Friday, March 09, 2018

The Month That Was - February 2018

I suppose the best thing that happened is that I finally got over being sick. I had what seemed like a fairly severe cold from early January to nearly mid-February. I had an annual check-up scheduled so I used it for an exam but there's nothing they can do for a virus, so they threw a z-pack at me "just in case" and said keep treating the symptoms. Of course, in the process of reviewing my blood work they discover my PSA had doubled over the past year. March will bring a biopsy. Joy.

More joy: I have apparently turned into one of those old people who kicks off every conversation with a summary of his current medical issues.

On the upside, I have been writing. I'm working to recapture some of the discipline I was able to achieve in my early writing days. I've also found help from a little gimmick they call Pomodoro Technique. It's a simple time management technique. Essentially, you work for 25 minutes straight, the take a five minute break. After you do that four times, you get a fifteen minute break. I can rarely create a two-hour time block for one task, so I never get to the 15 minute break, but I find the 25/5 split good when I have an hour for a coupe of sequences. Naturally there is an app for that (actually there are probably dozens of them, most are free). I think 25 minutes is a good selection because it's long enough to be productive but psychologically it doesn't seem like much since it's not even the length of a sitcom. Anyway, it seems to be working for me.

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