Thursday, August 14, 2008

Good morning!  I've been to the gym, scanned email, and set my MITs for the day.  That is the good news.

Now for the bad news:  I have made ZERO progress on building my new habit of early to bed, early to rise.  After I checked out last night at 9:30, I planned to spend 15 minutes winding down and then go to bed.  So what time did I get into bed?  11:15.  Did I get up at 4:45?  I did not.  I hit the snooze about a million times and got up finally at 5:30 . . .

My plan for tonight is to STAY AWAY from the personal computer tonight, and get into bed at 9 pm even if I am not sleepy.  I can listen to music until I fall asleep. 

Coffee break . . . back ~ 10 to start on MIT #1.  Actually, MIT #1 is a 3 minute task so I think I'll do that now, then come back at 10 or so to do MIT #2. 

Have a productive and enjoyable day everyone!

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams

Hi Rainbow Pro Buddies! :)

It's so late here (for me), but it's important for me to check-in, so here goes.

Today: elliptical, stretching, got a lot of projects done. Dealing with an issue. Feeling nervous about it. ((sigh)). Well, a friend will come over tomorrow night, so can talk about it with them, if needed. Started volunteer project after work. Went to meeting of other volunteer group. Wrote email to international friend.

Next: I need to send a quick e-mail to my friend who will come over tomorrow. Then quick stretching before bed.

Have a great night everyone! :)

Recycler

Thank you, gals & guys, for being here! :)

I turned on my computer at 7:15 and immediately remembered two details I needed to attend to regarding the youth class Mrs. GS and I teach. So I already got two tasks out of the way by doing those.

I'm feeling very much at risk for a collapse in my organizing and execution today, because of so much on my mind and an unexpected change in my plans for today.

The boss at my part-time job called me last night and said I don't need to come in today because the workload is smaller than expected. This is basically good--although it's nice to earn the extra bucks, it means I can spend more time working for myself this afternoon, and it ends up not interfering with family plans. There's a niggling bit of insecurity--will this part-time job go away? It's in an industry that's already losing a lot of people (nationally) and one that's under economic stress. It's been a good job to have, accounting for something like 25-30% of my income last year. But that's a very low-level anxiety.

I have already put a road map for my day in Outlook's calendar and task list, so I know what to do. But I can feel the urge to procrastinate much more strongly today, in part because I have no immediate deadlines cracking the whip on my back.

But I'm going to do my best to stay on task, and hope that as I get started momentum will pull be along further.

MIT#1, #2, #3: All projects for Client C. FIrst, Project M. Second, Project S. Third, Project G.

M is from scratch.

S and G were both started last month and then kind of simmered unattended during a period of major drift on my part.

Several other tasks lie ahead today:

-Begining the completion of Project R. [I have a series of specific tasks associated with that in my list, but this is what they all add up to.]

-Take my older son to his High School to finalize his senior year schedule.

-Visit an office related to the Youth Class [henceforth, Project YC w/ Mrs. GS] .

The latter part of the afternoon is now wide open. That can easily turn into "permission" to drift--something I don't want to happen.

I will report back at 9:30 about my current status.  

Update: I did some initial Internet research on Project M, also contacted online 3 friends who might have relevant experience/info on it. Those were mostly dead-ends. Then I realized that I could get an expert from a National Assn. on the subject, so I called there and got a media contact, who said he'd have someone get back to me. Was very upbeat about being able to help. So Mission accomplished on Project M.

Project S was quick: I just identified a specific next task and entered that to do tomorrow.

For Project G, I had to call someone whom I'd emailed 3 weeks ago and never heard back from. He apologized and we scheduled interview time for Monday AM. I also had to get started on editing pictures for project G. I found the folder in which they were on my computer, then put it on the desk top and set it up for editing later. I created a new task to Edit the pix and put it as a lower priority.

Bottom line: I've identified a series of concrete "next actions" for these various lingering projects so that I can pick up the ball more quickly on them when it's time to return to them. That's a relief, and I managed to keep going despite the uncertainty and vagueness before that was putting me at serious risk for dithering and drift. Knowing that I wanted to report something specific back here was very helpful in keeping me on task. THANK YOU PA!!

Now I turn to Project R, about 25 minutes late (that's OK--a reminder that I should schedule half-hour "transition" breaks between projects anyway). I expect to spend about the next 2 hours on it, with a series of concrete, identified tasks/calls already set forth for myself.

Time to get to work!

Computer is still down, I'm hoping it will be back up soon.

Today MUST do:
*45 min researching who I want to work with
*Post 2 sat. experiments
*45 min researching about possible experiments (15 min reviewing material on U87 cells, and 30 min thinking about/researching role of coregulators in adipocytes/insulin resistance.)
*Run clustering code, look at results, brainstorm ways to improve
*Start principled way of setting parameters (if computer comes back up)
*Email TT
*Tidy room

Today SHOULD do:
*test script for AL
*1 hr preparing for next week's Harambee, email out my ideas to PJ and CV
*call CH
*Fix and test ace2tamo and meme2tamo
*Run job with new interactome and visualize results

Today WOULD LIKE to do:
*Start writing code to process cv/rand results
*get/organize novartis data

Whew! that's quite a list. I'm going to start in on my MITs and just take one task at a time. I'm going to start by emailing TT, tidying my room, posting 2 sat. experiments and researching who I want to work with. Then I'll check back in and head to lab.