Often when I'm cooking I reach for the nicest looking vegetables in the fridge. The ones which will be the most pleasant to slice, cook, and eat. The ones which incur the least mental load.
This is a foolish mistake. The vegetables won't get any fresher.
The correct choice is to cook the worst looking ones, a couple days past their prime. Either they're good enough to cook now or they've gone bad and need to be tossed. Cooking can compensate for flavor and texture effects, but nothing is changing that binary.
It's good enough, right now, or it's trash. Waiting will only make it worse.
Administrative tasks I don't feel like doing are almost always part of this category. There's a rare few which resolve themselves while I'm not looking, but most email benefits from a prompt reply and most paperwork is easier the earlier it's filed. The dread of dealing with things later is paradoxically a great motivator to do them now.
Anything which needs to be cycled has a variant as well. Ratty old towels don't get cleaner because you don't use them. Either it's good enough to use, or it's destined for fabric recycling. New things don't get more familiar if you wait to use them, they only get scarier. You can set rules for yourself to get over the hump, which I occasionally do in various forms, but the reminder that it won't get better with time is usually sufficient motivation.
I'm willing to do the work, if only I stop casually assuming there's a better time to do it.
Things which don't get better with time are simple. You can't go back in time, so the best time is now.
Managing things which do get better over time is a strategical nightmare.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
Every single day I scroll through the document of old ideas, convinced there's nothing I feel like writing, and almost every day I end up writing something not in the document on the spot. As for how this works, I have no idea.
Waiting til later in the day doesn't make the writing process better, so I try to move it earlier. And yet, some of the best posts pop out of the blue two hours before the deadline.
It is a deadline. I've been a few minutes late on finalizing edits a couple times, but I've been treating posting on time as seriously as is feasible. I'm normally quite bad about self-imposed deadlines.
Wonder what's up with that.
Anyway.
Not quite the end of the month yet, but happy solstice. I'm in the mood to review a bit early.
I think I'm in a good spot, and I'm largely happy with what I end up writing. Unexpected benefits keep cropping up. I have no reason to stop, and this seems indefinitely sustainable.
As for analytics, the novelty has worn off. Not an unexpected change, though I was wondering how long it would take. Posts rack up views consistently as they get older and traffic has increased slowly over time. Pretty boring, honestly.
The oldest ones are hitting the hundreds now. That's already more people than I could reasonably have a conversation with. That's weird.
Hi there, whoever you are. Hope you're doing well too.
- Rew