Everyone has stacks of work queued up with them.. and you do them in some order or the other. But it is very important to note that the environment you do your work in, should be such that it compliments your work and method.
Not too long ago, I was happy sitting doing my things and flowing along with the time. I always had notes and a small notice board filled with things that I had to do (on the computer), With not much problem I used to achieve those tasks. But recently, those notes have been piling up and that board hasn't been erased since ages.
The problem here is that, there have been only two processes running when I come home and sit on the computer..
- Process A : AKA System Idle process, wander aimlessly in social sites and Reading RSS feeds
- Process B :Help someone with some problem.
These things have various threads which keep happening in a round robin fashion.. I look at the RSS feeds and read for sometime, then go to twitter and stalk a little, then go to forums and help some one, check my scraps and reply to the doubts, the cycle repeats.
The Blog news sites keep putting news for hits, I get suckered into reading everything because of my thirst for.. well, anything that happens in my areas of interest (One big goal of having a huge encyclopaedia in me head). So that keeps giving new things to read once the cycle is over, then people on twitter keep tweeting and there are so many people with common interests that keeps me watching, to see if they found something interesting that I could probably make use of.. that is another never ending process.
Then there is the forum thing where you periodically go and keep checking if the person asking the question to which you replied has answered back or not..
In this way, time gets wasted, so obviously this way of round robin-ing all these process is a very bad thing to do. Socializing and having connections with people is good, but one should never go overboard.
Process B
Basically, there is nothing wrong in helping others, I actually love seeing that what I know is helping in making others' life easier. But the thing here is that, since the past few months it has gone to such lengths that I get daily 1hr+ phone calls, chatting for an hour (altleast) and then roaming in the forums for another few hours .
The main culprit here is me ofcourse, I can choose to say "I am short on time" or "have to do something else", but I just can't say that, and then again there is thing that, I have my chat clients ALWAYS on, so anyone looking for help instead of googling will ask me first, because.. well, there is a good chance I would know how to help.
The main reason I go online (not invisible) on these things is because, I've been getting calls from people/relatives saying they haven't seen me since so long, etc etc..(all that mushy stuff) giving me a feeling of "loosing your friends". So that the social tie is tied tightly once I go and stay online.
But thats basically "asking for it" Once you go online you are sure to be bombarded with even more people and waste a few cycles there.
What Happened?
Simply put, I got the proverbial "kick in the nuts" all that information junkie-ness finally proved fatal and it went to such an extent that I lost the sense of responsibility, never thinking about things I should actually be getting done. It was, always, the same cycle, repeating. Even sometimes when I decided firmly that
"I will play this game today"
"I will complete this task today"
I would get pings from friends or maybe a call from someone to do/help with something and then keep doing that and then after doing it, go into the system idle process and waste the remaining time.
How bad was it? Simply put, I completed only 13 games last year, compared to 23 from 2007, and most of the 2008 games were rather, short.
This was at its peak in the past three months, with even movie/anime/game activity being close to 0 so you can forget about "learning/studies" etc. And day before yesterday I got my "kick in the nuts" by failing to pass an exam by 2 Qs (which I openly accept, could have prepared more for, even though I did the minimum required preparation)
As they say.. "Its all fun and games until someone looses an eye"
Well, I guess you require something BIG to happen so that you get back intoright track and start doing things the right way...
So... What now?
Well, I guess its time for a CHANGE, and what kind of change?
Everytime I remember this saying from a good friend of mine "Life is all about getting your priorities straight" I always loved that sentence, wanted to follow it, never felt it was that necessary, but I guess it IS now.
So , shifting from my Round Robin ways with no priorities at all.. now on I will be having a very highly prioritized method of scheduling my tasks.
I have plans to learn and do a lot by the time this semester ends, so I guess its time to get my other kind of knowledge's fill and do it in a right manner. Everyday will have its own fresh board/page and will do those first, and only then go to my feeds/twitter etc..
- WONT start my day with "Lets see whats the latest news at kotaku"
- Will not keep stalking my timeline on twitter.
- Apply appropriate Stealth settings on Chat clients
- Remove all Social Apps from Startup
- Do atleast one thing that you WANT to do.. not what you HAVE to.
- Learn to say "NO"
Will it work?
You have no idea how many edits, cuts, and modifications this post has gone.. I was going to NOT post this thing at all.. just like 100s of other things that go through my head, but I finally decided that I will make this post and let all my friends know, so that, atleast they will keep me kicking back on the right track.. i.e not just @sadaarjun and @PhaniPS :P
Just writing this is like overcoming a huge hurdle...
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Comment on twitter
Basically, most of the people in there are people either working or.. well, not in college like me.. I mean the people with as much activity as mine. All those @SathyaBhat s and @b50 s spamming timelines are happily tweeting along from their office computers when they have nothing else to do...its bad, to try and replicate that part of them :P Its better me, as a student, utilise that time for something better :P
I guess I finally understand the on again, off again, moods of @preshit and also why @xubz has disappeared.@QuizMaster seems to be doing fine.. but has been less active recently because of the exams.. well, just hope @Rockstar_sid and @pcsbox dont get too carried away. @karthiksn seems to be in a similar System Idle process situation though..
Tracking..
In the end, will be tracking my own progress via twitter and blog activity.. let us just see if something happens after I post this thing... I dont want it turn out like all those other times when you get serious and think of doing something but endup being overwhelmed by the wretched System Idle Process.
