Sunday: Spring Ahead! Auuughghghgh or whatever

As long as we’re all staggering around pretending it is an hour earlier than it was this time of day yesterday, so that we are most of the way through the adjustment process in time to do it with something resemblance grace or at least efficiency on Monday morning, I figured I’d do some online shopping, blog, and then write things that might ultimately land in the sequel to the advice book (you know, the thing about how to replace your anxiety with an alternative motivational system).

First up! OK, but after breakfast and at least some tea. I have had on my list of Things to Do, “Buy an apple watch for daughter”. Obviously it does not say daughter. You know how this works.

Why am I buying an apple watch for my daughter? I don’t think you care about this part, but this is actually a salient question for how I am learning to _articulate clearly_ how my motivational system works in detail, so I can explain it in writing, so that I can depict an alternative clearly and then show how that can be modified and adapted in various ways to work well for people who are Not Me.

Back in 2019, I bought a Series 5 Apple Watch. I had previously had a Series 3 Apple Watch (and there was quite probably one before that that I gave to my son, but you know? None of us care and it’s not relevant here. See how I am showing that while thinking about a task, related but NOT relevant thoughts pop up, and must be considered for salience, but can then be sent along on their way if no action is taken?). The Series 3 Apple Watch worked fine, but had developed an annoying habit of doing that Chirp that indicates it is done charging. And it would repeat at random intervals thereafter through the night. Awful! I tried various chargers and did some research online and then said fuck it, I’ll just buy a new one. Then daughter wanted a watch so I gave it to her, because I wasn’t sure if she’d really wear it or for how long, and I did not want to buy a new Watch and have it sit there unused. Well, she uses it all the time, and so when we are on vacation and sharing a hotel room, I am listening to that fucking Series 3 Chirp indicates it is done charging throughout the night.

So on this most recent trip, I came home with an item on my To Do List to buy my daughter a Watch. It is an Important item (because we travel and it keeps me awake) but not urgent (I won’t be traveling for the rest of this month) task, that does have a specific deadline, but not a drop-dead deadline. It’s not like You Have to File Taxes By Date Blah or Pay Tax Money By Date Blah type deadline. It’s like eat the baked goodie before it molds type deadline. You’ll be sad if you miss it, but that’s more or less the extent of it.

Important, Not Urgent, Time Specific BUT Minimal Punishment for missing

Because it has this set of characteristics, I waited for a time when my daughter was around to consult with on aesthetic details, and when I felt like shopping, and when I would be sitting down drinking a beverage and dinking around online. Buying a replacement watch for my daughter has some requirements (consult with her on aesthetic details) and the activity is shopping, sitting down, compatible with non-alcoholic beverage consumption. Note: _non_-alcoholic beverage consumption. Don’t sit down at the Apple Store website with a spirit forward beverage. They have some beautiful shit there, and when it arrives, you’ll have to set it up which can be annoying and time consuming. In theory, you could decide what to buy ahead of time and only buy that while drinking, but as a practical matter, disinhibition is a real thing.

I know that this is complicated. This isn’t something that will be in this form in the final versin of the hypothetical Advice Book 2 I’m writing. I’m just trying to dump what’s happening in my brain out while it is happening so I can get a good hard look at it and start the process of simplifying it _without losing important detail_ that is crucial to helping someone else learn how to do it.

Let’s recap!

I got up and it is Spring Ahead. This is a Classic Nothing Will Get Done Sort of Day. So, I had breakfast and some tea, and then picked a task that is Fun — shopping online — and that I had pre-committed to — buying an Apple Watch for my daughter — and that I had satisfied _all the constraints_ (her presence, mostly) in order to do. It is a task I personally care about _a lot_ (I want fewer wakeups while on vacation).

I went to the online store and picked out what I thought would be the watch she wanted. I went through the measuring process for band size. I confirmed with her what I had selected (she looked at the alternatives, and then she agreed I had indeed picked the one she liked best). We discussed whether to get cellular and I talked about how I used to get cellular on things like iPads, but stopped a long time ago. Then she wanted to know how to use her phone as a hotspot so I showed her how to do that _and also_ how in general to use the settings search bar to find things and also how to adjust options (edit password, turn on compatibility). We decided to NOT get the cellular, which made the shopping process _much_ simpler (no interaction with cellular company! No setup required!).

