The Black Hole Computing Effect

So this is the proper inaugural post. I had grand plans to discuss what really provided the spark to start this, namely, the armour of God. It just happened to have struck me two nights ago at what a fascinating analogy it is, and decided I'd use it to start this blog off. But something else has come up. The armour of God will be done later.

What is this subject I wish to discuss? Time management is probably the best descriptive term I can think for it right now. Specifically when it comes to computers. Like I said in the intro post yesterday, this blog is for me to release the ideas that hit me as they do so. Despite the armour of God discussion being the first to come to mind this is the freshest and actually pertains to the weekend planned ahead. I thus feel it is fitting.

Why has this just come up? Well, see, let me provide a little backstory here. I am just adapting to university life now, but not specifically campus life as I live in a private residence. This is key because it is an hour away from school by train, an hour and a half if I take the bus/metro. As the train only runs at specific times I try to take it at those times as it cuts down time I spend sitting or standing in a moving vehicle and maximizes study time. At least, in theory it does. My original plan coming into university was to spend as much time on campus studying as I could and just come home to eat and sleep. But early mornings coupled with long commutes has somewhat changed that to be “stay on campus until 6, get the 6:30 train home and be home by 7:15 and, in theory, continue studying”. The trouble is, though, that at home I have all the distractions of a beautiful piano and a very nice computer, both of which I'm extremely grateful for. I often find myself hitting the sack near eleven at night, suddenly realizing that I haven't gotten even half of what I planned to do done. This was brought into sharp relief last night as I'm preparing for an upcoming midterm and yet, other than mentally brushing over a few things without a textbook, I really didn't do much.

This is plagued me for years now; by no means is it a new problem and by no means have I not considered what I can do to fix it before now. But now with this I figured it was a good chance to properly think about it, put my ideas up, and ask for feedback (albeit from my currently singular number of readers). While having a small amount of trouble getting to sleep last night I thought about it and found a few key points that are responsible for how easy it is to get distracted by things other than what I should be doing. I hope this discussion can help you too.

(These are no in any sort of specific order at all. Just as I thought of them)

Firstly, there is the issue of timing. I am blessed to be able to live with my grandmother in that I can have good meals every night and not sustain myself solely on ramen. However, often the case is that I get home near 7 and she has dinner to be ready for 7:30. Obviously I'm not a little exhausted after my near twelve hours on campus so I think, “Great. I have a timed half-hour break and then after dinner I take on [insert subject here]” This is a problem. Chances are that I'll be in the middle of something interesting when dinner is ready. Therefore I leave it, midway through, fresh in my mind, to go to dinner. After dinner once everything has been cleared away (as much as possible until my grandmother actually shoos me out of the kitchen) I go back down to get to work, but “I'll just finish what I was doing”. This sucks me right back in to whatever it was, something that is especially deadly on the internet. XKCD did a great comic on this concept. So the conclusion here is to not even start something. Or at least, start something that you know will be finished and done with before the half hour is up. That way you can avoid getting sucked back in.

Secondly, the issue of everything, and I mean everything, being done on the internet for school. In my five courses three have weekly or bi-weekly assignments that are given and submitted all online. As these all involve mathematical equations it is in one's best interest to work on them while online looking at the problem sets and submitting answers one at a time and right away. You then get instant feedback on whether it's right or wrong. It's fantastic. But unfortunately it really messes with my original plan to avoid the internet as much as possible during school hours. I'm required to be there, and thus I'll have moments like “Oh I'll just go check this sports site...and then I'll just glance at the news...or...” and so on. It begins the same process as the first point. I've started printing out the assignments to avoid this. But like I said, the submission and correcting process is online. It's not a great situation. My current strategy is to use IE9 to do the work; the inferior nature of that browser helps keep me from doing other things on the web.

Thirdly, there is the issue of friends. Yes, friends are an issue. Anyone who knows me and has skype knows that I like to leave my status as “away” almost all the time. This would let me use skype as more than just instant messaging; it could be messaging without the instant part so long as I was always in an online sort of status. The trouble, however, lies in that because I'm always some form of online it's much much easier to talk to friends and that can really eat up a lot of time. I'm mostly alone in the house; I have my room downstairs and my grandmother and cousin are upstairs, and other than them I have no real human interaction at all. All my “socializing” (which, for me, means sarcastically insulting the other person) takes place online, and more often than not through skype. It's pretty self-explanatory, really.

Finally, games. They are fun, nothing inherently wrong with them, and often can be quite a good mental exercise. Take Civilization V for example. It is a turn-based empire-building strategy game, which, as the final part of the classification would imply, requires you to think about what steps you are taking and apply the appropriate stratagems at the appropriate time. The trouble is, it's often hard to stop. “Turn-based” means all the action takes place in turns, much like a board game. This would appear to lend itself to an easy game to play for a period of time and then stop. Not so. Far too often I'll tell myself, “I'll play for twenty turns and then stop.” and, twenty turns later, find myself in the middle of an economic crisis, just starting a war, or some other intensely interesting and absorbing situation. Again, much like the first point, if one sets a moment of time in the future as a designated stopping point it's hard to say you'll be at a good stopping point at that time.

So, in conclusion, here is my planned course of action:

• First, when browsing the internet, stay away from YouTube unless you know exactly what you are going to go find and know to close the window/tab immediately afterwards.

• Similarly, when browsing the internet at all have at least an outline of your plan. Once you finish this immediately close the browser

• Leave skype offline for most of the time. Use email for non-instant messaging as it has less potential to distract. Having a chat program open on your computer while doing work makes it so easy for people to start talking to you oblivious of the fact that you are, in fact, working.

• With online conversations know when to end them.

• Work away from the computer as much as possible. When working on stuff on the computer try working with someone else at the same time, even if they are not working on the same thing as you. Generally it helps focus (situational, of course)

Well, that's all for now. I had a lot more things I wasn't able to touch on here, as you can probably tell from some of the conclusions that don't specifically follow from stated premises.

I need a longer train ride.