Priorities, dropping things you like, but don't love, etc.

[blobbo]

This might be a long post, but I'm going to try and keep it short.

When I was a kid I tinkered with computers, but never as a programmer. I liked my mac well enough, but I loved my 286 because of a racing game that I could play on it. I grew up, found some friends in High school who liked macs and got more into it, subscribing to MacAddict in the earlier years (when it was funny - perhaps I was simply younger). My early encounters with REALBasic were awkward and revolved mostly around my intense will to create an installer for a Deus Ex mod (Disclosure: http://www.facedesigns.co.uk/). I did successfully create said installer (in retrospect it was an abomination) and caught the developer bug.

OS 10.1 was when I switched and found Project Builder. I dabbled in Cocoa, to no avail. At the time there was an open source project called Freecraft that was a project that supported WC, WCII files and was a pretty neat RTS engine. I dropped in hoping to maintain the mac port (again, far beyond my reach at the time) and got more into building from the command line, CVS, fink packages. The developers, in particular jim4 and Nehal were very nice to me and encouraged me, giving me small challenges to do in C (a change counter, text-based tic-tac-toe, etc). It was at this point that I took another stab at ObjC and got a working Tic Tac Toe game. I believe this is the point at which I stopped lurking here and started posting. That was a few years ago.

Since then I've had some fun, coding a little, but not very well. Offender (http://blobbo.spymac.com/offender/) was a highlight, but I rarely produced anything noteworthy. I made a flocking algorithm work and made a functioning A* demo, both of which were pretty cool in my books, but nothing really final. The fact remained that I'd get stuck and really want someone *else* to solve my code problems. I thought I liked logic, but I really didn't. I didn't have the patience for learning huge API's and perfecting memory management and managing pointers. I think it only really dawned on me a few months ago that: I really don't want this enough to spend all this time doing it

When you're a kid growing up you have a bunch of activities that your parents put you into, trying to engage you in a bunch of different fields so that you grow up to be well rounded and well versed in a bunch of different fields. At a certain point you become old enough to start making decisions yourself about what you have time for - you start prioritizing what you're interested in. There's an assumption (at least with me) that at a certain point you whittle down your interests to a manageable level and go with them. There are only so many hours in a day, only so many days in a week, and so on.

But this idea doesn't really hold true. You horizons keep expanding as you grow, and there are constantly new things that you'll want to do. The thing is, those new things start infringing on older things that perhaps you value(d) more.

The challenge, and really the point of this post, is to take ten steps backwards and ask a few questions about all the things that you do or like to do, or liked to do:


Is it something you *really* want?
Is it simply a novelty?
Are you only interested in this because it's new and undiscovered?
Do you wish you did more of this?
Do you miss doing this?
When you imagine your personality, or your persona, is this part of your ideal?


I've been trying to be very introspective the past few weeks and think about this seriously. I've mapped out my time, at the end of each day charting out how much time I spent on different activities. And at the end of each week I'd shock myself.

What I picture myself as, what I want my interests to be, my "ideal" is completely opposite to what I actually do. While I'm on a good start, and this year has shed new and positive changes towards what I'd like to be, what I see myself doing is shocking.

Now, some figures:


I spend an average of 3 hours practicing my violin. I'm a violin major at a Masters degree level - that figure should be *at least* that. I'd like that number to be 4.
I spend an average of 3 hours checking internet sites that interest me (about 25), checking email, reading/posting iDG, poking around in application development, and reading piles upon piles of technological literature (Google Scholar is your friend!)
I spend an average of 1-2 hours cooking/baking a day. This is something I never used to do. Ever. This is a brand new hobby.
I spend an average of 1-2 hours a day watching TV. Again, something I never used to do.
I watch about 2 movies a week.
I spend an appalling average of 1/2 an hour a day doing schoolwork. This is par for the course - I haven't really done anything more than that since high school.
The rest of the time is taken up with classes, eating, sleeping, and commuting (5 minutes away).


What this reveals is a disturbing trend. I've filled my days so full of activities that never:


Go to museums
Go to the symphony
Go to the ballet
Go to the opera
See live music
Do things that require time: picnics, trips to the zoo, talking over coffee with a friend on a Sunday afternoon - things that are silly but just fun and relaxed


I go out frequently (virtually every Friday/Saturday/Sunday), don't get me wrong. But I don't do the cultural things that I imagine myself doing.

More disturbing is that I've completely dropped older hobbies that I really enjoyed. I haven't read a fiction novel in 2 months - when I was a kid/teenager I read incessantly.

Also important is that I have several goals that I'm not implementing, simply because I've jammed too much in my schedule. I want to make a more concerted effort at school, not just get by with a B+ or an A-. I want to have breathing room so that I'm not late for everything and I have time to organize myself, but I don't want so much time that I end up wasting it.