If I had never shopped online before, this would have been a _terrible_ task on a Spring Ahead morning. If I did not enjoy shopping online, this would have been a less than great task on a Spring Ahead morning, but I might have done it anyway, because Sleep. If I wasn’t sure if she was going to wear this watch, it would have made it very hard to pull the trigger on the buy button (because these things are not cheap in any configuration). (If you are wondering, but you could have bought her one of the cheaper ones; 8 is expensive! I totally agree but I also sort of was excited to have a pulse-oximeter built into at least one Watch in the family. I can leave the stand-alone pulse oximeter at home, then, when traveling.)

You can see how since this task required the involvement of another person, other tasks popped up along the way: “How do I set up a hotspot”. I knew she had an interest in this, but it had not been important enough _to me_ to take any action on it. However, it took less than 2 minutes to _show her_ (most effective teaching method ; talking is so much worse), so I just did it. I don’t ever need to track that item on my list because it never was Important Enough to Me to put it on the list, and it wasn’t Important Enough to Her to ask me to put it on the list, and it was Quick Enough and Possible to just do it when it arose this time.

“Blog” is an every day to do list item. I have satisfied that for today.

“Work on some sort of writing project” is an ongoing item, does not have to be every day, but I’m trying to maintain some amount of momentum. I have satisfied _that_ for today.

And I can edit “Buy daughter Watch” on my Note to be “WF daughter’s Watch ordered 3/12 on apple store”.

Whew! That’s a lot! And that’s just background task management in my head. I knew this was going to be tricky to explain, but holy shit. It’s so much more than I had realized.

ETA:

I tacked this link onto the end of the TOC / structure note so I won’t lose track of it.

There’s a whole amorphous thing I don’t know how to describe that is basically “Reuse / Recycle But For Everything”. It’s Shop Your Closet, Cook Your Pantry. It’s Roll for Sandwich. And here, it’s things like, I blog every day, I want to make progress on a writing project, hey, I can make that the same thing. I can barely function and just want to look at pretty stuff and buy it. There’s a pretty thing I have to buy. Hey, I can make that the same thing. There are people who during lockdown, job went remote, so they took 3 other remote jobs. Sometimes, those people are grifters, and are collecting the paycheck and not doing the work and sticking around until people start to notice then moving on before they get mad enough to PIP you and give terrible references. DON’T DO THAT. But some people figured out that the empty spaces of multiple jobs meant you could match them up. THAT IS FINE. As long as you make sure you are enjoying life as part of your Important Urgent Ongoing.

ETAYA:

A friend asked about WF. Here is my reply:

WF is Waiting For. In a multi-step process towards a goal (like, goal is for daughter to have a new watch), I have nothing _I_ can do right now. WF items capture that status. Usually, I don’t put dates on them, but if it’s expensive and I’m waiting for it and I might forget, I will, and also, if I feel like I’ve been waiting too long for something and I research and ping someone about it, like, I’m trying to schedule something, WF a reply, some time passes, I’m like, when did I send that message? I’ll research, put the date of the original AND the date of the reminder and often a Expected date, so if I see I’m past the expected date, I know to take action, otherwise, it is a reassurance that things are happening and I don’t need to do anything currently.

Having a list of WF is _phenomenal_ for reducing random noise in the brain.

Walkitout adding more here:

I will also note that I almost everything I do with lists is a personalized adaptation / minimization of David Allen’s GTD system. GTD is sort of the overarching, kitchen sink system, but is far too heavyweight for my personality or my level of commitments (also, he’s so paper centric!). If you read _Getting Things Done_, and understand the purpose of the elements of his system, you can figure out what you need and incremental adaptations to come up with something that you enjoy using.

