of reading, writing, and everything else i don’t do

It is curious how quickly a blog can get sidelined. I’ve read a lot about how the best way to keep in touch with things you want to do, is to allocate a set amount of time every day to do such things. You want to write: make that time of 15, 20, 30 minutes a day where you sit in front of a blank page and write. No compromises.

But what if your agenda has so many things you want to get done that the time you want to set aside is just not there? Lets see. I have ‘x’ things to finish during research time. Most of which remain to get done when I get in the next day. Such is nature of research. When I leave lab, I want to go home and kick back with a gaming session on the PS3 spend time gazing deeply into G’s eyes. Of course, there has to be time spent reading. Dinner. Movies. Other arbit stuff that must be done. The number of activities available to be done, and the amount of time available to do them.. are mostly inversely related. Exponentially too. With the constraint that the number of activities only grow, and the amount of time only appears to shrink. Or maybe it does, and we don’t know any better.

Speaking of reading, my reading has either evolved to expand its boundaries.. or disintegrated into pointlessness — I’m not sure which yet. A lot of my time is spent reading articles online; the sheer plethora of excellent writing happening in the multitude of online publications boggles the mind (here is a great example, recently read). But is reading magazine articles and long-form journalism truly reading? Tech-blog articles update way too often to be followed closely. Really, the only way to read such short-but-quick-update sites is to browse them on Flipboard. For once, I see the value of a tablet interface.. excellent for casual skimming.

So, do I remember opening a book on a Kindle (or physically) and reading it? Not recently. A few books have been read, here and there. But nothing compared to what I would like to be finishing. For such things, having a library book is an excellent excuse for finishing at least that in the 2 weeks you have the book. I’ve not borrowed a book in a while, come to think of it. Not good.

I find myself constantly trying to optimize the time I spend on the things I want to do. I’ve actually cut down on my Reader feeds. It’s still not at the stage I want to be at, but I’m getting there. I hope. Photos have languished after being downloaded from the camera. I actually found photos which are now years old and had been earmarked for post-processing.. that were never touched. I’m moving to using RAW so that I am careful about taking photos — way fewer can be taken on a single card. Maybe this will fix my habit of saving photos to disk, and leaving them there. Will it work? Time will tell. I’m trying to evaluate every side activity that I do (FYI, before you ask: gazing into G’s eyes is considered a major activity) in this way. For e.g., I’m starting to think I attempt to follow too many comics. Have to strike off a coupla series from the list. Of course, I’m sure some of you will say I should just strike comics from the list.

There have been multiple occasions where I’ve opened up this page to post something. Anything. I usually end up browsing my past posts, reading some that are close to the heart. The further back I go, the more I realize how I much I enjoy writing. And how little I write. So here I am, tapping away at my keyboard..

p.s. I know this post doesn’t really have anything new to say. But I got tired of having a white screen with no text. Ideas only germinate when they’re given free rein. So here I am. Again.

p.p.s. Yes, I updated my blog design as well. The old one was too stark. This appears more stylish. The rest remains the same: minimalism rules after all.