Working With a Timer

I will work on this for 18 minutes and 18 seconds.  A lot of cleanup of a room can be accomplished in that time.  Exercise takes 25 minutes and 25 seconds, as does my goof off break.  Writing assignments take twice that 50 minutes and 50 seconds, with my mind usually petering out before that.  I rarely achieve Flow where time of performance disappears.  While do it until completion seems a better way to accomplish tasks, my interest fades more often than not somewhere during the task.  A timer makes for decent compensation unless the activity is both short and finite.  

My new GloryFit smartwatch has a timer, something its iTouch Slim predecessor did not.  Smart phones, tablets, PCs all come with timers.  It's utility has expanded far beyond keeping track of what's in the oven.  But still, it would be nice to occasionally enter a state of Flow.

Overtasked

Motivationally challenged, perhaps.  My daily task list appears unusually long, so diverse that I really don't want to select any one thing to actually do.  It might help, I think, if I choose something that has an end that gets a checkmark by the end of the day and does not get recycled to tomorrow's daily task list.  There are items like that but most things that contribute to my semi-annual initiatives are not those one and done efforts.  Still, I need to have the task list shorter.  The best way to do that is to tackle those most finite.  Exercise is measured by time and by effort.  So are my wt, waist, and BP measurements. Some efforts are timed, particularly cleaning parts of the house.  But when the list gets too long, the choices appear overwhelming.  It becomes like a food menu that has so many options that you are never fully content with the one you chose.  See how many I can do, but opt for the ones that once done do not propagate beyond today.

Rosh Hashana Prep

The High Holy Days begin in about a week.  I'm transitioning the year less enthused than other years.  I will still send off annual greetings to two old friends.  I will prepare dinner suitable for the occasion and for sharing with my sister-in-law the following day.  And I will also need to work my monthly Medscape submission around the days when the electronics shut down.  Maybe take some clothing to the dry cleaners.  Seems easier to prepare food and stuff than it is to prepare myself.  There are services to attend, people to greet, likely some top-notch sermons presented by experts.  I still have a week to perhaps enhance my own connection to this annual transition.

Some Minor Consumerism

There are items I need.  Things like dishwashing soap, pants and eggs.  There are things that I kinda need like coffee and seltzer in lieu of wretched soda.  And there are things that I want but really don't need like most of the food my doctor discourages or the link bracelet I often wear on my right wrist.  Another category might be things I really don't need but want until I have them, after which they shift into need.  A cell phone or 55" big screen flat TV would be among these.  And within needs there are gradients of want.  While I need a shirt, its Phillies logo moves it into something that I want.  And most things from freebie tables are probably momentary wants, rarely needs, though I do appreciate some of the totes and logo umbrellas I've acquired that way.

So time to surf amazon.com as a few items that I already possess have shown need for upgrade or replacement.  Could use some semi-casual shoes.  Found suede chukka boots both in my size and on sale, a rare match in any store.  I probably needed a new pair of daily shoes, or really every other day shoes to enhance their longevity.  That hybrid of kinda need and want, though only want at a favorable price.  My cell phone needed urgent replacement.  T-Mobile ripped me off for a screen protector which promptly cracked.  I needed a new screen protector.  And while I was there, since free shipping needs a minimum purchase, I found a suitable case, which incidentally comes with its own screen protector.  Into the cart.

My smartwatch, an iTouch Slim has begun to fail.  I retrieved some more traditional dial watches, two of three in need of new batteries.  Watch batteries a lot less expensive at amazon.com than at Walgreens, so into the cart.  But I really like my iTouch better, though we could quibble about whether it can be worn to shul as it goes on and off electronically with hand motion.  I wear it.  Despite the inconvenience of having to charge it, which I don't with my traditional watches, I liked its slim appearance and greatly appreciate the ability to set a wrist buzz to assign the fixed awake and retire times required for optimal sleep hygiene.  Alas, its charge barely lasts a day.  

As technology improves, that same expenditure gives more features.  I selected a GloryFit model, larger square face, though I found the slim face more unobtrusively stylish.  What sold me were the doodads, the ability to select a hundred or more displays, nearly all in color, compared to my iTouch selection of three monochrome fonts.  This model offers me the weather, a sleep tracker that is probably inaccurate, an oxygen and blood pressure read, also not to depend upon.  Basically, it's part watch, part toy, and at almost the same price as the one it replaces, which makes it somewhat disposable if its use disappoints.

All but the chukka boots and batteries have arrived.  Cell phone in its case.  Cracked screen protector replaced, with four more on standby in anticipation of this protector serving its purpose by eventually sustaining a replaceable injury.  GloryFit watch charged, playing with the settings.  Minor gripes already, the temperature reads as Celsius, though I programmed Imperial units.  I do understand metric units, though.  Indeed, it would be better for Americans to just use them like everyone else.  Choose a different watch face later today.

Outspoken

Some invited feedback to my congregational in-crowd.  An earful.  Not what they expected.  They heard resentment.  They heard condescension.  And they also heard why.  They get complaints.  They don't get too much why.  And from one of their best unique and accurate thinkers.  Blunt beyond candid.

Recreationally Challenged

My weekly task list contains a series of recreational items that I'm really not committed to.  There's the outdoors of fishing and gardening.  There's the indoors of arts and literature.  None other than writing  has any desire on my part for acquiring proficiency.  They are more means of transient pleasure, perhaps escape.  All can be done alone, indeed, most need to be done alone.  They get propagated from week to week on my weekly plan, then to my daily task list.  Rarely if ever done.  Focus on the writing.  Schedule the others.

Touring the World on YouTube

My Space has a few go to items.  A great desk chair.  A recliner that probably should be replaced, perhaps with a barber chair.  I type at my laptop.  I watch a 55" flat screen TCL television.  Until recently, I did not know that the TV accesses YouTube, something I would more commonly open on my cell phone in bed to acquire sleep sounds or maybe listen to a symphony in anticipation of a night's sleep.  Having YouTube on a big screen changes the perspective.

I like to visit places, poking in neighborhoods as I travel, stopping along the way on longer trips at a local coffee place in preference to a turnpike rest stop.  I will often visit a local college, maybe getting a logo coffee mug to add to my collection, now mostly assigned display and not drinking.  I can do these things on a screen.  Any college or any town that I can think of has a resident or student who has filmed their experience.  The towns largely don't offer much, mostly the same drive through, or less, than I would have done as a visitor.  The college tours seem more substantial, some official tours to attract students, some assessments of student experiences, mostly favorable but a few highlighting anti-Semitism or other campus liabilities.  There's even a series of youniversity that has a vlogger giving tours independent of the formal administration recruiting.  My own college selections would probably have been different had this resource been available to me.  

And there is still my fondness for Jewish music and for orchestral pieces there at a quick search.  And my on new channel, dr. plotzker's mind, where I am probably the only one who watches.

Vicarious, for sure.  But available to me in an instant.