Tight schedules are doomed to be upended

It's very important to have flexibility in your daily life, particularly if you are susceptible to anxiety and depression as I am. If you feel like your day is stacked like an unstable Jenga tower, where one errant block removal or addition could topple the day and leave only chaos in its wake, it's time to step back and reconsider. Is everything you have scheduled or planned for the day really necessary? Does it have to be done today?

If it does have to be done today, you should add planning for more time and energy than you expect. As a result, you will need to bump some things out of the schedule. The phrase I coined for myself is "Shit happens, and in short order". If you have extra time planned around events, then you have leeway to handle things that life throws at you, and your overall stress decreases.

Ego and "I-go"

The technical definition of "ego" is the self, i.e. the amalgamation of your memories and thoughts and emotions. I propose a new word "I-go" which will take the definition of the stereotype of ego, where a person asserts themselves before anything else. Note that the new word includes "I", naturally in first position in the word.

Morning programming

Since I wake up with a pretty empty head, I'm going to try programming myself for a good day with affirmations like these.

Exercise leads to better health, better energy, and a better feeling about life.

Sleep leads to better health, better energy, and a better feeling about life.

Working toward goals leads to better health, better energy, a better feeling about life, and increases my collection of accomplishments.

I have no obstacles preventing me from working on my goals.

How do I get new ideas?

To answer the general question of "how do I get new ideas", I suggest the following.

Look around for a problem to solve (they're EVERYWHERE), and using your knowledge and experience, solve it. If the idea doesn't seem to have been worked on much, then you may have a new idea.

If you want to know what I mean by "find a problem to solve", I have some suggestions there as well. In your daily life, look around for tasks that could be solved in a better way. You can also look for situations that irritate you, and come up with different ways to alleviate the issue.

I like to use the "infinite sandbox" method of solving problems, i.e. "If I had infinite time and infinite resources, how would I solve the problem?" Sky's the limit

For example: I was in a McDonalds drive-thru, looking at an overfull garbage can, and while I was waiting, decided to work out ways to either alert people inside the store that it was full and needed cleaning, or a way for it to clean itself automatically, e.g. an underground store for trash and a method to move the trash down there when full.

Hope this helps. Lemme know if anyone has suggestions for tweaking this.

On work

Profit requires either trickery or work, and the former is usually illegal and/or immoral.

Working solely on a subject matter is not enough. Working for exposure is also required. Thus, I estimate a career is 70% work on the subject, and 30% work exposing it to others.

Ideas to increase personal productivity

If you want to be less lazy, you need to periodically get up even if you don't want to, and do something. You may need your significant other or an alarm to reminder yourself.

To be more productive, make a productive space to work in. When you are in that space, work hard. If you stop working, leave the space. That will help train yourself to work in that space.

Also, make that space a professional space. Make it like a serious art studio or company desk. Being in a professional environment makes you feel professional, and work becomes more enjoyable.

Not being a pitchfork in the mob

From my internet wanderings, I observe that people love a punching bag. If they find a person that has erred, they will continue to punch the bag over and over, possibly because it makes them feel better, and particularly if they don't have to see the person's face, get their reaction, and if the person is someone "easy to hate".

Point out the initial flaw, and maybe discuss how to avoid the flaw, and then leave the subject alone. Joining the mob in spitting on someone just harkens back to darker days.

Record memorable moments

If you're in a great mood, you should record how you feel so that when you're not feeling in a great mood, you can relive the good feeling experience and possibly lift your spirits.

In case of mental lightning, take extended notes

Going from the hypothesis that you can get mentally psyched up to work on a project if you remember why you're doing the project in the first place, you need to crystalize that motivation into something you can pull on many times.

One way is, when you get an idea you really want to work on, you write down why you want to work on it, and elaborate. The idea is to be able to go back to this note and get excited enough to continue work on the project, even if the work you need to do is mundane.

Hypothesis on priming your creativity

I've worked out a hypothesis on how to get motivated to work on projects. The idea is to prime the creative pump before you start working.

In some cases, an initial idea or creative spark is what starts a project, something that excites or motivates you to start the project. This will wear off after a short amount of time, but can be revisited after awhile.

To help get your interest going on a project each day, make note of that initial spark and motivation, and recall it before starting work. That should get your mind and creativity flowing, and the work will flow more easily.

Atmospheric things like background music or work area setting can help as well, e.g. a certain song gets you in the mood, or having a certain shade of light helps you get into the right frame of mind.

Feel free to discuss or refine this hypothesis.

Anime lesson: develop your own style

Todays lesson I learned from the new anime New Game!! That lesson is: in art, it is good to mimic existing styles, but generating your own personal and unique style is also important.

New job skill: you

One standard piece of advice is to learn job skills to get a job. Some natural tendencies don’t seem to translate to traditional job skills, and mentors may push these tendencies aside.

