Staying on top of the "OH! YOU'RE BACK!" flood has occupied most of my time today, hence the puny dent in the remaining inbox crud. The last few emails are also the hardest, so I expect them to take a lot of time and effort. But we'll see what shortcuts I can find. Goal for tomorrow is to get below 100.
I need to make things run without me more. Yeah, it's nice to feel needed - but I don't think I'm actually needed for a lot of it, I'm not that special; I'm just... not good enough at setting up systems yet. Good to know for next time. (When is next time?)
Must... be... more... responsible. More accountable. Less flaky. I've seen people I do want to be like, and people I'm afraid I am like, and it's a constant struggle to stay grounded. This is hard. I'm a sprinter by nature, and get most of my power from being nimble, improvisational, adaptable - which means that things like "planning ahead" and "following through" feel like weights dragging on me. The trick is figuring out how to use them like this. (Start watching at 4:20.)
More random things from inbox cleaning and the wanderings it leads to:
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. --Samuel Johnson, maybe.
Nifty idea from Sacha: a Thunderbird plugin that won't let you download new mail until you clear your inbox of the messages already in it. (Slight hitch: I sometimes sprint through my email in pine or mutt when I'm feeling distracted by graphical things, but imagine it would be harder to hack similar functionality into those.)
MetaOlin still holds the post of favorite guidelines from any team I've ever been a part of. And happy geek moments are happy.
Tonight I chose to finish everything I wanted to do, even if it went
outside the time I wanted to allot to it. Tomorrow I'll make the
decision based on time. I don't want to mess up my sleep schedule more
than 3 nights in a row. What that means is that tomorrow's going to be a crazy workload day because I don't have time but do have work, but at least I know what things are going to give. Or at least what things I'll allow to drop in the next 24 hours. I must put on my Super Productivity Hat.
First, though, I have to sleep. It's almost 7am and I have a meeting in <4 hours. I'm going to be there. And I'm going to be awake and excited and participatory. It's important. I will make some very strong tea.
Balance! Balance!
*pass out*