The Adventures of Sheila the Wonderbink

Folders. For Apps. Before this, I was rearranging my app screens so all the music stuff was in one row, all the social media stuff was in another row, etc., so I could get to things that were related fairly easily. Now I just drag apps on top of each other to form wee sub-app buttons that allow me to toss things in buckets instead of rearranging rows when I get a new app.

Now that my "Productivity" apps are all happily lined up in a folder, I've started using the things again. Once again, I'm experimenting with giving myself ten things that I have to do every day. (Blogging is one of them. Hello.) I'm also gradually adding in once-a-week things like cleaning the bathroom and taking out the recyclables, so that instead of waiting for that magic moment When I Feel Like It, I am poked into action because The iPhone Hath Decreed It.

I'm trying not to overload myself too much, though, lest I wind up headed for the crash detailed in Hyperbole and a Half's This is Why I'll Never be an Adult (from whence the icon of this entry is swiped.) The long term plan is, however, to get in the habit of writing things down and scheduling myself into doing them more frequently, since the I'll Just Wait Until It Feels Right technique has been a bit spotty in its effectiveness.

And that said, I have to go work on the next item on the list.

Today I took pleasure in a clean floor.

Today I learned Hyperbole and a Half has a new entry up! Woo!

So I checked this nifty book out of the library called Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus, which is roughly about how our brains have been shaped by the messy process of evolution and the flaws that result from that.

One of the points it makes that the vagaries of human memory have been a bit overburdened by the current demands on human memory. Our memories are jogged by context and we tend to recall the remarkable moments with more vividness than the routine matters of our day. We do not recall things perfectly on a moment's notice because we as a species never needed to until relatively recently.

Suddenly, I don't feel nearly as bad about relying on electronic devices to remind me of things, any more than I should feel bad about the fact that I can't run nearly as fast as my car can drive.

With that, I came up with a ridiculously easy and nifty way to remind me of important things that I wanted to share because I bet at least some of you could benefit from it. All you need is something you're likely to already have--a cell phone with a camera function.

Here's how it works. Say I have a traffic court date coming up but I can't seem to find the ticket that has the exact date on it. I should look in my car, but by the time I get to my car, I've completely gone into car-driving-mode so I forget to look. So I write the word TICKET on a slip of paper and take a picture of it:



Next, I use the settings on my phone and set that as the wallpaper. Now each time I fire up my iPhone to check the weather or Twitter or what have you, I have this reminder staring me in the face.

Once I've gotten the matter of the ticket cleared up (court date is Monday morning, I'll be pleading not guilty to running a stop sign because I didn't run it, dangit, thanks for your concern) I can move on to something else I need to remember, such as taking a picture of the Harry Potter book I need to ship out as a trade for SwapTree:



After getting that packed up and sent, let's see, what else is there . . .



I should really clean up that mess, shouldn't I? (And, by the way, it is cleaned up as I'm writing this.)

Right. Productive day it's been, thanks to modern technology. Yay!

Today I took pleasure in a walk in the nice weather to get to the Post Office.

Today I learned which of my artworks will fit in which size Priority Mail flat rate box.

So, now that I no longer have a novel to work on, what have I been doing with my time?

Quite a bit of cleaning, to be honest. Plowed through several loads of accumulated laundry, did some vacuuming and my living room has been rendered sufficiently habitable for me to be composing this blog entry from the couch with the laptop actually in my lap.

A law firm across the street from me (just next door to the Large Red Brick Building Of Much Contention) put up an ad on Craigslist, so I walked on over and handed them my resume. Got an email from them about a week later and I have an interview this coming Tuesday. At least I won't have to worry about parking.

I spent a lot of today hammering out an extended version of the rant I did about living richly, which I distilled down to three simple instructions (be present, be grateful, be curious) and then proceeded to ramble for about 1,900+ words and counting to explain what I meant by presence, gratitude and curiosity. I'm still not sure what the hell to do with it, though I'm vaguely inclined to shape it into some kind of manifesto to release into the wild in the hopes that at least one poor soul will find something useful from it. Lord knows, in times like these, people could do with a reminder that life is still pretty darn neat and that you don't need to wait until you have enough money to live it properly.

I have split pea soup simmering in the crock pot. I'm writing by the light of a hand-me-down lamp I got from radiantbaby because she was moving and didn't need it. I've got the Tender Idols on the speakers. It's a good place to be.

Today I took pleasure in Trader Joe's Spiced Cider, heated for sixty-five seconds in the microwave.

Today I learned which chapter of The Screwtape Letters had a point I was trying to make.

I decided what I really needed to do was get all my schlumpfing out of the way at once, so I set aside the eight hours I would normally spend at work and confined myself to bed for those hours, emerging only to refill my water glass and make tea. Each time I was hit with a thought along the lines of "ZOMG! I have to take care of that!" I would add it to a to-do list in a spiral-bound notebook. I also allowed myself to scribble in my diary. But other than that, no books, no music, no nothing, just shut up and write or shut up and sit (or, more often, lie down.)

I took a break for lunch, made a toasted ham and swiss sandwich, hopped to the Secretary of State website and set up a Limited Liability Company in my own name. (Which at least crossed one item off of the ZOMG List.) Then I went back to bed and resumed doing Nothing.

I think it says something that I didn't get seriously bored or restless until four o'clock in the afternoon.

By five-thirty my list of things cleaned out of my head stretched to three full pages and then some. I wandered out to take care of a few of them (returning a library book that had been checked out for so long it had been presumed lost, among other things) and then returned home and had some dinner.

I plan to take my little core dump and transfer it into my copy of iGTD and see if I can start using it a little more consistently. Certainly "I have to go to work now" and "I'm too burnt out from working today" have lost their currency as excuses for why things can't be taken care of.

Today I took pleasure in green tea with sugar and lots of cream.

Today I learned that a regular old lightbulb will fit just fine in my porch light sconce.

Today, I have decided, shall be devoted to the principle of:

ANTICRASTINATION!

So if I'm able do something right away, I'm going to make an effort to do it instead of shrugging it off until the grand and mythical Later.

We shall see how this experiment shakes out. I've got to go mix myself some breakfast now.

Today (so far) I took pleasure in getting rid of the empty shampoo bottle that's been sitting in my shower for longer than I care to contemplate.

Today I learned what some of the Duranie types on DDM look like in SL.