jd yates

There’s a reason I still haven’t caught up from my recent moving-going out of town-moving again period… and it’s coming to me as I write this, so bear with me…

I constantly feel like I have a million things left to do. Like I can’t cross things off the Grand To-Do list fast enough. And I watch this happen, quite literally, before my eyes. Things come to mind and leave so fast I’ve taken to jotting down hand written lists on legal pads. I fill pages, crossing things off as I get them done, and watch the pages fill faster than they get crossed off. It makes me not want to make lists anymore. They’re depressing. And it’s not that I’m not being productive. I’ve been unprecedentedly fastidious about keeping myself tasked at almost all times. And this isn’t all necessarily work-work, mind you. I mean this in a looser sense of “productivity”. A range that includes my workday tasks, my extra-curricular work-related endeavours, my reading list, my school work, and my daily online news cycle. These things keep me occupied (assuming no social commitments) for 12-18 hours a day. Over the last 5 weeks, starting with the lead up to my exodus from the apartment from hell, I felt it start. Stress and anxiety began to mount and there was a noticeable loss of efficiency in the time I spent trying to be productive. Presumably because I was preoccupied with the minutiae and unusual additional workload associated with packing and hoisting one’s life to another location. This was compounded by the fact that I was on a deadline due to a hastily scheduled vacation. As you can imagine, I managed through it (with the thought of unwinding on the beach as an effective motivator) and went on my trip, doing my best all the while to distance myself from the thought that I had to do it all over again upon my return. I thought between the vacation and the 2 week lag until the second leg of my move I would have some time to decompress. This was partially true (the vacation was wonderful), and partially not, because I was still effectively living out of a suitcase for the duration. Then came move-part deux. I motivated myself through it with happy thoughts of living on my own once again, in a safe part of town that I love, and in by far the nicest place I’ve ever rented. Again, I emerge triumphant, and vow immediately never to let myself fall so behind on work, or reading, or blogging, or school again once I’m settled in. It’s now been a week, and I’ve pushed myself. I’ve finished a book, and I haven’t let summer classes get the best of me (yet). But there are five more books to read, and I’m still not current on work emails, and Google Reader says I still have 57 items to read. Not to mention that all I’ve managed to blog for the entire month of July so far is one “If…” entry… This feels totally unacceptable. It’s easy to keep thinking that the problem lies in various shortcomings around me. “Oy, once I get a couch and a desk I’ll be so much more inclined to read through the backlogged blogs.” and “Ugghh… a new computer will make getting through those Ruby books so much less daunting.”. But perhaps the real issue lies closer to how I manage my time, and the line that has progressively blurred between work-time and off-time.

Here’s where I think I’ve found the problem:

I hear it from my career-having friends all the time “I’ve accomplished this, this, and that… and now I’m going to reward myself with some much deserved down time.” This sounds like a novel concept, certainly not in the context of my life as a whole, but as far as recent memory is concerned. I chuckle a little to myself every time I hear it, as if to say “Ha, I’m certainly too busy and important to be able to shove this ridiculous stack of nonsense aside and be still for an hour!”. Clearly, in my haste to play catch up, and in my zeal to achieve that sigh of relief that comes from staring at an empty e-mail inbox, and putting down my Astronomy textbook at the end of a chapter, and whittling Google Reader down to zero new items I got lost in an overabundance of moving targets. I need to learn Balance. This has always been an issue for me. It’s like I have an out of control Go Big or Go Home philosophy, and I apply it to everything, with disastrous results. And in this instance, when I apply it to me, I deprive myself of vital introspection and recuperation time. When there’s no time spent stepping back an re-examining the tasks at hand, how can I know that these tasks are the appropriate ones to focus on, or that the methods by which I’ve chose to accomplish them are the most efficient and personally fulfilling?

Furthermore, why do I do this to myself? Is it an addiction to the anxiety that keeps me so haunted by the things left undone that I can’t stop doing them long enough to let my brain be quiet? Perhaps I don’t think I’ve quite done enough to deserve the downtime. Certainly me e-mail queue agrees. It’s also quite possible that I’m afraid that if I stop forcing myself to produce constantly that I’ll lose this newfound discipline and work-ethic. I’ve started singling out the slow moving pieces in my life and thinking “well, if I could just improve that situation a bit, I’d get more done.” I just need to stop and re-assess and re-focus. Create clear and achievable goals, rather than chase mounting piles of information that (in my mind) desperately needs consuming.

This is the first time I’ve successfully (I suppose that’s a strong and presumptive word) worked through a blog with no prompt or pre-conceived topic in a ridiculously long time. And now that I think about it, I can pretty safely say it’s because I never turned on any lights in the house, and left the music off to do some catch-up reading, and no one was IMing me, and my BlackBerry was silent… and suddenly I needed to write. As if only by quieting down the outside world could I finally hear my own voice. I haven’t listened to it in a long time, and it feels good. I think it also helped to divest myself, upon entering this new entry, of all the preconceived notions I had about what a blog should in order to be read-worthy and interesting. I’m sure there will be more on that later, as well as how to reorganize my tasks and remain productive while allowing myself to be quiet, and whether any of the strategies succeed. But for now I think I’ll turn off my computer, cook some dinner (yes, COOK), and watch a movie.

