My new schedule

Posted on January 7th, 2008 in Personal,Reality,Writing by Chooch

I’ve decided that the only way that I am going to make progress in my goals for the year is to lock myself into a strict schedule. Oh, and reduce all of the ways that I spend my free time. I think that the biggest reduction is going to come in media consumption, particularly television.

This is actually good timing with the writer’s strike and all. Perhaps the lack of new shows will help ween me from the prime time television teat once and for all. For shows that are any good, they will become available on DVD or for download and can be consumed in smaller morsels as I get the time.

To achieve this, I’m going to follow fewer blogs; watch fewer television shows; play less video games (which has been almost non-existent anyways, so thats not a big stretch); and likely listen to fewer podcasts. Though, the podcasts are pretty much only during commute, work outs, or work around the house, so they don’t need to change much.

So I’m scheduling certain nights to dedicate to feed reading; e-mail correspondence; video game play; television consumption; exercising; and writing. All in all I came up with 19 primary “leisure” activities and squished them in around the mandatory stuff: sleep, work, food, hygiene, etc.

I really just started on Saturday and its worked well so far. I was off schedule for a few activities, but made up for it as the days progressed. This may sound kind of crazy, but I truly believe that if I can get myself in the habit of doing these things in certain quantities and on a regular basis that soon I won’t need a formalized schedule and will just handle everything as it needs to be handled.

At least, that’s what techie side of my brain is telling me.. Nothing else has worked for any length of time so far, so its worth a shot!

Resolutions? Nah, just goals

Posted on December 29th, 2007 in Health,Personal,Reality,Writing by Chooch

I want to try and blog more on here. I’ve enjoyed reading through some other peoples blogs and noticed that its the little things from day to day (for instance Neil Gaiman’s blog) rather than the media and video links (ala BoingBoing) that are holding my interest right now.

Of course, both of them are actually written by “somebody” (or several somebodies in the case of the latter) which definitely helps :)

Oh well. We can try.

Another goal I have is to actually comment on peoples blogs and, more specifically, to actually write reviews on iTunes and other resources for podcasts or other things that I enjoy. I’m starting to really wish that people would write some reviews of our podcasts and realized that I can’t expect anybody else to write a review for my podcast if I’ve never written any for the ones that I’ve enjoyed.

Now, I’ve posted comments; phoned-in; written e-mails; and recorded mp3 comments for other peoples podcasts. I’ve posted reviews to my blog here and played podcast promos too.. but I’ve never written reviews – which seems to have the biggest impact as far as helping them get more listeners.

Non-online goals include calling my son more often; reading more; writing more fiction; recording more music; getting to bed earlier; getting to work earlier in the morning; eating better; and getting into a real exercise habit. The eating and exercising seem to go well for about a month or two, but then falls apart. I need to make them no-brainer habits so that I stick with them.

With that said, its bed time.

Reading and Writing

Posted on July 28th, 2007 in Personal,Writing by Chooch

Today I get to start reading the new Harry Potter book, yay! Di already finished it and I’m sure she’s dying to talk about it. MAINPA said that her next Better Late Than Never episode will have a spoilerific discussion about it, so perhaps DI will enjoying listening to that. MA also plays a voicemail of mine questioning her dislike of the movie AI. She said that the spoiler discussion is at the end, so I suppose I can listen up to that point, and come back to it after I’ve finished the book. I read pretty slowly, and infrequently, so it will be awhile before I finish it.

In other news, I’ve been writing more fiction than I have in a long time. Not that I’ve ever written all that much, but I’m more dedicated to it than I ever have been. I’m trying to force myself to get more involved in social circles, which has been a challenge. It feels good though, and it amazes me how making yourself do one thing that you enjoy, effects all other aspects of your life.

I’ve been working on waking up earlier (ugh!), writing, eating better, and exercising. Each is inching along and helping each other. I backslide a little here and there, but overall its all moving forward. Hopefully I’ll have some updates coming on those fronts.

Finally, the boys come home in 10 days!! Woot!!