It’s Been Real?

Update 5/10/09: I realized that this original post was the result of an imbalanced life — mostly due to dissertation-finishing stress. I’m back to blogging here again, and I’ve transformed it a bit into more of a “hey, this is our life and this is what we’re doing” blog for our friends and family to keep up with us. It’ll be updated as the need arises, so y’all should check in periodically.

Actually, no, it hasn’t, and that’s part of why this is my last post. I’ve posted here about my, er, “fondness” for the internet. Or rather, the narcissistic search for fulfillment through various vicarious internet outlets. Blogs, photo sharing, etc., it’s all a way to seek self-importance, a way to affirm existence. And the more I think about it, the more false it seems. I spend way more time making posts, checking comments, making comments, etc. than I do actually doing things worth posting about or commenting about.

So here’s the thing, Internet, I think we should see other people. We can absolutely still be friends, but I just don’t think this whole “exclusive” thing is working out. I don’t like how dependent on you I’ve become. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I just think we spend too much time together. It’s not that I find you unpleasant — quite the contrary — I just feel like I’m missing out on a lot of other great things.

So this blog is going away, along with a few other “droppings” I’ve left around the Internet. I’m tired of the incessant demands on my time — real or imagined — and I’ve decided to live less of my life (much, much less) behind a keyboard and a computer screen. The other day, I added it all up, and I literally spent an hour and a half of otherwise-productive time just messing around online. I’m sure this is much less than a lot of people, but to me it’s unacceptable to lose time like that for no good reason.

If you read this blog for updates about what’s going on with me (I think there are a couple of you), just drop me an email every once in a while, and I promise I’ll do the same. I’ll leave this blog up for a little while, just so everyone gets the message, then down it comes, and this little patch of Interwebs reverts to its wild, uncultivated state. Thanks for reading, folks, and if I may, please use the time you would have spent reading my posts to do something enriching, productive, and worthwhile.

The Work Habits of Highly Effective Unemployed People

I watched part of video last night (the whole thing is about 45 minutes, who has that kind of time?) in which two creative self-employed folks of moderate fame discuss their daily work schedules and habits. I found it very interested to see that both have had to connive various means of keeping themselves off the interwebs while they work and/or create separate work spaces (either physical or psychological) in order to work effectively.

A lot of what they had to say matched up very well with my own daily struggles with productivity and internet, uh, “fondness.” One fellow was a late-riser and a very disorganized worker. He had no schedule, no particular routine, and in fact found that routines hampered his creative work process. The other guy had a very strict schedule, which he laid out in exhaustive detail. He said he strives for every day to be exactly the same; that way he doesn’t waste mental resources dealing with unexpected or unwelcome distractions.

I think I’m a little from Column A and a little from Column B. On the one hand, I do my best and most productive work when I feel like working, not when I feel like I have to, but if I don’t at least try to stick to a schedule, I find that I get very lazy very quickly. The happy medium that’s working for me now is sort of “planned flexibility.” I can’t pick a single schedule and try to make every day fit that template, because I know I’m just going to get frustrated when the unexpected happens (which it always does). What’s more, I’m going to come to resent the schedule, even if it’s theoretically my own. Plus, it’s boring. Right now, I have a list of things I want to accomplish in a day, and I let my mood tell me in what order to do them, and whether or not I’ve been realistic in setting those goals. It’s working pretty well for now.

It felt good to listen to other creative people describe their work habits, and to know that my problems are common enough. It helps me want to transcend them.

Ouch?

I’m currently on pins and needles. I’m still waiting for my advisor to get back to me about my dissertation draft, which I turned in to her back in June. I’ve ramped-up the pestering, but to no avail so far. I expect to hear something this week, which is good, but also quite stressful. In the meantime, I’m working on my own revisions to the draft, and doing some gap-filling research to flesh out some weak parts, but I’m worried that she’ll have much more critical comments and more extensive revisions. Waiting is the hardest part, right?

While I wait, though, I’ve also gotten back to work in a big way. I’m glad to find that my energy and enthusiasm for my various projects, which had really waned over the summer, has come back with a vengeance. My internet addiction has subsided nicely, and work is taking the place of all the pointless blogging and whatnot that I did over the summer. The weather here in SoCal has even been reasonably fall-like of late, which also spurs me to work, since I work better when I’m more comfortable (i.e. not sweating through my shirt just sitting at my desk). So, despite the stress of waiting for a potentially rather large shoe to drop RE: my dissertation, I’m feeling pretty good about work right now.

I can quit any time I want…

It’s taken me a long time to admit this to myself, but I’ve become an addict. They say acknowledging your addiction is the first step toward recovery, so here goes: I’m hooked on the internet, and I don’t want to be any more. When you add it all up, I’ve got four blogs, four email accounts, two photo-sharing accounts, and about a dozen blogs that I follow regularly. I also read four mainstream news sites, a half-dozen non-mainstream news sites, several webcomics or LOL-related funnies, and when I’m done with all that junk, I also use the interwebs for actual work. Problem is, to avoid doing the latter, I check all of the former about ten times a day, just to make sure there isn’t a comment to moderate, a comment to post, a post to write, an email to send, an email to read, a new LOL cat to snicker at, or whatever. And, if I’m honest, there’s a little endorphin rush every time I’ve got some new piece of internet candy to consume. I spend a ridiculous amount of time waiting, checking, writing, posting, etc. online ALL TO NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER! How much of my day is spent in front of the computer and online? I don’t even want to think about it.

I don’t think the answer is just to scrap all of my online projects and favorite sites. Addiction or no, I really do enjoy maintaining the sites I have, and reading the ones I like, so I think the key is (like with so many things): moderation. This addiction has happened so gradually, I never even noticed. It’s so easy to just sit down and say, check my email, which turns into a circuit of checking ALL the sites and accounts, and what-have-you. An hour later (or more), I finally look up, bleary-eyed and ashamed, and try to then get some real work done. This happens multiple times during the day. Also, if I do this at night before bed, I find that bouncing around from one site to another has also conditioned my brain to behave in such a way, and I find myself laying in bed (an hour at least after I intended to go to bed), with my brain skipping from one topic to another, just like I’d been doing online. It takes me that much longer to fall asleep, then, and I don’t think I sleep as well as when I, say, read a book before bed.

So here’s my goal, it’s pretty simple: spend less time online; and related, no internet before bed. It’s just that easy, right? I’m not going cold turkey; honestly, in this day and age, I couldn’t if I wanted to. Just do it less. How hard could that be? Hmm…