Lewis Carroll’s queen sometimes believed ten impossible things before breakfast. I have my list of a dozen impossible things before bed. Some of these are habits, some are time commitments, and some are maintenance to stem the the onrushing tide of life. How many do you lust after?
1. Only one refined carbohydrate item per day.
This is only a single item per day that has sugar or white grains as a main ingredient. That means cereal for breakfast OR a mocha OR a brownie OR a muffin OR ice cream. My diet would be overrun with fruits, green things and protein.
2. Thirty minutes of serious exercise.
Ah sweat, my old nemesis. I need to get my cardio up from a fast walk, lifting weights, or helping random strangers move to a new apartment. Stretching is good, when preceded or postceded by sweating.
3. Three difficult phone calls.
There are always phone calls I find difficult to make and easy to delay. These can be hiring contractors, dealing with vendors that are needlessly obtuse, or working through some paperwork snarl on the phone.
4. One blog entry.
A good blog entry, like this one, usually takes some thought and some work. Most of my blog entries are about new ideas and require coming up with stories, a drawing, and some business details. Formulating a basic idea is easy; dragging the words and pictures out in the right order takes effort.
5. No video games the entire day.
Annoyingly, I find that one quick game is nearly impossible to avoid. Also two. Also three.
6. Clean out inbox and desk.
I follow David Allen’s flow-chart from “Getting Things Done”, sometimes. I would like all physical and electronic inflows be unclogged and either completed or transformed into an orderly project. It hasn’t happened yet, so it belongs on the impossible list.
7. One thirty minute microproject.
Creating a small project of very limited scope and completing it every day feels impossible, but accomplishing it will feel magical. These projects could range from “Hello World” in a new language to disassembling a robot. Learning what I can accomplish in a short time is valuable in itself.
8. One full page of notes about what I learned.
Every day I read and research. Having a page of organized notes at the end of the day would be great. It would be grand to be able to review my knowledge, know my references, and have key facts at my beck and call.
9. Record of everyone I meet.
Just a note, a name, an entry, a reminder of the people that I meet.
10. Clean sink and laundry buckets.
The bane of keeping my physical house in order. If these are done, all else will follow.
11. Twenty minutes of spiritual reading.
It could be the traditional spiritual book, or poetry, or anything to feed my soul. Comic books do not count.
12. One good joyous time.
A good day includes a nice long laughing break, a joyous rumpus with my son, or a moment of zen. Joy is necessary to success.
Overall:
The basic topic, “Improving Communications in Face to Face (Meatspace) Meetings” presented challenges. It may be the topic with the most opportunity that we ever covered.
The group was small, about 15 people, with good participation by all. As mechanics worked out, no one was that interested in dinner and the lack of a babysitter sidelined Judith for much of the conversation.
Some Ideas Covered:
- Achut Reddy and others suggested improvements to the general calendaring and scheduling of meetings.
- A universal cut-and-paste function that would recognize calendars would be helpful. The idea would be that a calendar item could be highlighted text from an email, webpage, IM, Evite, or other source and be copied into a calendar in an intelligent manner.
- We need to easy share calendars by role (social, work, technology interest, politics, etc.), by group (kw-comm, our tribe, everyone we know), and social circle (1 degree of connection, 2 degrees, etc.)
- It would be nice to have a slick implementation to take over the world.
- Bubbles, Laura, and others pointed out the low-tech solutions for meeting at a convention, the Voodoo Board.
- See Wikipedia for a description of this low tech method involving push pins, index cards, and a bulletin board.
- The Voodoo Board allows easy message passing fast, simple, and cheap.
- The secondary social aspects, such as meeting people who are checking messages, make the board worthwhile.
- Joe, myself, and others talked about discovering interesting people.
- One of the modes or roles is to find interesting people, break the ice, and chat.
- Use of markings for common interest was discused. For example, Judith mentioned one gathering where badges held symbols for different fields of law. Also mentioned were Bujold’s “Betan Earings” and the Geek Code.
- I came up with the overboard technical solution: wearable LCD panels with near range communication. When you come close to someone else with a similar wearable tag, it might light up with “I’m also interested in Python” or “I also know Richard Threadgill”. I’ll write this idea up in detail soon.
- The core human problems still trump: calendars might be inundated by promoters; slimy people lie about existing relationships; etc. The nuances of communication are an opportunity to automate.
