Easy tasks for momentum

I didn’t blog or plan yesterday, partially because I wanted to waste time, and partially because I wanted to see if I could still be productive without writing. I didn’t spend quite as much time on schoolwork as I would have liked, and I should have done cardio or DIY and didn’t, but I was unable to get absorbed in wasting time so it wasn’t a complete loss.

I’ve probably written this before, but as of yesterday I was even more strongly convinced that the reason I play video games is because I want to feel a sense of achievement without having to work too hard at it. I gave myself permission to do whatever I wanted yesterday, and yet anything worth doing seemed too hard, and anything too easy (most video games) didn’t seem worth doing, i.e. wouldn’t give me any sense of achievement. How do I overcome this limbo? I decided that I need to start with doing something quick and/or easy that still gives me a sense of achievement. Push-ups or bicep curls, for example, take only a minute or two, and yet the difference after doing them is definitely noticeable. That will build my momentum to tackle more difficult problems. This is what happens in video games: you get an item or improve a skill, and the next goal becomes more and more difficult but because you have momentum, you are motivated to work hard for it.

Since I wanted to waste time and was having difficulty with it, I ended up looking for more fanfiction, specifically ones with powerful Harry Potter. I’ve gone through about six, reading at least one chapter in each, but I’ve yet to find one that’s even remotely well-written. Once again I’m thinking about trying my hand at it, and I spend most of my breakfast contemplating things that I would do differently from the poor attempts that I’ve been reading. I don’t anticipate having a lot of free time today, but this weekend I might revisit this idea.

I had a peculiar dream last night in which I went back to study at GCC. This typically turns into a nightmare in which I realize that I’ve passed an entire semester without showing up for a class and that I won’t be able to pass it. This time was no different in the antecedent, but instead of a resulting sense of failure, I just thought, “eh, it probably wasn’t that important anyway.” I’m not sure what warranted the switch in attitude, but I’m quite amused by it.

SCHOOLWORK
My time was a little short yesterday but was productive. I finished all the work for the philosophy class for this week and got started on the work for week 2 in my other class.

JOB
I did another search on Linkedin, which was more depressing than anything. Today I’m going to look for a different job search website and I’m going to expand my parameters to include Virginia. If that still doesn’t look promising, I might expand further to Atlanta. It’s reasonable, especially since I have family there, but it still makes me cringe.

EXERCISE
No cardio. I’ve been reviewing planking from the middle of the beginner course on my planking app, but that’s getting stale, so I’m going to return to the intermediate course and just try to do the workout over the course of an entire day.

SPANISH
I skipped yesterday in honor of finishing unit 4 (>.>). I noticed that indirect pronouns are really useful. Spanish was really in my head for a lot of the day yesterday, even though I didn’t study it.

DIY
I need Dad’s help, and he was busy, so I skipped again. Oh, but on Tuesday I cut a board to replace the one that I split and sanded it. I tried to drill the screw further into the board to join the pieces of wood, but I had no luck, which is the problem that I need Dad to help me solve.

PROGRAMMING
I actually made some progress on my Bible verse program, woohoo! I changed the correction delay to 0 (making correction instant) which helped me find a stupid bug that was easy to fix. On the other hand, I beat my head against the wall for about an hour trying to figure out why the program wouldn’t load my icons. It claims that it can’t find them, and I tried several different paths with no success. Today I’ll try using a dialog box to open them, and if that doesn’t stick, maybe I’ll try saving them in different formats and putting them in many different places throughout the code folder. I could also write a junit case to load one, which would save me a little time, though I’m not sure it would be worthwhile.

I also watched a couple of videos about programming. First about junit testing, and then a couple of others about becoming a programmer in general. The latter were more inspirational than informative, but that might be just as well, as they inspired me to work more diligently on my own programming.

PEOPLE JOURNAL
I forgot. I need to stop making excuses. It’s not difficult to do, but for some reason I feel like five minutes is more time than I can afford to invest in this simple activity. Bah.

BIBLE MEMORY
I studied the first three verses of Psalm 26 yesterday. They seemed completely unfamiliar. Psalm 30 by the end of the month seems a bit optimistic, but I’m still going to give it a try.

READING AND PRAYER
Today’s readings were short. I read the parable of the prodigal son. I think I should revisit Keller’s book about this. The devotional was about temptation, but nothing stuck out to me there.