A more restful fortnight

Posted on July 13, 2025 by isikyus

My last fortnight (up to last Thursday), has been busy, with various work and personal events disrupting my usual schedule. It’s been tiring, but that’s also given me a much-needed excuse to rest.

In that time, I have:

Got to sleep around 1:05 on average, for about 7 hours, 15 minutes of sleep a night.
Made six things:
- Three evenings of work on D&D prep (including an initiative tracker that I need to share a photo of at some point),
- Two of work on my budget,
- And one dealing with a mental health issue — this wasn’t really productive in itself, but it has given me some impetus to try and improve things. And it consumed a lot of otherwise-productive time.
And I finished one book, The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton. After reading so many standalone books, I didn’t realise this was part of a larger series until the last few pages. But I did like the way that gave it a grounding in a larger history, without the sense of “nothing interesting happened since 21st-century Earth” that space opera sometimes has.

In the D&D game, the player characters have kicked off a serious strike at their goal, after dodging shadows, rats, and memetic disease. Next session will pick up in media res.

It seems these are monthly now…

Posted on July 1, 2025 by isikyus

Over the past two fortnights, I have:

Got to sleep around 1:40 AM on average, for about 7 hours, 3 minutes of sleep a night. My work hours have shifted earlier. I think this will be better in the long run, but it’s causing some teething problems currently.
Made 16 or 17 things (at least 8 a fortnight):
- Four scenes of writing …
- … including one post on my other blog, which also counts as a thing shared!
- Three evenings of D&D prep,
- Three of work on my budget,
- Two poems,
- Two evenings’ worth of mending,
- Some organising for one family thing,
- And some for much-needed maintenance on my house.
Finished one book, The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang. This was more fun than I’d expected in the first third, darker in the rest (though I had been warned by the cover), and overall came together in a very satisfying way.

And the Dungeons and Dragons game is continuing well. The PCs have now twice tested the strength of their enemies, and and assembled most of their preparations. Much hangs in the balance for their next strike.

Turning around, but not yet moving

Posted on May 31, 2025 by isikyus

Another month, another fortnightly post missed. But, while the stats don’t show it yet, I am getting closer to some of these goals. I’m also coming out of a period of higher-than-usual stress at work, which should bring some improvement.

In the past two fortnights, I have:

Got to Sleep at about 1:25 on average, for about 7 hours, 5 minutes’ worth of sleep a night.
Made ten things:
- Three scenes of writing, on three different topics,
- Two evenings of work on my budget (one of then things that’s been making good progress),
- Two evenings of D&D prep
- Organising an overdue appointment for my car,
- Indexing a notebook,
- And some work on a project for a forum I’m in.
And I again finished two books:
- The Electric State, by Simon Stålenhag, which was pleasantly creepy and gave me plenty to think about,
- and Wrong Answers Only, by Tobias Madden. This had a solid ending, but it took me far longer than I expected to get into it — though that may just be because I’m far away from the target demographic.

Again, only one D&D session this month. That game saw the party fleeing in the face of the monster. When they return, though, they will be better prepared…

Sleeping Furiously is Not Very Effective

Posted on May 9, 2025 by isikyus

A mock-up of a fake Magic The Gathering card, titled "Furious Sleep". The card is an Enchantment - Aura, with cost 1 generic and 1 Green mana. It has five lines of rules text: * Enchant creature you control. * Devoid. Armies you control are colourless. * When Furious Sleep enters the battlefield, tap enchanted creature. * Whenever enchanted creature is untapped, tap it. If you do, amass Eldrazi Spawn 1. * Sacrifice Furious Sleep and an Army: untap enchanted creature. — A colourless green idea

The past five weeks have been a busy time at work, and in various other ways as well. The public holidays, unfortunately, don’t seem to have helped.

