in from time to time.

  1. Work: The new year has brought me many work-related projects and I’m likely to be very busy during the day. No time to stuff about on the intertubes. Or rather, less time.
  2. Personal Project A: Commitment Man! After work, there might be some free time available to me, but if I’m going to be writing, I should be writing Commitment Man. Words written on the blog could’ve been added to my manuscript. You may have heard of this before under the title “NanoWriMo.” Of course, November is long since gone and my word count still hasn’t reached 50,000. Still, I never really expected to get things finished in a month. I did expect it to give me a kick-start, and ultimately I do expect to finish.
  3. Personal Project B: Novel Christmas Presents: I have stumbled upon a cunning idea for Xmas gifts. Or rather, was inspired to create certain gifts for people who I care for, know relatively well, and believe will appreciate them. I also concluded that there isn’t necessarily a need to wait until Christmas to give someone important a gift. Gifts can be given at any random time. I believe that a gift of my time will be particularly meaningful. So, I’m using my time to customise gifts for many of you. Once all gifts are completed, I will distribute them. The care-takers of Bug Unit have already received theirs, because they were buggering off to the UK (and now have done so).

So now, enquiring minds know.

Nanowrimo Update

Okay, so things aren’t exactly looking optimal.
I laugh in the face of unattainable word counts!

Fear not fans! Writing continues steadily, if not at the blistering pace required to meet certain self-imposed deadlines. There will be a silly novel. It’ll just take a while longer.

In other news, Angie celebrated her birthday yesterday in style — pics should be forthcoming. Complain if there aren’t any before the end of the week.