SUMMARY: Identified different states of consciousness. Billable WordPress work. Billable database backups. Logo Design blog post on Agenceum. Debugged 60-second refresh on Code. Documented gun safety poster printing concerns on Making. To Boston to see friend, and back after midnight. A pretty productive day.

Today I am going to NOT publish this until the end of the day, to prevent newsreaders from freaking out on the multiple updates.

LAST NIGHT I was asleep by 1100PM. Yay! But I woke up again at 200AM, and tossed and turned for two hours before finally deciding to get up and at least read a bit. Tried going back to sleep around 530AM, and then just gave up and got up at 600AM. I was tired, but couldn’t fall asleep. It was very annoying. Maybe it was residual coffee.

I had a thought, though, that my consciousness had different levels of clarity at different times. My “mental slate” to me seems like an internal space that is kind of dark, like volcanic sand, upon which I try to create patterns. This sand, however, is porous, and it’s hard to hold onto the shapes sometimes. It is rather delicate, and susceptible to being preoccupied with discomfort or anxiety. Bodily discomfort can also contribute to the porosity of my thinking substrate. Interestingly, my verbal abilities are not anchored by the mental slate; they just happen in my head and are very strong. That’s probably why writing while I’m doing things is how I keep continuity. The mental slate is where I design things that are visual, and it’s like drawing in the dark illuminated by flashes of insight. I’m not, at heart, a very visual person. I’m good at evaluating visuals, but that happens in a different part of my brain or out on paper. In fact, the mental slate is maybe more of an internal sensorium, where I can go to monitor what’s on my mind. It’s very sensitive to disturbances. If I go there, I can hear what is going on with my mind and my heart.

ANYWAY, by 700AM I had cooked breakfast and had allowed myself to peek at email and Facebook. I got out of the house by 730AM, having dealt with some possible afternoon plans.

0745 to 0845 I worked on client work, finishing off the subproject I had started yesterday. From 0845 to 0900 I checked email and wunderlist to see what I might work on next.

From 0900 to 0915 I did some backup of databases for a client, and upgraded their wordpress installs. I have this fairly automated. It occurred to me that I actually could have quite a bit of work if I pushed for it.

From 0915 onward, I’ve allowed myself to finally write for myself. I updated the Wave with Colleen with an observation about three things that I think are important to the main David Seah blog as I move forward: mission, point of view, and bottom line. I have been drifting for several months, and I had this insight earlier in the morning when I was thinking about my mental slate. I’ve seen some bloggers drift into their own worlds, becoming inaccessible to their audiences, and I’m concerned that this might happen to me.

Another thought I had was that the 24-hour breakdown I did yesterday might match well with the four core areas of endeavor: active coding, client projects, money making activities, and continuous blogging. The ultimate goal: financial independence achieved by actually putting my effort into creating what I know should be within my grasp. Focus on a few at a time, have a good context-switching system in place, and deliver as much as possible.

Which brings me to 0936, the current time, wondering what I should do next. I’m feeling tired due to lack of sleep, and my brain is feeling that it deserves some sleep or maybe some kind of reward. It doesn’t feel like working. Looking at the list of things on my “could do” plate, much of them require some creative thinking of an unknown type. This is probably why I don’t want to do them…I want something that feels SURE, not speculative or open-ended. There are a few invoicing tasks I could do, but I’m going to wait until I get home to my bigger computer (it’ll be easier to do there, than on the laptop, because Parallels and Microsoft Office is incredibly slow).

I think I’ll write a blog post. I have captured the media yesterday for the logo I made, so I can write about that.

0945 to 1015: wrote blog post, posted, and linked on main blog and Facebook page. Thirty minutes! Not bad. Now what should I do?

There was an interesting comment I saw about how an ADD suffering person gets a lot done, but it’s all “by accident”…he closes his comment with “it doesn’t feel good”. That makes me think that the system I’m evolving for myself might be for ADHD people, capturing as much energy as possible and converting it into useful output. That might just be the right way to do it.

What to do next? I actually feel like I need to take a rest. I’ve been up, sleep deprived, since about 2AM. I might go home and try to nap a bit.

1030 Stopped by Radio Shack to ask about plans. Got gas. Got Mail. Back home at 1115. This was a delightful little side junket, finding out some answers to questions, taking care of some chores. With the main work of the day out-of-the-way, I felt I could do this. It’s not even noon yet.

Before I take a nap, I want to spend at least 15 minutes grabbing the MMA resources for the “Safe Shooting” poster. Zonked at 1130.

1130 to 1400: slept soundly. Good thing since I’m driving at 6PM to Boston.

1400 to 1600: I started to answer a comment on the Agenceum blog, and noticed that the page was refreshing by itself every 60 seconds! What? I dug into this, tracking the progress on the /code in case it turned out to be interesting. This took about two hours to narrow the issue down to Google Analytics and come up with a halfway fix…I’m not sure why it’s working again. Anyway, I was able to enter my comment.

1600 to 1630: Caught up on the Wave with Colleen and read some email. An interesting question came in about making a 12-hour version of the ETT Flash Online, for US readers. I figured it couldn’t hurt, though it would take some coding effort. Perhaps I should resurrect the thing anyway and continue to develop it.

1630 to 1645: Answering emails, and updated master workpage index to have link to jump directly to SOC page list. This will save time pulling up this document. NOW, I want to get back to the poster making! I have about an hour before I have to drive to Boston.

1645 to 1730: Well, first thing is to look at the printers. Digital Lizard Print and GotPrint are two providers that have cheap online printing at good quality. I want to make an 11×17 and an 8.5×11 version. Maybe a few poster-sized ones. Wrote up my findings on paper sizes and costs in the Making blog. It’s now 1730, and time to look for my Charlie card. I’m off the clock for the rest of the day.

1800 to 2445: To Boston, and back! Time to crash. Later than my 10PM cutoff, but I am tired enough that I might actually sleep through the night. Here’s hoping!