In the past two full fortnights (i.e. the remainder of April), I have:

Got to sleep at 1:30 on average, for 7 hours, 10 minutes’ worth of sleep. I’m struggling furiously, but it’s not very effective …
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought a Magic card to a game of Pokemon.
Made only twelve things (6 per fortnight):
- Five scenes of writing, on my main WIP and various smaller distractions.
- Three evenings of budget work. The data entry is done; now comes the hard part.
- Two evenings of D&D prep.
- One chunk of an epic poem,
- And one idea for a Magic card, shown above.
And I finished two books:
- Wharfies: The History of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, by Margo Beasley. This was interesting reading, both for details of how the industry worked early on, and for being a broader overview of Australian history than I’d previously had. It’s also the second thing I’ve read recently that mentioned Billy Hughes, whom I probably need to read up on further.
- The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon. This was fantastic — I’d forgotten how much I enjoy high fantasy — but I really wish I could have spent longer in the world. I will probably need to track down the sequel.

D&D continues, but slowly; we’ve only played one session in the past month. That was a daring raid on the villain’s lair, and ended on a cliffhanger. A monster, woken furious from sleep, now challenges the party…

A Low Ebb

Posted on April 7, 2025 by isikyus

In the past fortnight, I have:

Got to sleep at 1:36 AM on average, for 7 hours, 3 minutes’ worth of sleep. This is distinctly worse than it was in my last goals post.
Made nine things:
- Four evenings of D&D prep,
- Three of tax- and buget-related work,
- One evening setting up a cheaper phone plan (to go with the ISP I switched to last fortnight),
- And one blog post.
And I didn’t finish reading or watching anything. I am reading a book but it’s slow going.

The D&D game also was at a low ebb this fortnight. We were a player short, and the group focused on levelling up and planning their next move.

Progress Continues OK-ish

Posted on March 22, 2025 by isikyus

In the last fortnight, I have:

Got to sleep at 1:29 AM on average, for 7 hours, 14 minutes’ worth of sleep. Both these numbers are increasing slowly. I think this means I’m staying up too late and then sleeping very late on weekends to make up for it, which isn’t ideal.
Made eight things:
- Three evenings of work on my budget,
- Two evenings switching ISPs: my old one put their price up, and that motivated me to find a much better deal.
- One evening of D&D prep,
- One scene of writing,
- And one evening of tax paperwork. This and the story arc I’m writing are both close to done, which is nice.
And I finished one thing, Jill Bearup’s Just Stab Me Now. This was a welcome break from the excess of memes I’ve been consuming lately, but still a little summarised (as the format would suggest). I may have to get the book, if I can fit it into my to-be-read pile.

The D&D party finally cleared the dungeon last week, which means I need to get my act together preparing the next one.

But without sleep, all else fails

Posted on February 23, 2025 by isikyus

The past fortnight, I have:

Got to sleep at 1:32 AM on average, for 7 hours, 2 minutes’ worth of sleep a night. Earlier nights than last month, but definitely not early enough. The stats show I’m still behind on sleep, and I feel exhausted.
Made only four things:
- A single scene of writing,
- A poem,
- A little bit of work organising a trip, and
- A bit of work on my budget.
And I didn’t finish anything. I had hoped to finish a playthough of a video game, but it was consuming too much time and sleep and I made the decision to uninstall it it. It’s not yet clear if this has actually helped.

D&D was last week due to a schedule shift. The players are starting to turn the tide in their current dungeon, but the latest problem is one of my own NPCs trying to derail the plot. This must be stopped …

I just need to work out how!

Improving Everything But Sleep

Posted on February 9, 2025 by isikyus

Due to my last post being a day early, these stats are for two fortnights plus one day. These saw an excess of phone-related distractions, impacting sleep. But after cancelling a few commitments from last year, I have been more relaxed and productive generally.

Twenty-nine being a prime number, I was worried the averages would be tricky, but it came out quite cleanly:

I got to sleep an average of 2 hours after midnight, for 7 hours and 9 minutes’ sleep a night (both figures to the minute!). These are typical, but feel worse, possibly because they include lost sleep from a 3-a.m. work call.
I made 17 things (8.5 per fortnight). Ten were in the past 14 days alone, so the trend is an increase:
- 4 evenings of D&D prep,
- 4 pieces of writing (3 scenes and a poem),
- it to 2 social events (the wedding, and wedding setup day),
- 2 evenings of work on my tax,
- 1 blog post (of an existing but unshared poem),
- and one evening each of budget, appointments, trip planning, and helping sort my late father’s poetry.
And I finished A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which was a nice enjoyable thriller – though of course with the dark turns you expect in a murder mystery. I didn’t read another book in the second fortnight, but I did go to see a surrealist art exhibition 🙂

The D&D game continues well, though the party have had a hard time of it lately, between escaped enemies and a couple of nasty undead fights.

