Coda

I always hated seeing broken blogs, often with that post apologizing for not having posted for a while and then maybe one more half-hearted post, and . . . so here I am calling it quits.

I feel like I've said what I need to on the subjects of time management and achieving goals.  Now it's time to go out and keep achieving them.

When I write new things, I post them over at http://keithhuddleston.blogspot.com/

Spanish Challenge

665,000 of 1,000,000 words read

0 hours 15 min of 20 hours of conversation practice

Bootstrap Some Bar Clamps

I'm really starting to get happy with how my garage is coming together.  It makes me want to start working on projects other than the garage itself.

To do many of those projects I assumed I would need to buy a bunch of bar clamps.  While I inherited a good starter stash of c-clamps from my grandfather, he didn't have any big-'ol-bar-clamps.  And you can never have too many clamps.

Enter some bar clamps made out of scrap wood, from the Izzy Swan channel.




Looks good to me. I don't like spending money, and I'm really in this hobby to have things to work on and develop the fundamentals.

Cutting Straight with a Handsaw

I needed to cut some boards I had salvaged for shelving, but my deep and abiding cheapness prevented me from buying a circular saw.  Instead, inspired by the limited tools series, I made a jig to make my hand saw more accurate.  This video shows such a jig:




In searching for a video with this type of low-tech jig, I discovered guides that use magnets -- and, wowie! Look at this one:

Next Up: Self-Employed?

I now have a plan for what I will do after I teach.  Before I sat down to do focused research and thinking, I only had vague notions, and because the path was unknown it was causing a good deal of dread.  Most importantly, I have examined and rooted out these two assumptions, both of which I now find ridiculous: 1) I would only work part time the rest of my life and 2) I would be someone’s employee.

First off, I came to realize that don’t really mind working hard or working long hours; instead, I mind being exploited, especially when I was grieving the loss of so many family members. Last year there was a fog in my mind preventing me from executing ever the simplest tasks.  Yet In that environment, as a debate coach, I was working many 80 hour+ weeks in situations of sleep deprivation, around very competitive, pushy people.  They will too busy glorifying their egos to leave me be, let alone show real, lasting sympathy.  It was without a doubt the worst year of my life so far.

So even though I had quit coaching debate, I was left in a defensive crouch that lasted most of this year.  I had identified work as the problem, and have really expanded the scope of my believe in daoist inspired non-action. But when I started to think about other, happier times, I realized that in many of them I had put in a lot of work.  I like to challenge myself.  I like having things to do and think about.  Hoping to make sense of life and its trajectory, and with some combination of caffeine and walking through the woods, I had vision quests which made me give up the idea that I had to be some semi-retired guy.  I could go out and play the games of life, and even go for a big pile of the chips.  (But stay more focused on the game-play than the fruit of the action -- see Bhagavad Gita)

Also, I became reacquainted with the effective altruism movement, which I had only brushed up against when reading things from the rationality movement.  At this time, I still was still unconsciously holding on to idea #2 -- that I would be someone else’s employee.  So for a few days my plan was to go see how I could become some kind of Lumbergh somewhere, and even though I knew that would be wrong, again, it would all be a kind of game -- and I would make it all legitimate by giving a good deal of my income to an effective charity, following what 80,000 hours calls the “earn-to-give” model.  This idea gave me great joy because it seemed like a way to beat the absurd universe that allows the rat-race to continue.  As Peter Singer puts it “ “Becoming an effective altruist gives you that meaning and fulfillment.  It enables you to have a solid basis for self-esteem on which you can feel your life was really worth living.”  

For a few days, I was left buzzing with this as a life plan.  But then plan got even better when I realized I might be time to work for myself -- something that was already a life goal of mine.  I just didn’t think I was ready for it.  Again, I had no real reason, just examined believes. I thought I wasn’t good enough at anything, and would need a lot of time to learn some new, big skill to be ready/worthy.  