All that said, almost _any_ personal organization / time management / decluttering / wtfery can be adapted. They all have the basic elements present in some form. GTD is useful for me because it’s unusually detailed in explaining the purpose of each component.

That said

Today In Samples / Edited Text Transcript

(Hey, don’t freak out — I only included my part of the text transcript!)

The sample (this is not a book review!) is from Stop Buying Bins and I will not mention the author because if she is googling her name I don’t want her landing here.

Are you the author? Please stop reading! Go spend time with your friends and people you love and who love you and stop reading random, obscure bloggers with tiny audiences who are having conversations about books including one you wrote and we wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings so please just leave now.

OK!

A lot of organizers have “fit your things into the space you have” strategies, and I think they do that because by the time they are involved, people have been to Ikea or The Container Store or whatever a few too many times already. However, anyone who has NOT gone through the Acquire Storage Furniture phase (or whose house burned down or got divorced or moved a long distance with little money and so sold everything they couldn’t fit in the car or whatever, relieving them of the storage furniture they once had) isn’t going to have a clear idea of space. Like, if you’re in an empty house with no shelving, what does fit your things into the space you have even mean.

The book starts with this: “The tales I could tell about the houses I have been in would make your skin crawl. There was the walk-in closet with the scattered “adult” toys.”

She’s an organizer who goes into people’s _homes_. The adult toys were in a closet. Where were they _supposed to be_? Come on. That’s either kink-shaming or just sex-using-technology shaming and neither one is at all okay. The rest of the preface is, if anything, even more combative.

Further comments from the prefatory material: client had sneakers in kitchen cabinets. Buy the guy some appropriate shelving or have it made to order! My money is that he picked the kitchen because it already had shelves and he just needs shelves in a more appropriate location in the house. Why are we making fun of sneakerheads?

She was in a hoarder house and skidded on a greasy kitchen floor. She threw away the shoes she wore that day. I mean, I kinda get it? But also, wear your crappy shoes when you do an assessment? And we’ve _all_ stepped in dead animal and/or animal shit when walking, right? How is that house any worse than _that_? I didn’t throw those shoes away. You throw shoes away when you step on wet concrete or uncured asphalt. There’s no going back from those mistakes.

Also! This is a very shame driven book.

“I myself held onto the sweater I wore on my first date with my ex-husband, through our 20 year marriage … Even if I could get back into a size 2” You don’t really need to know any more. She was ashamed throughout her marriage of not fitting into it, and then ashamed afterwards that she did that, and now she’s spreading the shame around freely.

So, she did a KonMari exercise with the clothing — took it all out and applied a NON KonMari metric (does it fit). Points to her for the practicality. I’m a little disturbed this took until she was … whatever age, but points.

Negative a million points tho for this: “But nothing good comes from standing still.” To be fair, the end of the paragraph is, “Naps are the best!” But blanketly stating nothing good comes from standing still is taking that bias-to-action wayyyyy too far.

Don’t just do something. _Stand there_. Understand what is going on. Your plan will be better if you understand the problem better.

The paragraph describing how it felt to live with a much-reduced closet was _amazing_. I would reshuffle the whole thing to _lead_ with that result. “Want to be able to go into your closet, dress quickly and easily in clothes that fit and look good on you? Get rid of everything else! Ruthlessly!”

Re: the bad description of a KonMari method (make a pile of everything of a type). It works, but I actually don’t do things that way, and haven’t for a long time. Incremental can often be really good — introduce a new habit (“You put it on and it did not fit. Like, at all. Put it in the bin to charity.”) and after a while, most of that stuff will walk out the door without the tears. You can then supplement with: “If you need something for a single event, like a bridesmaid dress or clothing for a trip to a climate you don’t normally live in or visit, see if you can rent or borrow. If you can’t, try to buy at a consignment store and then re-donate it after.” And also: If it fits, wear it. Pay attention to how you feel about it. Identify exactly why you hate it, so if you are shopping for new like items, you can immediately spot The Thing You Hate About It and never make that mistake again.

