The scary part is this actually made sense to me on the first reading, it’s funny mostly because it is an incredibly out of place piece of prose. The article until this point is very conversationally written. Also, frankly the “awkward” invocation of Nietzsche is priceless.

Rather the gendered subject emerges through a regulatory scheme of gender--we are literally brought into being as gendered subjects through gender regulation. From this perspective, the very idea of a regulatory “apparatus” appears as a kind of structuralist Althusserian hangover clouding the Foucaltian insight into the radical reach of subject production through regulatory discourse. In Foucault’s understanding of the power that circulates through the subject of regulation, there can be no actual apparatus because there is no sharp distinction between what is produced and what is regulating--we are not simply targets but vehicles of power? Thus to paraphrase Nietzsche awkwardly, we must be able to conceive regulation without the regulator, to understand regulation as only and always materializing in its effects, and to understand these effects as specific to that which is being regulated.

from: Brown, W. (1997) The impossibility of women’s studies. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 9(3).

Hello folks!

I’m back once again for our little weekly series on productivity. It seems I’m a lot better at writing for TealArt, when I have this modest weekly column. Once upon a time I wrote weekly columns for another website, and while they were crappy, I think I did well with that form. I think I’ll probably stick with my TealArt writing in this format. I still have 3-4 more topics for this series, but we’ll pick something interesting after that, and an associated rambing or two, but I think on the whole I’m a bit too long winded at TealArt for bloging in the typical sense to work. Just to share, I also think that while I’m terribly interested in what I do durring the day, writing for TealArt is at it’s best when I’m not mashing through half baked ideas from my day. It’s happier for all of us.

So my little discussion about productivity and rethinking GTD for this week, is shorter and about scheduling to your/our strengths.

As I said last time, GTD is all about getting all the pieces together to make it possible for you to do everything you need to do when you can. I’ve called this the “on the go” phenomena. This view of productivity assumes that given enough time, and the completion of pre-requsite tasks, you should be able to get anything on your list done at any free moment.

Simply put, this is wrong. At least for people who do the kinds of things I do (students, academics, writers, and so forth), it feels like there are windows of opportunity in which certain tasks can be done. For instance, you may set aside an hour after you get done with class/work/meetings to write an essay, and by the time you’re done with these activities, you’re too wound up, or exhausted, or frankly just not up-to writing the essay; however, if you had used the hour before the meeting/class/work to work on the essay, you would have been more successful. Sometimes, if you’re in a stuck place, or trying to do something when you’re not ready, a little reboot--like taking a shower, a walk, or a snack, can help.

We all have, what I’ll call “prime periods of possible productivity, and I guess my primary argument here is to resist the tendency of many productivity systems to fight these prime periods. Do what you can to extend, stretch, and maximize what you can get done when you’re in the right zone. To do this, you have to have a good feeling of how you work, and a sense of what works for you. It means trying lots of different work situations and times, and being able to pounce on situations that aren’t working for you. Take (brief) notes, be reflexive, and be vigilant. One of the worst things, in my mind, is to work on a paper/blog/essay that absolutely refuses to be written, because these kinds of negative experiences make it harder to come back to this paper later.

Lets think about this like sleep: if you’re having trouble falling asleep, and it’s taking longer than it ususally takes you to fall asleep, generally it seems better to get up and do something else for a little before trying to sleep again. Think about “doing things” in a similar way.

This isn’t perfect, and there is a fine line between taking a reboot, and procrastination, but the line between sitting before a blank screen and a blinking cursor, and actually working. This is where the human factor comes in to play.

Just to continue the personal case study, I’ve found that I can pretty reliably write every morning for about 3 hours, and in that time, I can get a great deal of work done; more than, I could get done, in say twice as much time in the evening. So I’ve worked pretty hard to get up every day and write for 3 hours, before starting to read, or going to class or whatever is on my schedule. I’ve also found that having a couple of sizable chunks of time, is better than a single block of time, or lots of bits of time, less than or equal to an hour. The key was learning my patterns, and then working with them for the best result.