I think people should take time to explore their natural tendencies, and see what they can produce after nurturing for awhile.

As an example, let’s say I fancy myself an idea person. Typically, you might think of this as a cop-out, but there can be merit in it. If you take ideas and flesh them put into a strong presentation with a polished sales pitch, it is possible to sell royalties on it.

While this advice may come late for some people, you can go ahead and start nurturing now. If you enjoying, it is good for the soul. If it can pay the bills, bully for you!

Showing off finished work

One issue I have is that I have a ton of little projects and ideas that I start working on and never finish.

An idea I had regarding finishing these things is to show off a finished result to people. That would give a sense of accomplishment and pride, and that would also give me a goal to work toward rather than letting the project lapse.

For me, personally, I would not prefer a hard deadline for such things, as I would feel like it would be more like work than amusement, which would take the fun out of it.

Aphorism on living life well

I have sampled stories from across the known universe and back, yet neglected the story of my own life. You have a deadline to finish your story. Best get to writing it.

Simple exercise in creativity

- Get an empty notepad and pencil or pen.
- Go somewhere far away from your normal haunts.
- Get situated.
- Look around for an object of interest.
- Draw or write about something that the object of interest reminds you of, or anything else that comes to mind.

Example: You see a tree. It reminds you of a torch. Draw a torch that looks similar to the tree.

This helps you see new things in the objects around you. Clouds can be especially helpful. Some clouds can look like spaceships.

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you draw or write, and whether it has any connection to what is around you. Sometimes simply being inspired is enough.

The option of no option

Which would you prefer?

Option 1: Starting out on your own path, likely living with low income at first, but at least living the life you want.

Option 2: Starting out on a path with income, then coming to a realization 10-20 years later that while you have money and other things, you haven't been living the life you want.

The latter is where I found myself recently. It felt like I was basically following what everyone else what suggesting for what to do with my life, or the way to live my life. One reason for my compliance was just that I didn't have a particular direction I thought I needed to follow.

This changes when you decide that following your own beat is, in fact, the way you would like to live. Then other people's suggestions become references that can be used, but should not be followed blindly, and can be outright rejected.

Of course, part of the problem is realizing that you can simply choose your own path from the beginning. In my case, it wasn't presented to me as an option, so I had no idea that it was a valid choice. I don't even fault my parents for that, because they have been as supportive as I could have hoped, and perhaps the option wasn't something known to them either.

Learn something about yourself, then apply it

Interesting how your life outlook changes when you categorize things about yourself.

It didn't occur to me that I might be a free spirit type of person, even if it was obvious and even mentioned to me before.

If I take that perspective and apply it to my life, I might want to modify how I live my life to make it more fulfilling for free spirits, which may, in turn, make my life more fulfilling.

At least in my case, if I learn something about myself, I can optimize my life around it to reduce bad things and increase good things.

I would encourage other people to at least take inventory and take note of things you like and things you don't, and do what you can to optimize your life around those things.

Some might ask "Why are you discovering this so late in life?" Perhaps I was following a free spirit path already, but didn't know it, and perhaps I lost the path, not knowing that I was on the path to begin with. Perhaps I then did not know what I was looking for, until I stumbled across the path once more.

Perhaps you are doing something similar, where you are blindly following the path that is best for you, and you too may be lost when you accidentally stray from it.

Or, perhaps you are/were like me, where you have interests, but don't have a focus. Consider that you may be a free spirit, and perhaps you should remember that when the time comes to make a major life decision, like getting a job, getting a house, or starting a family.

Great Idea? Give Examples.

When coming up with ideas that you think could be used well, specify examples where the principle is applied well. If you give a general principle, it is easy to twist into a bad example or use for other ends. With concrete examples, the principle can be refined to something better suited to your vision.

Attaining Success And Recognition

In the pursuit of recognition and success, it's easy to be distracted by other success stories and attempt to follow or mimic them.

The best way to go about it is to find things that deeply interest you, and follow that interest as long as it lasts. Those things you follow deepest and longest will be your success stories.

Process your mental buffer from time to time

The short version: when you learn new things and come up with ideas and other thoughts, they are stored in your brain's buffer until you have down time to process the buffer.

If you keep putting stuff in there, you will eventually run out of room, and things will start to spill out without being processed.

Additionally, having stuff in the mental buffer means less processing power and capacity for the rest of the brain.

To gain performance and capacity, set aside time where you are not distracted by anything, and let your mind wander. That will allow time for the buffer to be processed, and remove some stuff from your brain.

If you are under some kind of pressure and can't find time to process your mental buffer, commit the thoughts to some kind of external memory such as computer text files or pen and paper.

That will empty the buffer, but note that no processing will occur, so it will be easy to forget these things. Try to take enough notes so that you may re-load it and process it later.