I’ve been using that last rule for a year or so now, and let me tell you, it has been _helpful_. I’ve always been reasonably decisive and pretty accurate about buying clothing that will fit me and look good on me and feel comfortable. But there were some mistakes that I kept making that were subtle. Wearing the mistakes until I could nail them down made such a difference.

My friend wanted an example. I used one that my daughter articulated really well. There are shirts that have not much variation in volume between the belly and boob area. If there’s lots of space, they make us look like we’re wearing a tent. If there’s not enough space, it feels tight across the boobs, compresses boobs down to the belly (not super attractive) and can chafe. The crucial thing to look for is whether that variation between boob area and belly area is appropriate to your boob size. Basically, you want an appropriately sized Boob Pocket. If it’s not a big enough pocket, you can convince yourself it is still okay because it has four way stretch (jersey knit or whatever with spandex) and it definitely is better than a stiff button down that gaps between the buttons. But it’ll never be a shirt you enjoy wearing. Getting rid of all those was like removing _all_ crew necks from my shirt drawer. Created much more space and I was no longer navigating around things I never wanted to wear. I fucking hate crew necks. There are scoop necks I can cope with. There’s also a rule about rules that is hard to explain. Basically, we all grew up with some rules about accessorizing. And for the most part, we’ll love our clothes and jewelry more if we forget all of those rules or, even better, identify them as coming from Coco Chanel and calling them Fascist Rules.

Examples of accessorizing rules that are better off broken:

Mixing metals. Combining brown and black. And that whole (possibly apocryphal) take of one thing before you leave is really evil. Matching the necklace to the neckline is _total_ bullshit! I have a v-neck that I had so much trouble wearing a necklace with until I realized that multiple NON pendants with beads worked great. Oh, and having the necklace be either all on top of the fabric or all on top of skin but not crossing? Idiotic rule! TikTok is this incredible landscape of people beautifully breaking every possible beauty rule.

This articulates the neckline and necklaces rule I grew up with:

https://insideoutstyleblog.com/2009/12/how-to-choose-a-necklace-to-work-with-your-neckline.html

But it turns out that if you have a detailed neckline, layered necklaces which don’t parallel the neckline and the longest of which crosses is _perfect_. Breaking all the rules at once looked great!

Friend asked me if I had an opinion about the French Tuck; I had never heard the term, but _had_ seen it done. Definitely some people make it look good. I may try it and see how it feels. This isn’t like the fanny pack worn cross body thing, where I won’t even try it because Boob.

My friend made some cogent observations about how the author depicts a client she refers to as Rory. The author is pretty judgy and also trying to avoid owning the judgy, which is really the worst option on the grid (not being judgy while owning being judgy is aspirational. I’m judgy and I own my judginess, which is Good Enough for me.). My friend has some ideas about how to reframe things that the author presented in the worst possible light. My personal takeaway on that part of the sample was that Rory could have been redirected to a career in interior decorating or similar (event planning for child-related things). She clearly had a great deal of skill and energy that had been directed domestically but no longer had an appropriate target and everyone was unhappy about it. That was a common problem Back in the Day before women and jobs and careers and so forth. I’m afraid some people haven’t necessarily learned all those lessons, tho.

Back to the bad implementation of KonMari. The author had a successful, simple metric for going through her closet: get rid of everything that doesn’t fit. But for people where things do fit, they need another metric. The author gives them a loooong list, and a list that long is a tough metric. No momentum will occur there, which is one of the reasons I don’t like the Make a Pile of Everything and Sort it All At Once approach. “But you still somehow keep bypassing that yellow button down shirt.” Such a great opportunity to do the wear it until you know why you hate it and then never buy anything you will hate for that reason again. Totally missed the opportunity in the vise of “Use it or lose it.” “Should the need arise for something new, I vow to buy only …” Good intentions paving the road to hell. I purged my closet so many times. The incremental, wear it until you understand it has been the most effective by a long shot.

This was a really interesting project, trying to transcribe a text exchange that had a lot of material of potential use for the book, and of current use for a Sample Review. I don’t know if I will ever do it again, but I’m glad I tried it this time.