Sometimes we don’t have control over what times we can work, and sometimes deadlines require us to change our pattern: these are circumstances when borrowing more from a system like GTD or the four quadrant system mentioned in the comments of the first entry in this series would help you overcome these challenges. My hope is that with the date based list organization that I described last time, you can get a good idea of what needs to be done, and when, so that when you have your time, all you have to do is look at the list and run with it.

This week rather than try and adapt or adopt something new into your personal system, take a moment here and there and attempt to understand how you best (and do your best work), so that you can attempt to create situations that are the most conducive to these sorts of operations. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t change the way you work if you think it’s not effective, but more simply, that what you do probably works pretty well, or at least has elements that you can use, and rather than trying to strong arm your life into a system, take a deep breath and try and work with what you already have.

Until next time, tycho(ish)

I’m about 36 hours late blogging this, but I think it’s something worth declaring, both for the record keeping aspect, and because it’s good to make note of these things.

I’m done applying to graduate school. Finished. Complete.

Now the waiting begins. I’ve been guardedly optimistic.

A number of people who got really, rather amazing, Ph.Ds reported that their application process, didn’t compare to mine in scope and brain-hours. They applied to a couple of top tier schools, got in to the one they went, and thought little of it.

I on the other hand have been to the psychology pages (countless times) of most large mid-western research schools, all of the private-urban-research schools, and a smattering of canadian schools, comparing and re-evaluating interests and lists, and potential faculty advisors. Leading, to the creation of a fairly serious list, in August of 2006 of ph.d. programs in personality and social psychology. Which was all well and good, until I realized that given what I was really interested in doing, I needed to find developmental psychology programs.

Ooops.

So I redid it, and made a new list, which I shortened a bit, and then just applied.

Lord knows how it all went, an advisor seemed to think that I would get in, and I think I’m probably one of the few graduates in my major at my fine institution applying to research Ph.D. programs in this cycle. So while I’m not declaring victory, or looking for an apartment in any particular city (that’s the guardedly part) I’m not sure about exactly what happens if I don’t get it. Nothing bad, just nothing specific.

But here’s hoping in any case.

Every day I think of the scientists who mashed up rat brains to create the drugs that brought me back to life, and I’m grateful. --from Dervala.net

A friend sent me the link to this essay a few days ago, and I found it a particularly interesting read. I thought I’d share it here. While I enjoy the authors account, I think there is one aspect that is particularly oversimplified. While I think a more holistic look at mental illness is overdue, I also thing that mental illness is more about “degree” than many physical illnesses. Since emotions and thought aren’t as directly obersvable as physical qualities, there’s more gray area to be deciphered. Phyisicalizing things like depression, is appropriate, but it’s also incredibly difficult, and I think more difficult to do casually than I think anyone would like.

But the above article is good, and really well written to boot.

Cheers, tycho(ish)

Hey folks!

I’m back with the next installment of my GTD series. I had underestimated my schedule (it being a new semester), and the time I had blocked off to write the GTD essay, was lost to reading about Filipino post/coloinal history. It was great. Doing things, rather than meta-ing about doing things, (which is a theme we’ll pick up later in the series).

I also really loved the comments that people posted in response to the last entry. TealArt hasn’t been a very comment-y blog for too long. We can and should change this, though.

I said last time, that I’d spend this time talking about my situation and how I work. This essay, will explain how I work, and why I’ve chosen to work this way.

While I’m a huge computer dork, and most of my work is on the computer, I do tend to carry 2 notebooks with me at any given point. The first is a little black notebook (these days, it’s a Moleskine, but it’s frequently just a stenopad or something) that I use to make lists, write reminders in, plan projects, make short notes, and sometimes even sketch outlines for projects. Generally we could call this first, and more important notebook the “meta” notebook. The second non-comptuer notebook, is a content notebook--at the moment it’s a mid-sized sketch book--that I use usually for a bigger writing or reading project, and sometimes class notes. Generally, this is just a general use 3-subject notebook, that contains notes for two separate projects, and then an odds-and ends section for class notes, reading notes for articles, and more specific project planning. This semester, it’s a bit weird, but it’s working out.

We’ll spend more time thinking about what goes on paper and what goes on the computer later, but I want to spend a moment contemplating my little black book. Particularly, its organization and the kinds of lists I make.