But if all the losses I have suffered have shown me anything, it is that there is no point in living some kind of deferred life plan.  One, life is too short.  But more importantly, when you die is unpredictable, so there is no guarantee that you will get to enjoy the fruits of your sacrifice. My pursuit of extreme frugality will give me a double buffer in going after this dream. First, my savings will last longer, and secondly, I will need to take home far less than most people to support myself.

So it is settled.  Next year I will go after my goal of working for myself as a freelance writer.

Mini Workbench

This is another good idea for a woodworking project.  It might be the best way to find a place for my grandpa's old vice -- which really was the feature of his old workshop that I remember most vividly as a kid.



Here is another take on the concept. It really shows how this kind of mini-workbench can save space in a small workshop and keep the table below in better shape.



It looks great for traditional woodworking.

Pantograph Router

Dude, this looks cool.



I think this would be a perfect project for gridbeam.  And in that way I could get into making traditional wood-working joints more quickly and at better quality.

Professional Knife Sharpening . . .

Ran across this video on making a super-efficient knife sharpener.  It's from a British sounding guy, so I'll say it's brilliant -- which I do mean from the heart (bonus points if you can name the Robert Frost poem this all makes me think of).



Looks like I'll be able to achieve my goal to be able to sharpen tools to a professional level yet.

The Gridbeam Chronicles #2

Though the eventual goal is drill my own gridbeam sticks in wood, I wanted to get started as soon as I could, so  I purchased 10 bars of 4 foot aluminium gridbeam from 8020 inc.  They call the product line “ready tube.”

The only concern I had was rather they would be able to form “tri-joints,” the real key to gridbeam. And so after I opened the box, I had my wife set up three into a basic tri-joint, and then I grabbed some pencils to make sure they really lined up.  Thankfully, they did.  So I knew I had gridbeam.  I, however, didn’t have any nuts or bolts to hold these joints together.

Though it was already become dark, I was eager to get started, so I headed out to the Ace Hardware, which is only 7 minutes walk from my house. I'm sure I looked like a crazy person by carrying two sticks of gridbeam with me.  I had never bought nuts and bolts before so I had to ask some stupid questions, but then
I went home and made my first tri-joint.

 After that I was left eager to make something that could have some kind of potential use, so I made a frame.

 I sit in it and imagined it as a study-cube  in the mode of work of Ken Issacs. Next, I tested to see how easy the frame was to tinker with.  I found that I could modify the frame while it was still up.

My first "invention" became a cat holder.

Then the same night I disassembled, and put in the garage to make what I thought would be temporary organizer.  And that was it for my first day with gridbeam.

Over a week passed, and as I spent more time working with make-shift structure, I came to like the set-up more and more.  I visited my grandparent's old house took down my grandpa’s old peg board that he used to organize his garden tools and used the hooks to make an organization system for myself.

It includes a bucket for cleaning.  I'm really happy with it.

An earlier version of this post was a tweet-storm

https://twitter.com/KeithHudd/status/832875741465440257

The Gridbeam Chronicles #1

The Gridbeam Chronicles will now stand in the place of abortive The Woodworking Chronicles.   When I wrote the goal of wanting to be at an "intermediate level" in woodworking, I really meant be able to build shelves, hutches, really anything useful.  I really didn't mean anything about the aesthetic side.  Also, I had heard someone describe gridbeam and its power to make nearly any piece of furniture out of a series of boxes, but I had forgotten the name, so I was left casting around until I found it.

As it stands, here is what I have done toward my mission to become a gridbeam master:

• I bought the book How to Build With Gridbeam
• I reached out to a former student and showed him the book.  

That's really it so far. But the former student is great.  He is good with woodworking and also I knew he would appreciate it as an extension of the open source philosophy, and its ability to serve to build resiliency and move beyond consumerism.   To future that kind of mental revolution, I asked him to look up Ken Isaacs (in particular his public domain book).  I am willing to pay him to build gridbeam sticks and to get me started in my own manufacture (I, for one, have virtually no shop skills at this moment).

Next up, I am going to try to source some pre-made gridbeam sticks.  I don't mind paying the Jergenson brothers for a starter kit.  

