January 5, 2024 — Choice Induced Vapour Lock
Greetings from rainy North Vancouver, where it’s supposed to be snowy but El Niño has given us balmy temperatures and no snow at all this season, at least not yet. It’s been in the forecast many times, but it never actually happens. At the moment the next chance appears to be almost a week away, but if past performance is a predictor it won’t happen then either. It will probably just rain.
And no, the photo above is not of North Vancouver, nor in all of the Vancouver area. I don’t know where that photo was taken, but it felt right to use it after writing this, particularly the last bit. You’ll see. Read on. Please.
So, what happened this last week?
First, I spent a lot of time reviewing a novel by a friend of mine. I’ve sent him a bunch of feedback and it will be interesting to hear what he thinks. I enjoyed the work — it’s a psychological story, verging on fantasy — and it hit home in a few places. What happens next is up to him, of course. My input is worth exactly what he paid for it (nothing!) but I hope it gives him a useful perspective.
Another thing that happened this week is that someone from a stone carving website reached out to me. That rarely happens anymore. I’ve got a contact form out there, but it almost never gets used.
In any case, he’d found a piece I wrote years ago about how to choose a compressor for stone carving, and wondered if I wanted to write about stone carving for their site. I assume this would be unpaid — I didn’t even ask — but regardless it might be fun. I need to review past issues of their journal to see what sorts of things they have published before, and if it makes sense for me to do this. At the moment the answer remains “maybe,” but I’d like to do it if I can.
I’ve not included the name of the site deliberately. Should I write something for them, I will share that news here with more details. But until then, it’s probably best to keep it mum.
Other things fell out of that conversation. Apparently the stone carving site in question is being reworked in a major way, and that dovetails with my own work on the community association website. So there is some shared experience there. And when I reviewed the original compressor piece on my personal website… oh boy… how ugly that turns out to be.
My website is ancient, and it is a disaster due to neglect and other things. I really need to redo it all. Helpfully, I know a lot more about WordPress now, so it is (at least in theory) possible for me to do that in relatively short order. I am considering that, but it’s not like I have a ton of free time. All of the “free” time I could spend in my own website should really go into making the community association website better. So… choices. Whee.
And there is the gist of my issue today: how is it that I am pushing 60 years old and I still have trouble deciding how to allocate my time? I have a huge list of things I could be working on, including:
- the house… lots of projects here: paint the entryway, the upstairs hallway, my studio, my office, and a bathroom, and there are other projects in the garage, and probably more things that I am forgetting
- plan out the eventual kitchen remodel
- make more art
- genealogy research
- improve the community association website
- redo my own website
- write more (for myself and/or others)
And that list ignores things that have to happen regardless: prep for taxes, the monthly community email, and the overhead of life (laundry, cleaning, etc.). You might also note that there’s nothing about exercise or just doing something fun. Not that some of those things aren’t fun, but they’re… different somehow.
Time management is such a problem. When focused I can definitely get almost any single thing done. But when presented with a huge variety of options, all I want to do is take a nap.
So where does this leave me? Looking for the bed, I suspect.
But seriously, I guess I just have to pick something and work on it when I have the energy. It feels a bit like jumping off a cliff. (See, I told you that image would make sense.) I wish the list was shorter, so the choices were easier, but that isn’t my lot.
Anyway, I’m off to work on some of the overhead of life. May all your choices be easy and lead to both happiness and productivity!