Tag Archives: goals

Another Excuse

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I’ve recovered, more or less, from last week’s illness, but I still didn’t get much done.

This time it’s because my computer isn’t working. (Should be just a power supply issue, but it’s some kind of gaming laptop and needs a special 200 watt replacement) Between a lack of a proper keyboard, small screen, and being locked out of all my usual recreations, this has thrown my creative work askew.

On that wonky foundation, I have:

  • Slept 7 hours a night, well below my increased goal. Despite this I have been late for work all fortnight, so something is fishy here. More work (or perhaps more laziness) needed.
  • Made about six things:
    • Two evenings’ progress on a roguelike inspired by my illness. This is in no sense playable, but it was fun to work on: Elm is so much better suited to this than my previous attempt to use it.
    • A page of free-written backstory for my fiction project (on a typewriter, due to no laptop).
    • A few notes for the D&D game, longhand (due to ditto).
    • Index entries for another notebook in my backlog.
  • And the lack of YouTube gave me an excuse to start, and finish, watching Hot Fuzz. The DVD had been on my to-watch pile for ages, and it was well worth it. The old UK police uniform showing up was a highlight 🙂

D&D was a little flat this week, which I attribute mostly to a lack of prep — and losing the last fortnight’s work on my laptop. I thought I had everything in a Git repo, but apparently I did not.

(Being a player short may also have been a factor.)

The game will keep rolling, though. The players hit a milestone and levelled up, and we had some interesting events that will affect my plans for next session.

My new laptop charger should arrive on Monday,  which ought to help things.

Goal: Write Goals

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Between illness, broken Internet, and various other demands on my time, my focus petered out at the end of the last ROW80 round.

I’d like to say that won’t happen again. But that means something will have to change.

My Internet should be fixed soon, but that may not be enough.

Can I reduce the impact of being sick?

The last few times I’ve been sick like this, it’s taken ages to go away. I suspect this is because I don’t get enough rest. However, setting aside my goals to give myself time to relax doesn’t really work; even if I don’t write, I still stay up late and lose sleep.

For all I know, I’d actually get to sleep sooner (and heal better) if I did keep my writing goals.

What about those other demands on my time?

Some of these are house-related things (e.g. organising repairs). Some are related to things at work. But the majority are social commitments.

When I started ROW80, I basically had one day out a month. I’ve now got fencing every week, and various other social things on three weekends out of four — plus, often, a one-off thing on the fourth.

This probably isn’t that much in an absolute sense, but every extra commitment is one fewer day I can use to work on my own projects (like writing). Combined with being sick (and therefore being behind on everything), this adds up to more pressure than I’m used to.

So, what can I do about this?

Improving my time management would help, but I don’t think that’s going to happen in the short term.

Which means I need to reduce my commitments — either cut down on social situations (and become lonely), cut down on writing (and feel my goal of being a serious writer slip further from my grasp), or cut down on my other hobbies, like programming (I’d like to keep up my skills for what I do at work) and reading.

I’ve considered cutting down on punctuation (especially parentheses), but it’s too great a loss for the time it would save.

If this were an easy choice, I would have made it already.