Let's all breath for a second. I'm glad you've gotten this far, and I hope you're finding some sort of insight you can relate with.


Ok. So to summarize:

I have an alarming difference between what I'm accomplishing and what I want to accomplish. This is a serious problem, one that I'd like very much to resolve.

Something has to go.

I really like the cooking. But I don't have to make something nice *every* day. Chicken and Rice does the trick, and I can make a system whereby I can make a satisfying meal that isn't plain quickly. This can be accomplished by incorporating more preparation in my shopping - wash fruits/vegetables when I get them home from the market, precut meat ready for quick dinners, and be organized about defrosting things the night before I need them.

I watch crappy movies. They can go - movie-watching is for special occasions, and I don't *need* to see every new movie to remain culturally literate. In actual fact, being completely honest with myself, I don't like movies that much.

The TV is a "because it's there" sort of thing. No more. Food network, perhaps, but no more than an hour a day and hopefully incorporated into mealtime.

Here comes the big one: internet. I've taken the first step in cutting back. I just trashed my RSS reader - virtually all of the the blogs are unnecessary. My daily bookmarks has gone from 23 to 2. iDevGames is not one of those three - BBC and CBC are the sole survivors. I don't want to develop enough to give myself such an investment in it. Email has to stay, but I think I can cut back my computer time to a healthy 30 minutes a day.

This gives me incidental time, time to lie in the sun and read a book, time to write letters, time to take a nap occasionally, time to entertain friends, time to go to the Opera, enjoy the Ballet, heck - visit the zoo!


The reason I'm posting this is twofold. First, I think it's good for me to express this in a written fashion - it lends legitimacy to it for me to admit it in writing. Second, it gives me a chance to explain what I think was a good process in re-evaluating my priorities and hobbies. It was scary what I found out when I started mapping my time management.

I'm sorry to say that iDG will leave my links. But it's simply priorities. I don't mean to say that technology is a meaningless pursuit, nor do I mean to imply that it's a waste of time - I simply am conveying that it is no longer something that I want to spend as much time doing. I encourage all of you to try this - not in order to reduce your programming or recreational time, but rather to look at where you are compared to where you invision yourself being.

It's been fun. Good on all of you - I've seen a good many of you become very successful at what you do, and it's inspiring, no matter where your passions lie. Cheers.

[Najdorf]

Nice post, quite touching :)

Every time you decide something like this, it's a good decision. Follow your goals!

Good luck Blobbo

[igame3d]

>wipes tear<
Our little Blobbo is growing up.

[funkboy]

I'm glad you have taken a serious, long look at this - I did a similar time-mapping thing a couple years ago, and I think it's about time to do that again. Your post will get me to do it, I think.

I'm very surprised at your 1/2 hour of schoolwork... maybe you'll never come back to read these responses, but what was your undergrad degree? My homework increased by orders of magnitude between high school and college - computer engineering is not a simple degree. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing that you still can get by with that amount of work... just surprising.

Good to take this seriously, let's hope it's a good step towards a happier life. I hesitate to say this, but could you post back in, say, half a year and see how your progress has been?

Coincidentally, I have highly been desiring to get back to piano... performing music is something I have left out of my college years, and it saddens me to know I have let that slip.

A thoughtful post, thanks for the brain food.

[akb825]

We'll miss you, but it's a good thing you'll be doing what you want with your life.

Of course, I'm just the opposite with my wants: I don't care that much about visiting museums or becoming aquatinted with pop culture. I generally spend all my days in class, programming, and playing a few games every now and then. I only visit a couple of sites regularly: here and another forum. A lot of people would probably say my life is boring, but then again, I'm not like many people. My world exists more inside my mind then outside.

[Fenris]

I'm sad to see you go, but I wish you all the best going forward. I've been wracking my head in the same way as you over the past months. I've decided that I love game development, but I seriously need to cut back on computer time. As an experiment, I'm going to stay off the internet for all of April. Ever since I made that decision, I've felt "no way, that's never going to work", but then I just feel that it has to work. Please do pop by some rainy day (consider it a coffee break with some friends ;) and tell us how you're doing!

[Zwilnik]

egad, it's the geek version of the "let's be friends" speech!

Good luck in your endevours Aaron

[EvolPenguin]

Good luck Aaron, I'm sad to see an iDev-er leave the ranks. Have fun in whatever you may do!

Alex

[Joseph Duchesne]

My schedule began to look much like yours... and then I cut out TV and *presto* life started to get more manageable. And of course, no, I don't want to code for a living, sitting glassy eyed and virtually expressionless face to monitor with a machine all day punching in commands in hope that it will obey. I just like to create games as a hobby. I think my programming must average to around half an hour a day. But that's not to say that I program half an hour every day. Most days I don't touch a speck of code (well, before I started working on code for school). Then other days I get wrapped up in something and don't eat, move or blink for 16 hours at a time (ok, so I do blink,but it adds dramatic effect to say that I don't).