GTD recommends organizing tasks by context (location/resources) and by project. In addition to the problem that with a few exceptions, I always have everything I need to do to just about everything on my list, and that my projects are HUGE, I find some tension with the assumption that s that at the very base-level, all of the things we do are rote tasks. What I’ve heard David Allen refer to as “Widgets”. Thus in his method, encourages folk to do the organizational thinking up front, so that one could theoretically be virtually comatose while the “doing” happens.

The truth is that most of my projects aren’t just cranking widgets. So ignoring the fact that I nearly always have everything that I need to do all of my tasks, most of my constraints are both time based, and pretty soft. GTD expects that contexts are to have hard distinctions, while I don’t really have contexts, most of my tasks are time sensitive. So here’s what I do.

In the meta-notebook, I make a list for every day, the night before, that reflects my schedule for the upcoming day, the current status of my projects, and any loose ends from the previous day, and any appointments I may have. Rather than have a weekly review, that might take an hour, like GTD suggests, I do about 10 minutes of review every day, literally right before I take my glasses off to go to bed. This has the particular benefit of letting me get everything off my chest and out of my head and lets me get to sleep without rehearsing a list of things to do.

So you make a to-do list, that’s your system? L-a-m-e!

I heard that, I think the key part of this list making is where the items come from. Some things are of course, generated on the fly (remember to get a signature, or print something for class), others reflect oddities in my schedule (there’s a talk at 4, or a meeting at 3), some are personal chores (check mail, shower, clean desk), but many, or most, reflect progress in ongoing projects and class work and draw on other lists in the book. Oh, and by the way, each daily list, is written on its own sheet of paper on the right side of the book.

Right side? Why on Earth

So I can use the left hand side for something else. Sometimes the left hand side is used for input that will contribute to tomorrow’s list. Sometimes the left side is used for project planning. Sometimes it is overflow. Sometimes it’s a general location or “inbox,” loosely in the GTD framework. I’ve also been known to make little lists of things I want to look up on wikipedia or Google. While I think of this as another level of project planning, I’m also prone to making “master lists” of things that need to get done in a given week, sort of a “this week for sam…” preview, to track due dates and what not.

I think most of these uses are pretty self evident, but I’ll spend a moment on the project planning. Sometimes, I have a project that takes more than a day or two to complete, or that seems particularly complex or daunting. So I take a right side page, and list all of the component parts of this project. As in GTD, the key to a good project, is something that is manageable. “Write book” is a lousy project to start out, whereas “gather materials to begin research for book” is better. Generally my projects are the kinds of things that I think I can finish in a couple of weeks. I also keep a record of my schedule using iCal but Google Calendar (and so forth) would also work very well, for these purposes.

The keys to making this work for me is it’s flexibility. I make new lists most days, but some lists take two days to get through, and sometimes I need to reogranize the list over lunch. This recognizes the give and take of analyical/creative energy levels, interest, or relevance: sometimes, things that seemed really crucial when I wrote them down, end up becoming irrelevant or just don’t need to be done. An important part of the flexibility is knowing that it’s ok if I don’t check everything off of the list every day--and most days, despite my ambitions, I don’t get everything checked off.

So before I cut this monster off, the highlights for me are: flexibility, regular reviews, rabid centralized list-making, and sensible project planning. Your milage will probably vary. But that’s the point: don’t copy, spend a week or two thinking about how and when you work, and see how/if you can work something out that allows you to prevent things from slipping through the cracks, clear tasks off of your sieve mind, and organize your meta data in a way that is always accessible and can work with you.

I’ve mentioned a lot of things briefly here that I’ll explore in more depth later in the series. Next time, I’ll cover some digital issues, I’m thinking: keeping the computer experience organized, the paper-digital discussion, and mobile/digital concerns.

Cheers, tycho(ish)

As some of you might know, starting last semester (and continuing on this semester) I’ve been rethinking my personal “system,” the way I organize all of the “data” (writ large) in my life. This includes things like RSS reading, email, academic articles in PDF format, notetaking, my to-do lists and other project planning related data, appointments/schedule, and so forth. In this effort I’ve paid a lot of attention to what Merlin Mann and the community at 43 Folders as well as the LifeHack.org Blog. In part this is because Merlin is a Mac geek and since I am too, this works pretty well, but generally I agree with Merlin’s aesthetic and approach to these kinds of things.

