Happy New Year. It has certainly been a minute or 3 since I last appeared in my blog-form, and since I know that my devoted readers have missed me so, I apologize to both of you. Ha! Ok, well, to whoever is checking in on me, I appreciate the appreciation, and I am aware that I am often not as consistent as any serious blog-wannabe needs to be. However, this is, in this case, for good reason. I have been busy trying to become a better person.
One of my greatest drawbacks, is my scatterbrainededness. Oddly, though I make my living in the ‘real-world’ as moderately successful, semi-big-dog-level Operations Manager, and much of this is project management, it is an interesting irony that one of my biggest flaws is my inability to stay organized. True, I have to handle all of my day-to-day activities, being a single father, boyfriend, worker, and aspiring music producer, none of which are particularly easy to do, and combined are close to impossible at times, but I have always secretly known that I just simply need to get a better grip on all of the activities and responsibilities that I need to juggle, if I wanted to come close to living up to my potential. So, the last 3 weeks or so has been largely dedicated to reorganizing (and in some cases, organizing for the first time) many factors of my life. My focus has been strong, and therefore, my attention to Manny Faces business has been on hiatus. Here are some things I did:
Home Office Overhaul
I begun this New Year’s Revolution during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I was off from work, home with the babies, while my hunni had to work most of that week. So, I cleared out every ounce of furniture, music equipment, computer equipment, garbage, wires, rocks, papers, scissors… Everything. I completely threw away my desks, remnants of a modular office system that one of my old employers was throwing out. It was at home in a big office, too big for a home office. And more importantly I realized, it didn’t allow me to have my ’setup’ the way I want it. With dual-monitors, big ol’ speakers, a midi keyboard, amp, mixing board, and clutter, it just wasn’t feng shui enough I guess. Hunni bought me a new desk as a pre-birthday present, and it was great! Just how I wanted my ’setup’ set up, and inexpensive, but not cheap. So, after two nights of priming, painting, perspirating and painstaking preperation, my office was reborn from an office-slash-storage room-slash-hideout for the cats-slash-pigsty to a clean, HomeOffice 2.0ish looking oasis of ergonomically placed Manny stuff where everything is at arm’s length and just feels right.
Filing
I have papers. Boy do I. Bills, Family Court papers, Divorce papers, newspapers, bills, business papers, mortgage papers, bills, health record, birth certificates, bills and countless random sheets of printed matter, most of which, doesn’t matter. And it was high time that I lowered the high tide of this sea of paper. So, for about $12, I got one of those plastic tub-thingys from Staples that hold hanging folders, sat my ass down over the course of two days, went through every pile of paper, threw away everything that was truly useless, and filed. Now, instead of scraps of my whole life scattered throughout the house, irreplaceable important records entangled among insignificant leaflets of irrelevancy, I now essentially have everything on paper that is worth keeping, in one place. This makes a huge difference. And is 24% less of a fire hazard!
Computer tweakin’
So I am pushing through! I am psyched! I am excited and working hard and staying up late and organizing and rearranging and rebuilding and so this is the PERFECT time for my computer to die, isnt it?. Ah yes, Mr. Random.Windows.Operating.System.File is missing or corrupt or has herpes or who knows what. Now, in the past, because I am a) cheap, b) broke and c) technically savvy, I bought lower end PCs, no service contract or brand names – “If it breaks, I’ll just fix it” was (and largely still is) my mentality. But this one, is still relatively new. And was not cheap. And is a name brand. And I am super careful about keeping it clean of unwanted stuff. So, when it died, I was definitely a tad miffed. But OK, nothing a Windows reinstall can’t fix. Well, long story short, I reinstalled Windows, and as Microsoft-luck would have it, this did not solve the problem. So I tried a million and 7 things, all tidbits of tech procedures I’ve picked up in my many years of PCing, with no success. I wondered how a Windows file could still be missing, when I reinstalled Windows?! Bizarre. But then the answer! One of my USB slots was broken. Now, the corrupt file message I received, that was not permitting my computer to breathe any e-life, had nothing to do with the USB slot being damaged. But as anyone who has had major computer trouble undoubtedly knows, it does not have to make any sense at all. So anyway, a little mechanical prying and I fixed it. The actual silver lining here though, is that by reinstalling, I actually got my computer back to near-factory level cleanliness. Sure I had to reload a bunch of my applications, but I definitely de-cluttered the OS, registry and all the unwanted programs that I had previously loaded, tried, and dismissed. So in a way, this major annoyance was not a bad thing. I cleared my desktop of the 239847239 things that were there, made improvements to my browser (hotkeys, easy to get to toolbar links, etc.), set up an iGoogle page, a Google Calendar page, set up my email boxes (in accordance with the Getting Things Done system that I have also been reading up on, an intricate, but much heralded method of learning how to process information. Valuable time-management self-help). All in all, I got this computer setup just the way I like it now, and I’m taking advantage of many lifehack-type of technical tips and tricks and it has made a huge difference in me keeping track of all the things I need to keep in mind.
There are a few other things I’ve done to try and get on top of my game this year, some I will hopefully hold on to, while other ideas and methods may fall to the wayside, but I point all this out to those who are reading because it is important to realize that despite whatever natural talents you may have, whatever dreams and aspirations you might be following, sometimes you have to stop and take stock of the situation, and of yourself, to determine what you need to do to be a better person. The best part is that this is something I need to do to be better at music. And at marketing myself. And at my day job. And at my relationship. And at fatherhood. And at staying sane. So no matter what, taking stock in myself, recognizing my flaws, and finally taking the time to simply DO something about them, is the #1 priority on my new fangled to-do list. After that, everything else will just be better.
Now if I could only stick with my exercising. <sigh>