Both Late and Early

Posted on January 8, 2025 by isikyus

This post is late, of course, because I should have posted a goals update on Boxing Day. It is early because I’m writing it in advance — both to catch up, and because this Thursday I shall be at a wedding.

Future data is of course missing, but I’ll include it in my next post instead 🙂

Based on the data so far, I:

Got to Sleep at 2 AM on average, for about 7 hours and 13 minutes of sleep a night. This was better in the first fortnight, so I think New Years’ Eve celebrations may hold some of the blame.
Worked on 12 things. Six each fortnight, mostly by twos:
- A pair of scenes for my writing WIP.
- A pair of poems.
- A pair of budget-focused evenings.
- A pair of tax ones — this would be basically done, but I discovered I’m missing a vital piece of paperwork.
- Two sessions of work classifying my Magic: The Gathering collection, which I rarely play and therefore organise even more rarely.
- And two unrelated things: some D&D prep, and my two annual Christmas cards (which I’m counting as one thing).
Following the pattern, I finished two books (one per fortnight):
- Inside Job, by Dr Rebecca Myers. This was a very heavy read: more than once, I had to stop reading and take a break, which is unusual for me. (Content warnings: sexual violence, children, and the intersection thereof.)
  But it is also very well written — Myers describes the details of the prison building and job very vividly (though she draws more of a veil over the heavy parts).
- And Hard Eight, by Janet Evanovich, which was much less serious (though it is still a crime novel with life-and-death — or worse — stakes). This book got me thinking about the passiveness of many of my characters — while Evanovich’s protagonist doesn’t really accomplish much, she is nothing if not proactive.

No D&D last fortnight (Christmas) nor this one (moved to board games due to scheduling issues).

A Turn-Up of Books

Posted on December 13, 2024 by isikyus

My festivities have ended early this year, and I’m now back at work — but with the benefit of a restful holiday, and a relaxation of other commitments to come over Christmas.

And, overall, a nicely productive fortnight. In this one, I have:

Got to sleep 1 hour and 11 minutes after midnight on average, for 7 hours 27 minutes of typical sleep. The holidays have helped with this, for certain.
- But I’m also trying out a clock radio — not so much as an alarm, but as a distraction to keep me off my phone while getting dressed. So far it’s seeing me arrive at work (and therefore home for dinner) about 10 minutes sooner than previously. Early days yet, but promising.
Worked on 9 evenings’ worth of projects:
- Four bits of D&D prep,
- Three chunks of discussion for a potential Pathfinder campaign after this one,
- One evening of work on my budget,
- And one small piece of poetry.
And I finished reading or watching several things:
- Ghost Legion, by Margaret Weis. This is the book I kept thinking I’d finish and not managing — not that it’s bad, but somehow I couldn’t manage to get back to it. But I read just the last page of this years ago, and I’ve always wanted to see how it got to [spoiler] the last of the paladin-like Guardians, defying an apparently-benevolent god.
- Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. Between premise, setting, detail, and the subtle-but-terrifying villain, I couldn’t help but finish this.
- And Wicked (Part 1), which I saw with family in the cinema. The musical Wicked is lighter than the book, and I thought this was going to be lighter still. But actually the film uses its extra detail (and length) to bring a lot of book elements back in.
  I’m curious to see the second half, as I think I spotted this one foreshadow a different ending to the musical.

D&D this week was (possibly) the last session this year, and a few of us were a little tired and stressed, but not enough to cause issues. I want to focus on my framing a touch more, as I had a few combats run longer than they needed to; and I did put my thumb on the scales of plot once or twice.

But overall it went well enough, with a nice cliffhanger to follow up on next time.

Calculating Dreams

To write with numbers — code with pen and ink

Category Archives: Goals