>Solutions For Nothing

~Do This Then Start

I try to get everything tidy before doing something I should. Let me put all my books away, let me clear my desk, let me buy a nice house, let me get married to a funny, loving, smart, beautiful girl who is 1000% compatible with me and we start a family with 5 sons and 5 daughters and we also get a perfect dog for the family. Only then will I clean out my closet. Only then will I wash the dishes or hand wash my wooden floors.

I have become slightly better with this especially within the last 2 to 3 years where rather trivial things do not require a lifetimes worth of setup to complete. By setup I mean a self imposed blockade of things that would make me feel better once I get them out of the way that creates no value in my life except for the feeling of joy of "completing" something. But I still struggle.

~Joy From Thin Air

Why do I reach for a pen to create a checklist than actually immediately doing the things I need to do. I would probably finish the things I would need to finish before I finished making that list.

Why do I look at my github heatmap like it has any indication of how well of a programmer I am. It does not matter. Metrics and lists are 99% of the time worthless. Why do I need a number or visual to tell me to be better at something or to tell me I am doing good, why not already to do something better straight from the jump. I get the cases where its needed like when to slow down my running pace because my watch is telling me my heart beats per minute is a little over what I wanted to and that can get in the way of my running goal and tiring myself out for the rest of the run (I use a Casio F91W so I don't have this issue but I can see other people in this scenario). Or seeing how many users on a platform frequently pair two certain data requests with each other, indicating that you should probably deliver both those batches of data together potentially saving the user time and saving you resources by only making one retrieval of data to the backend.

But don't be drawn into the fantasy that metrics will solve every single problem this world has to offer.

~What Matters

The "organization" of completing things matters not if the effort put in was allocated more to planning and organizing instead of actually doing.

I am reading that last sentence back and that kind of spits in the face of every chef who lives and dies by mise en place. I meant that the thing that needs to be done means nothing if the preparation had more value than the outcome.

It does matter in the sense that I completed something that truly benefitted me but I am moving backwards in the sense that I am reinforcing that it helps to develop a perfect spotless environment before doing something. Don't get me wrong sometimes that is correct and it helps to be organized, I still make dozens of lists everyday to help me do what I got to do and it really helps. What I am trying to improve here though is eliminating excess setup coming out of thin air that is not needed. Know when to clean and make a list and get your battle station ready in comparison to something that can be done right away when it enters your mind or reading of my dock without friction (I know this sounds very counter intuitive but I have like a catch-all list called "dock" that holds things that need to be done so I dont forget).

~Real From Fake

I guess what I am trying to say is that I want to get accustomed to going straight to doing what needs to be done and not side tracking into actions that were only born from the attempt to satiate the feeling of accomplishing something that was genuinely beneficial to my life. Those actions that are derived from side tracking should have never existed in the first place. I gaslight myself into thinking something as an issue so I can feel this sythetic sense of accomplishment. Maybe its not synthetic because I actually feel it but its not productive for what I truly want. What I truly want is frequently stashed away by the fog of nonsense my mind creates and harbors.

~Imposters

I am saying truly or genuinely a lot here because some of the thoughts I have are masked and held up by nonsense. Like the concept of creating a list to feel productive. Thats not productive. I just wanted to clear up why I was using terms along those lines abundantly.

~Just Thinking

Going into this piece of writing I just wanted to talk about the flaws in my productivity. In the sense that what is getting in the way of what I truly want and am trying to go after in life. But after finishing this I am more confused about what is actually going on in my mind and how I should percieve this issue. Maybe I am not exactly "confused" but it is revealed to me how little I actually spend time pondering about ideas in general. This is the first time I actually have thought about this issue in great detail and I can already see a good amount of inconsistencies and flaws in my thought process but a potential benefit of the thought process on concepts like these is to distinguish the flaws and embolden the strengths.

~Bottom Line

The bottom line is I want to be the best human I can possibly be. That involves thinking/writing/dissecting anything, whatever it may be and learning from that process. I happened to be doing that with a broad scope on the value of my productivity and how it can be tainted via organizing and the few other methods I have brought up. The solution to this is to think about this concept in a deeper manner and for much longer. Very much longer. I just scrapped the surface here in this blog and I am all over the place without a solid standing anywhere. There are actions and habits I can take on to begin to "resolve" this issue, and I will, but there is a long way to go.

I am starting to realize that this actually applys to everything that exists and does not exist.