After that, I think I am going to try to stock up on steel gridbeam.  It's something the Jergensons' admit they don't manufacture on their own, and it seems like the ultimate good for resiliency in a possible post-industrial world.  In that scenario, it either wont be available any more, or will be absolutely prohibitively expensive, so I'll be glad to have some.

December Update

Videos and Podcasts Consumed

I got really into the work of Vinay Gupta.

• Plausible Utopias
• Time to Stop Pretending
• Surviving the Event 
• Transcending Politics
• One Network, One World
• London Real Interview
• Vision of a Rural Future

Saw the most brilliant economic talk of my life, by Mark Blyth, so I also got into him.

• "Austerity -- The History of a Dangerous Idea"
• Are the Populists Threatening Democracy?
• Global Trumpism

Also, I listened to one of the best On Being Podcasts I have heard

• The Myth of Closure 

Lastly, there was this video, which makes me really glad I have made exercise a habit.

• WHY Exercise is so Underrated (Brain Power & Movement Link)

I probably should have things to write about my mind, body, and spirit, but I don't.  It's been a bit of a blah month.  On the other hand, I have started writing again.  Here are the pieces I've written this month:

• How to Accomplish Anything (A General Process)
• Of Mentors and Movements
• So . . . If There is a Trade War With China? 

Each of these were relatively hard for me to write.  I don't want it to be ever said that I am a natural writer. 

Procrastination Chronicles Index

Procrastination Chronicles #1: Weed Eater
Procrastination Chronicles #2: E-mail
Procrastination Chronicles #3: Dealing with a Bunch of Crap
Procrastination Chronicles #4: Mowing the Lawn
Procrastination Chronicles #5: War and Peace
Procrastination Chronicles #6: Cleaning out the Car
Procrastination Chronicles #7: Programming Via Poker
Procrastination Chronicles #8: Cleaning the Front of the House
Procrastination Chronicles # 9: Dishes, Always Dishes
Procrastination Chronicles # 10: Reading Walden
Procrastination Chronicles # 11: A Paper (Zuuuummba!)
Procrastination Chronicles #12 : Improvised Workout  
Procrastination Chronicles #13 : Tax Papers

How to Accomplish Anything (a General Process)

Get into the habit

In my experience, it is best practice to start a habit by doing a small amount of work, in fact a laughably small amount of work as an every day minimum.   For example, to start back writing, I started with the goal of writing one sentence a day.  That's it.  And you know what?  I still sometimes was fighting myself to start.   But once you have started, you have made a giant leap.  As is pointed out on All Japanese All the Time (AJATT), "1 isn’t just slightly bigger than 0. 1 is infinitely bigger than 0. "

You've got to start somewhere.  

Track.  

Next, engineer follow-up and follow-through.  One method is Seinfield's trick where you take a calendar and mark each day you follow your goal, eventually forming a chain.  You get a little attached to the chain, and a little more so the longer it grows.

I don't print out a calendar, however. I simply make my own chart by turning a piece of lined paper on it's side.  Each line becomes a day, and in this way I can make a chart tracking as many habits as I'd like. It looks a little like this:

Here's a sample chart of the goals I tracked over a 10-day span. I must admit it was the best 10-day span I have had as of the time of this writing; I have never had a perfect week, nor have I needed one in order to watch this improve my life greatly.

If you have some burning life-focus that you just can't seem to get started I would use the Seinfield trick.  I find a chart is better for tracking several goals in a general course of self-improvement.

Procrastinate Your Evaluation, Not Your Action

When I was a speech coach, one of the keys to my success was to take the pressure off the novices.  Specifically in the event extemporaneous speaking, I instituted a rule that a student wasn't allowed to say whether or not they thought they were good at the event until they had given 20 practice speeches.

You can apply some version of this to whatever it is you are working on.  At first, your focus should be on building the habit.  You could set a time in the future that you will allow yourself to evaluate (this Ted Talk is an illustration of why 20 hours is usually sufficient.  But even better is to allow yourself the luxury of growing slowly while maintaining faith in the knowledge that you will improve.  

