Hear it like it is (day 201)

Short post today.  It's been a day of catch up because threads that could wait three days ago are urgent now.  I've estimated that for every day that I'm away I get behind about 25%.  There was so much fragmentation today that it's hard to write about anything coherent right now.  If I could I'd just show a box of bouncing balls I'd call it a representation and be done.

I started a new audiobook after finishing The Lovely Bones (which I recommend btw...read by the author).  The new book is actually a series of interviews of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers.  He's not my favourite interviewer but Joseph is so fascinating it doesn't matter.  I decided to listen to this after I read an article on the RWW blog that mentioned him in relation to creating better presentations.  Turns out it's useful for a lot more than that.  In fact, I'll have to think about how to apply it to so grounded a task as creating a presentation.  You can listen to an excerpt of this on Audible.

I forgot to mention in my post a couple days ago that Jaron Lanier had recommended the book called "The machine stops".  He says it's the best book on the internet.  Turns out it's on Librivox a repository of public domain book recordings.  I'm stoked that I'll be able to listen to it. Wouldn't it be nice if anyone could read any book out loud and post it online?  You can if the book is out of copyright which is great (librivox is just that) but audiobooks in general are still very mainstream.  Personally I would love it if I could buy a book and get the physical, digital, and audio version.  Or at least get the other versions at a significant discount if I already own one version of it.

A song for this post.

Too much and not enough (day 150)

bacterial update: the kombucha tea got a reprieve because the Granville Island market was closed today.  It almost never closes but every Monday in January is a maintenance day.  I'd say 90% of us forget and still head over there to be disappointed and slightly dunce-capped for forgetting yet again.  I was saved the trouble by a friend who reminded me at the last moment.  Tomorrow I'll get the tea I need from the Granville Island Tea Company and start the kombucha process in earnest.  On a whim I tested the pH (never say die).  It's still at 4.0.  One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that the label on the store-bought kombucha says that it was brewed for 20 days.  I had a moment of hope but it has pretty much faded.  I've got my eyes on the Pu-erh tea and a new beginning now.
The Kefir grains continue to produce more quickly than is convenient.  It's as if they've found new vigour and I'll have to adjust.   It made practically no difference at all to switch to 3% milk, except for the luscious creaminess of the drink.  When I came home at 8pm, it was very ready to strain.  I am now overrun with Kefir so the grains will have to go dormant for a few days.  When I've caught up, I'll decrease the volume of grains.
Not a very triumphant bacterial day I must say.  But my momma said there'd be days like this.

Today I spent a full three hours catching up on email and I still didn't catch up.  I determined that I can do about 50 emails in an hour.  I even tried something new and said no to a few requests.  Who knows, I might even get my workload down to something manageable where I can have a few moments to think before I hit send.  

Sleep beckons...

A song for this post.

delete delete delete (day 26)

Luis Suarez says email can all but be eliminated.  He's down to 30-40 emails a week.  I drool when I hear those numbers.  These days I can never empty my inbox and I feel trapped by the email treadmill.  There are so many conversations that answering an email feels good but there is also a twinge of dread for the response.   The emails that scroll off my screen have a very high probability of never getting answered.  How did it get to this? I used to love email.  I suppose the asynchronous nature of email made us think that time was stretching.  The reality is that it takes way longer to type or read something than it does to have a conversation.  The same action items will result but conversing will get there more quickly.  I realize the benefits of email -- the record keeping, the attachments, the time to think about a response.  But I would say the bulk of my emails don't fall in that category.

Luis just said no more and stopped responding to email.  I'm not sure if he's down to zero responses but it's pretty close according to the talk I heard.   He has instead diverted his email conversations to other media.    He uses social networking tools like Yammer and blogs so he still has the record keeping but shares the information a little wider.   I suppose there would be a small overhead in diverting conversations but over time there would be less traffic in your inbox.   And maybe over time there would be less repetition.  Still, it may be my lack of imagination or cynicism but I have a hard time imagining that more software tools in my life will be better.   I have a task list, several calendars, two inboxes,  four blogs,  an RSS feed reader, and a facebook page.  I haven't even joined Twitter for fear of one more thing to check.

I admit that something has to change in my inbox wrestling moves.  Luis says we need to work smarter not harder.  It's glib.  I suppose I could change my habits in his kind of direction and see what happens.  I wonder if he has a step by step guide.

A song for this post.