Cyclical Reality
In the long, lonely moments since my wife left with the in-laws for Disneyland (curse you, finals week!) I've been musing about the way that my to-do lists seem to wax and wane over time. I never feel like there's nothing I could be doing — of course, I could always go do the dishes, or get ahead on my homework, or do some reading — but I can remember, quite clearly, entire weeks when I felt like nothing was really going on. No big announcements in the blogosphere, nothing urgent for school, no paper or thesis deadlines...
And then there are those weeks when you need to sign employment agreements, set up graduation ceremony agendas, write thesis proposals, design startup branding materials, implement said thesis project, get conference presentations ready, read the buzz about Google's AppEngine, etc.
I'm profoundly grateful our lives work this way. I've noticed that my own productivity tends to be sort of stop-and-go, and that the most wearing projects are those that grind on at the same pace for too long; the kind of fast-and-slow variation that follows naturally from the seasons, school semesters, and product releases seems to be just what we need.
Not that a deadline extension or two this week might not be nice...
Tags: cyclic nature reality products appengine deadlines