When Inspiration Strikes, Do More

This step more or less will probably happen on it's own, but it might be worth a few words to encourage it further.  

Before you started you project, you were still filling your days somehow.  While, yes, it is possible to squeeze more out of time, at some point you will eventually have to push something away.  That's your real test.  Once you've allowed inspiration to guide you past some distraction, you can safely say that you have formed a habit.  Keep going, keep tracking, and one day you may look up and notice you're where you wanted to be when you started dreaming and setting goals.

Everything Else is Optimization

There are a lot of bloggers who gain eyeballs (and ad revenue/book sales) by in effect saying "Look how great I am, and look how fast I can learn anything!"  From my own experience I can say that it can be very discouraging to consume too much of that.   It's a kind of pornography of other people's productivity.  I would look to them when my passion was at its highest, but then as my passion waned, their examples would only lead me to see my efforts as a failure. Eventually I realized that these amazing, better-than-you-and-me life-hackers are really only talking about optimization.  Oh . . . they can learn a language in 3 months?  Cool. However, I probably can't do that because 1) I don't want to move to another country, 2) I don't want to study 8 hours a day and 3) I'm probably not as talented as them (also, read the fine print, so to speak, about what they are willing to count as a "successful mission").

Another example is exercise.  I have at times only lifted one day a week. On the plus side, this protocol allowed me to optimize for muscle growth and cycling my diet. However, it made it too easy to get out of the exercise habit. When I wanted to start back exercising, I set up my tracking for every day and broke up exercises so it was possible to exercise everyday without soreness.  Optimal?  I don't care; I'm building back up a habit.

It is certainly good to read up from time to time about techniques for things you are working on.  It can show a healthy interest in the subject.  But my advice is to not give up on the system you are tracking while you are experimenting with new techniques.  For example, if you have been learning a foreign language by going through a certain number of flashcards a day and then you learn about a whole new philosophy of language learning involving just talking to natives (ie wasting their time so that you may benefit), I would recommend that you keep up with your flashcard discipline and experiment with the new moves.  In this way you absolutely prevent being a wannabe. Whether acting optimally or not, you are always a work in progress. Which is what you should be.

November Update

Body

I have gotten much better about exercising every day.  Again, mostly walking.  I hold the following conversion: a set of push-ups followed by 40 jumping jacks cancels out 15 minutes of walking.  To count as a day of exercise, I have to walk for an hour, or it's equivalent.

Mind

I altered my path in learning Spanish.  I have been using a version Iverson's word list method and learning 100 words a week in Spanish. I am going for systematic coverage because I know this will be a useful language for the rest of my life.  I don't think I recommend this to other people as a learning method, but I'm just being honest about what I am doing.  I really don't like not-knowing words that much.

I also got a bit side-tracked learning a bit of Mandrian Chinese.  It started as a way to help me with my studies of the Tao Te Ching, but grew to be very, very interesting.  With that said, I am done with beginner gains and felt the pull of intermediate hell, so by the end of the month I was able to shelf the book on Chinese characters for now.  More energy for writing and Spanish.

Podcasts and Videos Consumed

Shrinking the Technosphere KunstlerCast 282

Peak Moment
Food, Community and Our Place on Earth
Ecovillages — A Leading Edge for Sustainability

2017 . . . The Year of Making?

I had made some half-hearted attempts to start toward "wood working" last year, but nothing came of it.  The main hang-up was some time before my half-start I had heard about this great system of modular design, and that was really all I was interesting in learning about when I set my goal to have "intermediate skill" in woodworking -- I wanted to be able to build bookshelves and work benches and the like.  However, I had lost the name of the system and could not find relocate where I had read about it in spite of several attempts.

Well, I finally stumbled upon the term, and I think I may never be looking back.

It is called Grid Beam.  I am going to make a winter Solstice gift for myself out of the book How to Build With Grid Beam.  With that I should be able to gumption-up to get my projects started, including, I think, a windmill.

There's an old video which gives some context for the process, and there are just so many thought-and-emotion provoking images of what is possible to made 3-D lived spaces.