That's why I play guitar/piano, why I act, why I am going into mechanical engineering next year. As much as I enjoy creating things digital, it would scare me to lose touch with the tangible reality. And people, as interesting as computers are, all the computers in the world are not nearly as interesting or complex as a single person.

Good luck Blobbo! There's a big scary world out there *points at window* *averts eyes*

[DoG]

I honestly admire all the people who can make the decision to cut back on all the crap and start to manage their time.

Most of the time, whatever I do, I have the feeling I should be doing something else. Like right now. Laundry. Dishes. Studying. Arrrrr... (good thing I've gotten very good at ignoring this feeling)

Changing oneself is harder than changing other people.

[MattDiamond]

[wondering why I'm reading this thread instead of doing something constructive]

[Corun]

I'm also sad to see you go. But, as others have said, I admire your courage :-). All this reminds me of something my Piano teacher said to me the other day. He's a bit of an odd guy but most of the time he is quite wise, almost surprisingly so.

He said "Don't let there be 'oughts'. Don't think that you ought to play something right. Just play and trust in yourself that it will come out right." (Ok, so I completely rephrased that :-)). But, I think what he said can be applied to life; You ought to spend more time doing cultural things. Instead of doing what you ought to do in life just do life and trust that what you do is the right thing. If you can't trust your mind, what can you trust?

That might not have made much sense. Read it though again a few times and if it still doesn't make sense then just ignore what I said :-D.

[ggadwa]

Cut out sleep. Really, it's a vast bulk of your time. Voila! More time.

That's the problem with most coders -- they only look at optimizations on a small level (stop watching TV) then a big level (stop sleeping.)

[>] Brian

[aarku]

Happy Trails, Spaz. ;-)

-Jon

p.s. I doubt anyone will get the reference.

[PowerMacX]

Good luck!

Opera & Ballet are not on the top of my list of priorities (actually, I don't think they are in it ;) ). But I have realized that game programming isn't high on it either.

In fact, I haven't programmed anything game related in almost a year :\

The reason is probably the fact that I'm already spending a lot of time programming for a living and for my Thesis project, so I expect my interest on game-making, at least as a hobby, to eventually return (I have to finish my Thesis someday!).

I'd say that the biggest time-waster for me on Internet time is RSS, and I'm slowly removing feeds, but probably not fast enough. As for iDevGames, given that I check my email every day, it always lures me back with its email notifications of new posts :D

Cut out sleep. Really, it's a vast bulk of your time. Voila! More time.

Way ahead of you! :)

[blobbo]

Thanks for all the kind replies.

The first two days have been odd. I think I was addicted to technology. I get home and go straight to my mac, I wake up and go straight to my mac. Only now it takes me 5-10min instead of an hour.

I actually don't know what to do with myself.

It's going to take a while to figure out how to reorganize myself to be productive in these holes I've created in my schedule. But it's exciting. I no longer "have no extra time."

funkboy: I'm a music major. My core courses are performance-oriented, as oppose to your most demanding engineering classes. The increased demands for me are in performance as oppose to academics. It's not very difficult to pull off a B+ in an arts/humanities course at university. It *should* be, I'll admit, but it isn't.

I'll admit that the hardest one so far has been taking iDG "new posts" off my bookmarks. I kept this thread bookmarked, though. I'll post for a few more days and leave it.

Ok. My newfound determination has gotten me up at 6:00AM to go jogging, and I must get going. Again, thanks for the supportive words - it helps to know that you haven't entirely lost your mind. Cheers,

-Aaron McFarlane

[Dan Potter]

I don't have a lot to say except I know exactly how you're feeling and I've gone through this same thing multiple times since I left home. :) Any time I get to the point where I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, it's time to readjust my priorities. My wife gets very high priority of course. Last time I went back and realized I was wasting too damned much time on forums and email, so I cut myself out of about 15 mailing lists, archived about 80% of my email, and removed about half my forums and comics from my "view daily" bookmark group. That helped a lot unless I stop to reply like this. ;)

I've also been forcing myself to stay away from the computer at home more. It prevents me from pursuing some of my hobbies I enjoy, but it makes me a lot happier because my eyes and hands get a rest after work, and I have time to do things like read, do art, hike and bike, etc, again.

[ferum]

Yeah, this thread has inspired me to stop checking all my bookmarks every day, once a week is fine. Programming is my hobby, not my life. Though, I tend to obsess about something, then realize I'm not doing something anymore then I obsess about that. But yeah, i think I'll stop that now.
Now back to forgetting about everything and watching the olympics :D
What? They're only on every 4 years.....

