So, what's the point of this? Not much. But, I did want to at least set the stage about how I think about things, to hopefully guide anyone who reads any of this.
The ultimate goal is to get personally, incrementally better,* without adding shame or anxiety to my thoughts along the way. I've found that threading this needle is fairly nuanced and have made many changes over the years, and will likely make many more in the years to follow. This is based principally on two basic facts: 1) I am not great at doing this (but willing to learn and get better), and more importantly 2) even if I was, I am not observing a houseplant or a brick - I am evaluating a living person who interacts with lots of people and who himself changes over time. Things get complicated, amiright?
All of which is fine: if it was easy, everyone would do it.
Anyway, I generally get as atomic as daily routines/plans, and as global as annual trips/reviews (this all being personal and not strictly for business or other reasons, although obviously that comes into play). As such I've structured this from the most to least atomic things that I do to try to bring order to my life. Along the way I'll mention some things that I've invented (hardware, software, or otherwise) that has helped. I'll do my best to link the next logical step along the way, in case you want to follow along in that way (remember webrings? Pepperidge Farm remembers).
At no point have I ever considered this to be the 'correct' way to do anything. Please do not take this as some kind of course or approach that I think you should implement. At the same time, I would strongly encourage you to salvage any and all parts that you do find interesting. I have no monopoly on good ideas, nor am I presenting to you my finished product. One day I will die, and on that day (be it tomorrow or 50 years from now) this project will be left incomplete. I do not take that as a negative at all - just a fact of the human condition.
You'll see a mix of more and less technical things. Like mentioning what a cron job is. This is meant only to help those who may not yet know (or care) about some of the more technical parts of how this works. I'm threading a new needle here, so if you want more detail please let me know. If you want less...maybe squint if we end up with some SQL.
Step 1: the daily 'routine': Here be dragons
*Also I use AI a lot but I refuse to use AI to help write anything here. So please excuse incorrect commas or dashes where they should not exist. Or don't - I don't have a comment section so you can scream into the void if it helps. This blog is personal so seeing something expressed or spelled incorrectly actually feels like a win, versus several emdashes that clearly came from the void.