Abstracted Mind

In my last post I mentioned I was working on a super cool secret project with a couple friends. Well we have a placeholder website and blog now. So go check out zintin.

These past couple months have been about deep realizations for me. I have learned infinitely more about myself, rethought about many fundamental assumptions I have had, and on the whole become a more self-aware person.

In the same vein of thought, its about time that I rethink this website. I’ve been through many iterations of what it should be about. It initially started as a place for me to put a bit of what I liked about the web in one place. Then it became a little about putting some thoughts down. Then it became a place to showcase some of my meager artistic talents. Then it further evolved into a blog.

I like that it has been a place for me to output personal thoughts, but I feel now that it isn’t the right place to put it all down. I don’t want to get rid of the “blog” component completely but I want it to be a place primarily for creative output. There will be two advantages to this. First it will become a bit more engaging to the readers of the site. Second, and more importantly, it will force me into a routine where I take some time to do some creative thinking. Be it short stories, sketches, my abysmal attempts at poetry, or even musical recordings, I want to put myself on a regular schedule of doing some creative thinking/output.

Don’t expect drastic changes soon, I have a super cool secret project that I have started to work on that will likely be my primary time sink for the next few months, but hopefully I’ll get this site to a place where I want to come in regularly to share my creative output. And maybe, just maybe, it will become a place for people to become inspired.

As I wrote about last month, I have packed myself pretty tight this quarter. There are two consequences of this for an unorganized person like me. First, I start putting things off until the last moment. This causes the quality of my work to be less than ideal, and I find myself more under pressure than I need to be. Second I end up sleeping far less than I can properly handle. This again, causes the quality of my work to be less than ideal, and I find myself less able to think clearly through the rest of the day.

So what do I do? As a student concentrating on about 5 different projects at the same time, this comes with the territory. Yes I can reduce that number, but that won’t happen for about 6 more weeks, and that’s not the really the problem. The next thing to do is get organized. How does one go about that?

As a first try I started making lists. Lists are great because you can write down what you need to get done and have it in one place to look at. The second great thing about them is that when you finish something you cross it off! You gain a good karma point. But there is one major downside do lists. When you write down everything you need to get done in one list, looking at that list scares you. Every moment that passes and things aren’t done it glares at you, smiting you for your sloth. That—is a scary.

If we dig deeper into what it is in the nature of lists that causes them to reign terror, we find that it doesn’t really help understand when to get things done. Some people’s solution is to have prioritized lists or color-coated lists. But this misses the fundamental reason to write down things that need to get done. And that is getting them done.

So now I am experimenting with something else. I am using my google calendar to block out every moment of my day into doing something. Every hour must be filled with what I need to do. Class, Lunch, Read Chapter 2 for Management Science, Work on the CS 247 prototype, Print out midterms etc. One really important thing in there is: Sleep. Yes I have scheduled my hours of sleep, because otherwise I push myself late into the night not accomplishing much and procrastinating. This in turn ruins the next few days.

So far it is working out well, and I see things getting done as I go through the day. I may be going a little overboard because I did end up slacking for a couple hours yesterday leading me do not complete something I could have then. Maybe I need to build in time to slack. In any case, this is better than a list. I don’t get glaring looks from an incomplete list. Instead I get a continuous flow of good karma pouring over me as I move through the day. And that’s a great feeling.

I think a lot of us in this world don’t realize how free we are. Or at least put up a false sense of urgency around us to rid ourselves of blame. I have been doing this for a long time, and it is only now I am beginning to accept that I have far more control over my life and destiny that I thought.

Earlier today, I spent some time talking to a friend about what we expected coming into the Masters program what we are actually going through. Or put another way, what we wanted to do and what we ended up doing. At each end of the time scale the states were pretty different.

After a series of advice and conversations that have coincidently happened around the same time and around the same subject, I have come to a pretty straight forward, yet personally profound realization.

I realized that I had constructed false urgency and needs around me to drive me through my time ever since I left high school, and probably before that too. I realized that my self worth and defining characteristics in the future will not be determined by completing every single task I had set out for myself without thinking deeply about its importance to me. I realized that my self worth and defining characteristics exist now, and I am not in some perpetual training mode where I am preparing for the future.

Essentially, I am free. I exist now. I am not a young kid in school anymore, I am going to be 23 this year (don’t laugh if you’re older, I know you went through this too). That point when a person grows up and has to deal with “real life” has come; I am living it. And the interesting part of that is that it makes me feel as free as I was when I was a kid.

Two weeks into the quarter I am taking refuge at my sister’s place. Whirlwind, seriously. I’ve barely had the time to reorganize my room. It’s still essentially in the same mess it was in when I left for India in December.

I sometimes wonder how I get myself in these situations where I am immeasurably busy. Coming into the quarter I thought, you know what, I am going to cut back on all the commitments. I’ll only do one or two things. But here I am piled underneath many commitments. The thing is, it’s not like I don’t want to do some of them, I want to do it all and then some. Everything is so exciting and so interesting. I need to learn how to prioritize better. Oh well I am definitely planning on one less thing next quarter.

In spite of all the commitments I have for the quarter, I think I am going to less busy than the last. I have a feeling that my weekends will feel more like weekends. Much of my work appears to be weekday intensive overall, and less programming/problem set intensive as it was last quarter. And believe me, programming is almost always the biggest time sucker.

So even though I have some mixed feelings, I am really looking forward to this quarter. It’s going to result in some very new learnings for me than the traditional computer science education, which is why it’s really going to be exciting.