Thursday, March 21st

The Daily Report

Well, the whole review-soliciting operation went off way smoother than expected in terms of me getting my end done. I attribute this to the use of better tools: an email client for reader email interaction, and HabitRPG for the to-do list handling.

I hinted a couple of times during the tail end of my Maryland trip that I've got something cooking on the schedule front that's a step towards more frequent updates. I feel like I've got the two-a-week pattern down, barring holidays and travel, and I'm getting better at managing those. I'm still going to be doing two a week, but I'm going to be aiming for Tuesday and Thursday now. I don't want to get ahead of myself so I won't go into the next step until I've mastered this one.

On the Office end of things: I now have the Office software installed on the three computers that I reliably use for work and work-related fun. On the one that went on the first time without a problem, it really was pretty quick and seamless. I can definitely see what Microsoft is going for with a streamlined, stream-based installation. It's just that when it fails, it doesn't seem to fail gracefully. The old InstallShield type approach tends to clean up after itself when it has an accident. Good effort, though. And like I said, once it's no longer trying to install itself in the background, the new Word opens really quickly.

The State of the Me

Sleep still not great. I've been waiting for it to catch up with me and knock me completely out for a night, but it hasn't. I may have to break out the supplements again.

Tasks For Today

1. Early feedback from the review project showed me a way to improve a potentially jarring part of one of the short stories, so I'm going to be editing that.


2. I'm working on a better publishing solution for The One Called Wander. The fact that it's difficult to make a decent sized Tumblr post--never mind one with formatting--from a phone has been hampering me, but I have a solution in mind. It's going to take some poking and prodding and mucking about with IFTTT, but I think it'll be doable.


3. I have a chapter of Tales of MU to finish and post.

More on Habit RPG, MU schedule stuff, etc.

I've always had a problem finishing a story before it's due to be posted, or finishing stories without some kind of deadline. It's like trying to run when your feet can't touch the ground... without something to struggle against, there's no traction.

Related to this, for as long as I've been self-employed I've tried to find ways to create a feeling of being "on the clock" during my work day. This helps the work-life balance by putting a firm line between when I'm working and when I'm "home", but it also helps the work aspect. When I worked for other people, I had the best thing that is called a work ethic you ever saw. I no longer think the phrase "work ethic" is accurate, because my ethics about work didn't change when I started working for myself. Only my situation did, and I floundered.

I've tried various things, like announcing on Twitter when I'm going on and off the clock, or making blog posts here at the start and end of my day. I've even considered going so far as making a mock timeclock to punch in at, just because nothing really worked for long. There was nothing holding me accountable.

So this is where Habit RPG is transforming my work day, to the point that I'm considering changing my settings so that my "day" on it begins and ends at the scheduled close of business day instead of in the middle of the night. I don't know for sure about that. It would be nice if I could set due times for individual items, though. I could just make a second account for work stuff, but it seems like making things complicated would be a mistake.

I open Habit RPG every day because I want to, because I want the feedback and the feeling that I'm achieving something by drinking water or cleaning up after myself. If I have two accounts going, I can get that positive reinforcement from checking just one of them.

Anyway, the thing is that putting my workday stuff into Habit RPG puts me back on the clock, and I think it might solve me problem with finishing stories before they're due. Or rather, with finishing them before they need to be posted... because I can make them due in the game, and the game will reward me for finishing them and penalize me for missing them.

So this is what I'm going to be trying next week: making the chapters due in the game a day before they're due to be posted. That's the next step in my plan to evolve the schedule. Even with the prod of Habit RPG I expect it to take a while, but the good thing about this step is that it won't impact the site if I stumble.