Bonus

Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme on bootstrapping tools.  This is something I am very interested in as I keep moving to be a resilient Renaissance Man, but it is for more motivating to build some *big* stuff first.  And so that's where I will start.

Monthly Update -- October

Mind

The biggest thing is still working on Spanish.  Early in the month, I started working more on watching videos in Spanish.

I must confess I've down less reading in Spanish and more listening to Spanish and vocabulary study.  I certainly will not be hitting a million words by New Years.  That would have wrecked my life.

Spirit

I saw once again how easy it is go too hard after a goal.  To me the largest part of "spirit" is balance.  October gives some of the truly perfect days of the year, and to not enjoy them borders on a sin.

Body

A great deal of walking.  Usually listening to Spanish audio recorded while I watch videos.

Spanish Audio Content

Just trying to make a more immersive environment for Spanish, and I really to to improve language -- quickly, slowly, however it happens.  I plan to add to this list

Musica

• Latino 90s Pop Mix
• Rock en español 80 y 90

News/talking heads

• Radio España (Rtve)
• IMER (Mexican Public Radio)

Religious

• Santa Biblia

When I get some, I check out these podcasts.

Making Room for More Spanish

Getting better at Spanish is a big deal to me.  But, so is living a balanced, happy life.

I have a lot of things I am trying to do: being a good husband, lose weight, cut my spending so that working a half day makes sense, landscape.  So my language-learning time has limits.  Thus I have decided to move Esperanto to the back-burner (ie maintain the cards in Anki, but not add any new ones).  I will give the time saved to Spanish.

I love Esperanto and look forward to learning it to the point I can journal in it in the future, but Spanish is the more practical language, and I love it just as well, maybe better.

One move I am making is to give Spanish the prime real estate of my bookmarks on my browser.  I am removing the Esperanto sites for now.

So away goes my table of Esperanto Correlatives (God, the correlatives in Esperanto are so brilliant, once you understand the code.)

Also away goes CRI online in Esperanto, great source of small news articles.

They will come back up when Esperanto is my focus again.

Monthly Update -- September

Spirit

I have began meditating again.  I usually set a timer to meditate, with my most normal time being 3 minutes.  I find that usually to be a big help calming my "monkey mind" -- though meditation is an endeavor where the mileage most likely varies from person to person.

I've started back listening to On Being Podcasts while entering grades and other parts of routine clerical work.

• The Buddha in the World
• Stress and the Balance Within

Also I watched this Peak Moment video and listened to it like a podcast.

Mind

I am working on moving all of my historical dates that I want to remember from the disappointing Memrise over to Anki.  (mmm. . . note to self: I need to back up these Anki files).

For the first half of the month, I was adding on to my Esperanto deck in Anki on average a few sentences a day and trying to write a sentence in Esperanto every day.

Then I read a history of Spanish Civilization, in Spanish, and I just caught fire, and decided to go for learning Spanish hard.

My current stats for the Spanish Challenge.

242,100 of 1,000,000 words read9 hrs, 30 min of 100 hours of television/video0 of 20 hours of conversation practice

Body

Not a lot here.  Hopefully I have better stuff to report next month.

Continued Esperanto . . . after Spanish

I'm working on this million word challenge for Spanish for now.  I fully admit I might get off the pace and not be able to get there by the end of the year.  But no worries, because I'm going to continue on with Spanish into the new year, and, really, the plan is to always maintain Spanish.

To make more time for Spanish, I am only going to maintain my Anki decks in Esperanto, but not do any additional reading or sentence-adding.  However, at some point next year, I plan to put in some work on Esperanto.  I found a great youtube channel, Evildea.  It has videos in Esperanto with English subtitles.  I can watch those videos for good comprehensible input and record the sound and listen to whilst going on walks, etc.  Also, in response to something I wrote on a youtube channel, someone wrote me back about this course they had put together.  I will look at it when I am dusting back off the language.

Knocking off "fluent reading in Esperanto" as a goal is at this point a matter of dozens of hours, not hundreds.