Gender

Neither box, please.

Gender: n: the set of assumptions not actually determined by, but often associated with, the sex of the physical body.

To be *trans*gender, I'd have to be "gender" at all. No. I reject ALL the assumptions.

Getting Stuff Done

I recently borrowed David Allen's book Getting Stuff Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity from the library. I have some gripes about the book, but it had one true gem of an idea. If I can just get that one idea going my annoyance will be worth it.

Allen's first big point is that we spend way too much time thinking about, and stressing over, our "stuff we need to do". Our minds aren't good at reminding us that we need a new faucet when we're driving past the hardware store; they remind us when we're in front of the sink, when we can't do squat about it. Oh, and when we're falling asleep, too. And when we're in a long meeting.

Here's the gem: We can STOP this waste of energy. All we have to do is write down what we need to do -- all of it, there's challenge number one -- and train our reminder-obsessed brain to trust that we'll check the list, which is of course challenge number two.

After you spend an afternoon or so writing down an incredible amount of crap, the whole rest of the book focuses on the management of what you've written (challenge number two above).

So I'm trying it out. I wrote down everything. Each thing had its own sheet of paper. The stack was about three inches thick. That night, when I fell asleep, I had room in my head for an earworm... for the first time in ages. Whoa.

I know a couple of people on my friends list are looking at (or have been using for a while) this system also. *wave*

( my grumbles, eminently skippable )

( my current implementation, eminently skippable )