Just one more thing

In my experience when a person doesn't know what to do with himself, he will check his email. So with a blank and troubled mind I strolled into the office of the pension, and stood in line waiting for the one super-slow email connection.

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Indecision
Benjamin Kunkel

I wonder how much more I could get done if it wasn't for One More Thing.  

I encounter an inordinate number of time sucks throughout my day.  Things like:

• Checking my email
  
• Checking my Sitemeter stats
  
• Checking the Seattle PI and Seattle Times homepage
  
• Check for updates on Fark
  
• Clearing that shelf
  
• Refilling my coffee
  
• Charging my iPod
  
• Filing my email
  
• Deleting my email
  
• Sorting my attachments
  

Each of these activities may only take a few seconds.  I can do them while I'm waiting on hold, or while I'm waiting for Windows to do something.  Or for a computer to reboot.  Or in between big projects.  The do a great job of filling those small gaps.

The problem is that anyone of these tasks can lead me astray.  What starts out as a 30 second task can easily turn into a 5 minute or 10 minute task.  And when I factor in a bunch of them, it adds up.

The result?  Well, I have about 20 "project" blog posts I haven't had time to write because all these little things during the day interfere.

I'm beginning to think that trying to make the best use of those stray minutes throughout the day is actually counter productive.

Cromely's Pensieve

I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind... At these times... I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure.
-- Albus Dumbledore

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J K Rowling introduced the Pensieve, an magical object where people can store their thoughts and memories.

I recently built my own Pensieve. Okay, it's just a notebook, and I didn't start out making a Pensieve.

A few days ago I started a to do list. A 5 year to do list.

There's a lot of things I'd like to do or or need to do in my life. Some of them I have to do tomorrow. Some of them can wait. But they were floating out there in the ether of my consciousness to be delayed or forgotten.

I began to write them down to organize them and to experience the joy of crossing things out.

This is just that -- a list. It's not an action plan. It's not a collection of goals. It's just 9 pages (and growing) of things to do in the next half decade. Items range from "Take out the recycling" to "Hang puzzle on wall" to "Tour Japan"

Somewhere along the way, it turned into a Pensieve. Now, whenever I start thinking about all the things I have to do, I take out this list and write them down. The stress goes away as I touch that wand to my forehead, extract those silverly slivers of thought, and deposit them in the basin.

Writing down these to do items frees my mind of clutter. It puts the items and detritus of a busy life someplace where I can work on them, and stops them from attacking me with their urgent impatience. And with a 5 year time frame on the list I don't have to worry about missing my own self-imposed deadline. At least no yet.

Now I just have to try crossing them off the list faster than I add new things. 2013-05-03 isn't that far away.

You can find more Harry Potter quotes here.

Pelican Chess

For my birthday a few years ago, my GF got me a very nice chess set. The pieces and board were made of stone, and had a nice pink/black look to them.

I set it up, but I didn't really have a place to keep it on display. I ended up tucking it into the corner of a bookshelf. It got dusty and I was always worried about damaging it. I couldn't come up with a good storage solution.

Until recently.

You may recall my journey across SoCal to retrieve my box. That Pelican case is filled with demo equipment for work. It does a great job keeping that stuff safe even in the hands of shipping companies and hotel staffs. Why not use one at home?

I picked up a Pelican 1550 with Pick and Pluck foam. This foam pulls apart in rectangles so I can custom fit each piece in the case.

Last night, I spend 2 hours cleaning chess pieces and plucking foam rectangles. As a result, I now have a custom storage case for my chess peices and board. I don't have to worry about damaging them or losing a piece.

I'm quite pleased with the case.

I was originally going to pick one up a Fry's, but I found a better selection of the online here. The case arrived quickly, and it cost far less than it would have at retail.

Pelican Cases may not be cheap, but they are awesome.

IPS

Today I put together my shopping list and went to Storables. I needed more Industrial Post Shelving.

I first encountered Industrial Post Shelving (IPS) when I worked for CompUSA. We had tall racks on wheels that we used to stock shelves on the floor. We call them bakers's racks. They were great for moving un-palletized merchandise around the store.

I started using IPS extensively in my apartment about 6 years ago. I love the stuff. It's durable, flexible, and adaptable. I can create the exact set up I need to fit in the space I have.

And it just looks cool (though many people seem to disagree).

Naturally, it has an industrial look, but it's not overbearing in that respect. It has a nice, modern look to it. The simple lines and efficient design appeal to my techie nature.

It's not as cheap and O'Sullivan or Bush furniture from Office Depot, or whatever Ikea is selling, but it does last a lot longer.
I started my my entertainment system. Next, I added racks for my plants. Then I used it build my office shelves and desk. When I moved down to my new apartment, I pulled it all apart, and have been busy rebuilding the components into new designs to accommodate my new space.

It's really nothing more than a collection of posts and shelves in different sizes and shapes. You get little plastic sleeves that you slip over a post, at whatever height you want, then you slip a shelf over it. The snug fit holds and you don't even need any tools.

You can attach as many shelves as you want. The simplicity of assembly, and range of sizes make it a great system to build the system you need.

This time I did the set up, I decided to add a few extra pieces to give the units more stability, and to make it easier to change the shelf configuration. The above picture is a close up of two shelving units.

When building it, I could have eliminated one of those posts, and attached the shelves on the left and right to the same post at different heights. That's the way I've done it in the past, but the racks aren't as stable that way. Plus, if I want to reconfigure everything, I have to completely dismantle the system and rebuild. That's too much trouble.

So now, I build each vertical section independently and then use couplers to tie them together.

I still have a couple more plant shelves to build in my new apartment. After that, I may have a few spares left over from the move. I'll have to figure out how to make those useful.

And that's the beauty of the system. The spare parts aren't leftovers. They're just the start of a new system.

Too Many Pens

When I was a kid, I tended to pick up pens when I found them. Somehow or other I would end up accumulating most of the pens in the house. It wasn't so much a pointless plot to steal them all, as it was just grabbing one, using it, and not putting it back.

Apparently, I still do this. Which is really weird since most of my writing is electronic.

But when I rebuilt my office last weekend, I was forced to confront this demon. This was my desktop pen caddy:

It was filled with nice pens, cheap pens, and pen like objects. It seems that I no longer pick up pens in the house. Now, I keep grabbing cheap pens from hotel rooms. I had no idea I accumulated so many Embassy Suites and Doubletree pens. It's not like the soaps and shampoos I intentionally acquire.

So I purged the cheap hotel pens.

And now it's much more manageable.