[blobbo]

Nearly one month later:

It's hard.

I've stopped checking all my links and I really don't miss them. I read half a book and practised more. I went to a concert.

The problem is it seems that I can fill up my time doing more internet junk. It's like cleaning your room - you take garbage bags of junk out, only to fill it up again.

Still, first month was definitely more productive than before. List-making helps. I really recommend this.

But the hardest has been not checking iDG ;) Only 3 visits since last post, but no replies! *phew* Happy spring!

[funkboy]

It's good that you're cutting down - but if you really like iDG, maybe just read it and don't post?

And I'm confused about the cleaning your room analogy...you're doing more internet junk again, or getting away from it?

Keep up the good work!

[akb825]

It's good that you're cutting down - but if you really like iDG, maybe just read it and don't post?
But with these questions you're asking, you're practically forcing him to post! ;)

[kelvin]

I say cut down on things you can't improve, like TV. If you can continually make the activity more efficient (like cooking), keep at it.

On another note, I must love doing this. I came back.

[blobbo]

Well the point is it's a curve. I'm spending less and less time playing around on my computer and more and more time doing actual work.

Think of it like civilization. Different governments have different levels of corruption. Different schedules have different levels of waste.

[geezusfreeek]

I've been only barely keeping up with iDG stuff lately because I have been getting involved in so many things. I did not even know all this was going on. I can relate on every level, and have done things like this many times. Even recently I debate over what I need to give up next.

[blobbo]

Over 6 months later:

Hi all! I drop in occasionally, mostly just to check out new screenshots of TomorrowXPlus' engine. That guy amazes me.

So the summer is over, and I decided that it was time to re-evaluate. The Spring semester was excellent - I cut way back and focused on things I liked. My life became less complicated, and very routine-oriented. I liked that *a lot*. This past summer I've worked my ass off earning money to reduce the loan amounts for this year, but what went with that was routine. My first 2 days back at Rice and I'm discovering that I'm spending as much time on my mac as I used to. When you know about an iBook battery recall within 10 minutes of the info being leaked, that should suffice as a wakeup call.

So, off to do it again. Long story short, it worked well last semester, and I think I've just let myself slide. Cutting down TV/mac time isn't that hard when you set yourself to it, especially when you fill the time with other activities.

Apologies for hijacking this thread as more of a progress diary. I read that first post about once a month to keep me focused, and I thought I'd check in.

Hope everyone's doing well. Carlos, congrats on your move and best of luck back in North America. If you're down in Houston or, alternatively, up in Montreal, I'll take you out for a beer.

-Aaron

[funkboy]

Great to hear from you again, Blobbo.

I find it intriguing that, from what you describe, at the drop of a hat you were back to your 'old' ways of constant computer. I liken it to being addicted to a drug (alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drug), dropping it, but being able to be enchanted back to it right away, even after months of being straight/sober. It's... scary.

I have always thought internet, and maybe computer, addiction was something real, and after your story I think it exists. I think many people suffer from it... and that's probably not necessarily a bad thing, but it should be something we recognize.

-----
I have started working a full-time job, and when I get back from being on the computer plenty I don't always feel like doing more computer work... but I surprisingly want to do it after not too long. I use Windows at work and my Mac at home, and it makes my Mac seem so much more user friendly.

But when all day is spent on a computer, the computer does genuinely look less desirable. It knocks life back into perspective - not all of life should be spent on the computer. Cultivate other interests. Life goes by way too fast to spend the majority of it online.

....
This has been a very random post, but I think more research should be put into how people's time is spent online, and if it is causing real problems. I suspect there are problems on a level of gambling addiction in some people.

[Dan Potter]

I have to agree with you Funkboy, on both of your post parts. :) I think for me the problem is that once I stop spending so much time on the computer, I have to find other "real" things to do, and they seem like work in comparison. So I end up drifting back to the computer little by little, and before I know it I'm back where I was. I'm not sure it's totally a traditional addiction just because I have no problem going without any sort of computer or internet access for weeks at a time on a vacation or whatever. I have no serious problems with the idea of pretty much giving up computer and internet usage for the most part (besides using it to do real work). I think I almost have to have it taken away from me to avoid using it as a a crutch though, to force me to get all the way into some other activities. It's kinda like TV that way really...

I think the solution is probably the same as the analogous situation in money - set a budget. "I get X number of hours of computer usage each day/night." If you run out, you find something else to do even if it's just sitting there staring at the wall. Eventually it'll probably work out :)

(I've got another inspiration myself these days: my eyes are giving out on me for staring at screens all day...)

[kemalyun]

I don't even HAVE a TV.
A prefer my 21" WACOM Cintiq Drawing-screen.