This week, I’m not going to open with some lame sentence lamenting about how hard it is to find time to blog. I’ll just say that I moved again this week and am still catching up on work since coming back from vacation (a post that is still forthcoming, as is one regarding the move). At any rate, here’s week 10 of Nick’s If… Project. Also, I’d like to mention that my good friend over at LawHog has started to answer the If’s as well, so go check that out!

If you were to be stranded forever on a desert island with one platonic friend only, in whose company would you want to spend the rest of your days?

I feel like there are people out there that will be offended if I don’t choose them, most of whom don’t even read this blog. So I’ll choose someone completely random. Nick Mitchell. We’ve known each other probably longer than the vast majority of people I see daily. He’s mostly funny, and only occasionally neurotic. Having never actually met the guy means we have 6 years of backlogged face time to catch up on. Plus, he’s vegan, so I get eat all the good stuff.

If you had to live the rest of your life in a place that you have never lived in before, where would you live?

Without doubt, London. I love the culture, and the history, and the people. I’ve always been drawn to it. Contemporary architecture standing next to centuries old monuments. Cheeky British humour. Public transportation and gorgeous parks. Pomp and circumstance style government. And a pub on every corner. What else would I need?

If you could keep only one article of clothing you currently own and the rest were to be thrown out, what would you keep?

True Religion Joeys. I’m a denim whore to my very core, and this is my favorite cut of Trues. Fitted through the thigh, but not enough to look chicken legged, a bit of a boot cut, and a twisted seam down the calf. Every pair is unique, so they’ve got great detailing. A little whiskering here, and some fray there. And of course the signature True Religion flap pocket with horseshoe embroidery. In the words of Christian Siriano, “Fierce”. Also, if anyone finds these in a “Super T” size 28, purchase them immediately. K, thanks.

If you had to lose one of your five senses, which would you give up?

Smell. They say it’s the sense closest linked to memory, but F* it. I enjoy food too much lose taste… and touch, sight, and hearing are critical to everyday life. Plus, so rarely if I’m smelling something is it because it’s pleasant. So… off with my nose.

Welcome, faithful readers, to week 9 of Nick’s If… Project. Despite noble intentions of playing catch up, I still haven’t made it very far. Reasserting myself into normal post-vacation life has left me without the necessary brain bandwidth, but at least I’m keeping pace. Really good questions this week, if a bit challenging. Pretend jump for my answers.

If you could own one painting from any collection in the world but were not allowed to sell it, which work of art would you select?

One of my favorite movies is The Thomas Crown Affair, in which the title character (a billionaire) steals priceless paintings for the fun of it. Any time I think of art I think of this movie. The plot deals mostly with impressionist paintings, which are generally my favorites, so it makes the choice pretty easy. My favorite is a Monet called “San Giorgio Maggiore at dusk”. Gorgeous. And apparently owned by the Bridgestone Museum of Art in Tokyo, in case anyone’s doing some early Christmas shopping.

If you could have chosen your own first name, other than your current one, what would it be?

Anything not unisex, which is a fabulously low bar. I think everyone plays this game when they’re like 10, so of course I can’t think of anything that’s not ridiculous and juvenile. I love names that are different (which is why I can’t in good conscience cop-out of the question, since my name is actually my father’s). There was a kid in the terminal at Miami while I was there named Asher, which I thought was really cool. One of the potential names I’ve chosen for my children is Raleigh. I’d would totally steal if it satisfied the “not unisex” requirement (which makes me wonder why I think it’s okay to give my kid an ambiguous name, if I hate mine…?). Also, August, Kade, Klein, Caine, Ben, Ethan, etc… Any of those would be fine. If I think about this much longer I’ll end up at the courthouse filing paperwork tomorrow morning. Not cool, especially since I’ve sort of already changed my name once in the last year. Next.

If you could have seduced one person that you knew in your lifetime (but didn’t), who would you select?

This question is difficult to answer because just about anyone I ever considered seducing and didn’t at some point caused me to realize what a massive mistake it would have been… so it’s not as if I have a running list of missed opportunities to draw from. Which is not to say that I haven’t attempted to seduce my fair share of mistakes, either. Also, this seducing word makes it sound cheap and tawdry. I don’t seduce… Moving on.

If you were instantly able to play one musical instrument perfectly that you never have played before, what would it be?

One of my resolutions for the new year was to re-learn an instrument I played many years ago… but with that ruled out I’ll move on to my secondary musical goal, which is to learn to play the piano (or the guitar, depending on the day of the week). Either of these staple instruments would be great. I’m told I have good hands for both instruments. Also, I’m really excited about getting back the hang of reading music, and the ability to play by ear that I once enjoyed… several, many, a lot of years ago. In my youth, one might say. Ugghh…. I’m old.