One of the things that is huge on 43f, and in much of the “geek” productivity community has been GTD or getting things done, a “methodology” developed by David Allen. While there are many aspects of GTD that I find really interesting and fairly common sense, and I have enjoyed the technological interpretations that Merlin and others have helped develop, I’m putting forth something of a criticism of the hegemony of this system, because I think other ways of thinking about personal and group productivity are in order. Particularly as it relates to some audiences (like academics) where the system is not particularly suited.

Among the threads that I’ve followed more carefully at the 43Folders forms, has been one on GTD implementation for University Students. One common theme in this thread is the difficulty of using this kind of system for university students. GTD was, as best I can tell, developed for applied fields (ie. business and consulting), for people whose daily routine incorporates a variety of different situations and tasks/projects, but to be clear, people for whom most of their work happens in an office situation of one sort or another. (If people have a different interpretation then feel free to offer it).

GTD uses basic organization efficiency principals to encourage its partakers to: complete short tasks firsts (ie. tasks that would take anywhere from less than 2 minutes to 5 minutes), to split large projects/taks into smaller actions that take anywhere from about 5 minutes to about 20 minutes. Once tasks are broken up and organized each “action” is then reogranized so that “to-do” lists are generated for different contexts. Contexts in tern cover all of the material and situational requirements for a given task. A fairly typical context list might include contexts like “errands” and “phone” and “internet” and “home-office” and “work,” so that you can always take advantage of your situation and know immediately what needs to be done.

In fairness Merlin has from time to time remarked that there are only so many contexts when 80% of your tasks require you to be in front of your computer with your hands on your keyboard, and I think this is a problem that’s particularly true for academics, but ignoring this for a moment, I would also emphasize that I think there’s a point (like GTD for computer people) where the system can only be stretched so far before it starts to break down. When organizational systems of any kind break down, the results are never pretty: we either become engaged in an endless cycle where we’re thinking about maintaining the system on the same level as we’re thinking about what’s in the system--over-thinking--or, complete breakdown which creates massive disorganization as information begins to fall through the system. Neither of these outcomes are, to my mind, acceptable.

Given that, and the fact that I think this entry has gone on too long already, and I’m not yet out of things to say, I think I’m going to turn this into a little mini-series in the academia section of TealArt. It’ll show up, as usual, on the home page as well. The series will include topics that I find particularly relevant to students and other people working in the academy; although I suspect that writers and creative folk will probably find this useful as well.

Keep in touch, and feel free to comment here or by email to tycho.at.tealart.dot.com.

Cheers, tycho

Ok, so I said I wouldn’t write any special new-years posts, because I tend to be so reflexive most of the time, and the January 1st event, is not a particularly useful temporal marker in my life. But the end of the Fall semester coincides with New Years, and that’s a cycle which is worth recognizing, if for no other reason than I tend to mark time in these units anyway. And, I feel like I should write more for this website, and the topic was ripe for the picking. So here we go: a round-up of the knitting projects I completed last semester.

• Faroe, Take Two Design by Alice Starmore, from Fisherman’s Sweaters. This was my second attempt at this design, and I think it came off rather well. Yarn: Cascade 220, in black and white
• Rose Jacket Desing by Yours Truely. This is a sweater using a Turkish design named “Gul” or rose. Frankly I can’t se it at all, but it was a fun design, and I enjoyed making the sweater. It’s also a passable cardigan/jacket/coat, which I consider an acomplishment. It is, however, HUGE, and I have yet to discover who it was meant for. Yarn: Patton’s Classic Merino.
• Herny VIII Design by Alice Starmore (variations by yours truly), from Tudor Roses. A great sweater design, with a couple of great modifications. I’m really glad I made this sweater, and I think it turned out really well. This sweater has left a large impact on me, and I think it will continue to influence the kinds of sweaters I design and choose to knit in the future.
• Nature Wool Socks (2 pair) I made two pairs of fairly generic socks, out of Arcunia Nature Wool this semester, both “toe-up.” The first, and heretofore unworn pair of socks, used Pricillia Gibson-Roberts, short row-heel, design, and the second--more worn pair--used my now standard, reverse heel flap method. I’m forever fascinated by this yarn, and the socks are really great. I think I have another ball of it lying around somewhere.
• Socks That Rock I made a pair of socks in blue-and-green medium weight socks that rock, sock yarn, that I got at the fold for a friend. They rock. Love.
• Tosty Toes I made my last pair of cuff-down socks, out of interlacement’s “Tosty Toes” Sock yarn. I love these socks, and they are in heavy rotation. Must knit more of these things.
• Teal Socks At this very moment I’m wrapping up work on a pair of Teal Socks, out of Cascade 220’s Dark Teal Color. It’s actually the second pair of socks out of this yarn that I’ve made. No really. I keep buying this yarn in isolated cases because I think it’s so pretty. And it is.

On the plans for next semester:

• Alpaca Sweater A “sport sweater” with Henry’s Attic Prime alpaca sport weight in grays using turkish designs. I’m five inches into the sweater at the moment, and have put it on breif hiatus for a little while.
• Commission Sweater Pattons sweater in red and black for a former professors kiddlet. When I get the measurements I’ll put everything aside to crank this one out.
• Shetland Sweater I got a sweater’s worth of Harrisville Designs shetland and it’ll be a sweater when it grows up, I just have to pick the patterns and wait for it to come up in the cue.
• Another plain sweater for me: What would a spring semester be like without a plain sweater in the works for me? At this point, it looks like, a mostly black sweater, with slight trim (oh so very slight) in either: teal, red, or gray.
• Impressionist Socks I have a pair of socks in Opal 6ply from germany, in colors inspired by an impressionist. It’s way cool
• Fingering weight socks I have some shetland, and some Shafer Anne that wants to be socks. I really hate making such fine socks, but sometimes it’s worth it.

More Long range plans that might encroach upon next semester if I’m majority productive, or something comes up.

• Teal and Black Sweater in Knit Picks Gloss This is the yarn that I did Henry in. It’s incredibly fun to work with and I really like these colors. No clue what the pattern would look like, but I’m sure I could come up with something.
• Handpaint Enterlac Sweater I hand-painted some yarn over break, which turned out well. I’m thinking of combining it with a few skeins of commercially dyed (solids) for an enterlac sweater, because it would be fun, and it’s been a while since I’ve done anything in entrelac.
• Blue Mint There’s some knit picks yarn in blue and mint colors which I think would be really good looking together. It’s cheaper yarn, and if I plow through other projects this one would be rather inexpensive to start up if I was in a pinch.

Anyway, there you have it. That’s what I’m thinking about at the moment. We’ll see how it all turns out.

Cheers folks!

So, there’s a certain knitting book, about knitting for men, written by a certain male knitting blogger. It’s quite nice, and if I were in the market for a beginner-intermediate knitting book with patterns, I might consider buying it. There are a number of rather fetching patterns, and the instructions are top notch.

We should point out that the author of said book is gay, and is something, I believe, of a radical faerie. Just to contextualize…

I’ve read, in my travles through the knitting blog world, about how the patterns are rather nice, but a bit “metro” or “hipster-y.” Which irks the hell out of me.

Now the author of said book has already objected to the categorization of the book as gay/etc, and thats all well and good, but I’d like to issue the following commentary.

When people say “the patterns are kind of metrosexual/hipster-y” I have to say, 1) what you’re thinking and not saying is that the patterns look gay, and 2) hipstery? what? how dare you!

The metro-sexual phenomena--if you can call it that--has always irritated me in principal, mostly because it became a way to be flagrantly assimilationist about gay/queer male culture. It also muddies the waters, and makes it possible for people to say “he’s kinda gay acting” without sounding stupid. I have a number of other little complaints, but we’ll leave it at that.

On the basis of that, I was going to leave the whole mess alone, but a couple of times now, I’ve seen the aforementioned comparison or equation of metrosexual with hipster. The logical product of that is that hipster is gay, which I think is patently false, and perhaps more insulting.

Arrrg.

Anyway. I don’t think this counts as the blog entry I told you all to expect, but whatever.

Cheers.