The Adventures of D.Kwan

Getting an iPad may turn out to be one of the smartest things I’ve ever done, not be­cause of how it has im­proved my life or my pro­duc­tiv­ity (both de­bat­able), but be­cause it has re-​​introduced me to some­thing I’ve al­ways hated and avoided: read­ing books. They’re too lo-​​tech for me. Put a book on a com­puter screen and I’ll read but not on paper.

I’ve been read­ing a book about get­ting things done. (So it’s a self-​​help book. So what.) No, not David Allen’s Getting Things Done, though some con­cepts are sim­i­lar. I’ll re­veal the name of the book if or when I re­ally do get a lot more done.

Getting work done for a client or an em­ployer is not a prob­lem for me—I can pri­or­i­tize work. The prob­lem is my hob­bies and stuff in my per­sonal life that I want to do. I’m the type of per­son who never gets bored and can’t un­der­stand how any­one could ever get bored. There is al­ways some­thing I want to do. If that sounds like a good thing, it’s re­ally not.

Just off the top of my head I can think of five web sites that I aban­doned be­fore they re­ally took off. I can think of just as many skills I wanted to learn and never stuck with. I’m never fo­cused on one thing and I don’t have time to do all of them. (That sen­tence may be the story of my life.)

This book I’m read­ing is telling me to elim­i­nate the things that do not take me to­ward my high-​​level goals, or that lead me away from them. It also sug­gests this as a way of clear­ing clut­ter: throw away every­thing. Or at least use that men­tal­ity. People gen­er­ally keep every­thing and think about what to throw away. Well the book sug­gests do­ing the ex­act op­po­site: throw away every­thing and think about what to keep.

As I’m go­ing through my mas­sive to-​​do lists with the men­tal­ity of delet­ing every­thing, I’m find­ing that my to-​​dos for this blog do not qual­ify for keep­ing. There are sev­eral rea­sons but ba­si­cally up­dat­ing this blog is not a good use of my time, at least not now.

So I’m writ­ing this post to say good­bye for now, be­cause I’ll be up­dat­ing very in­fre­quently (if at all) while I work more se­ri­ously to­ward my per­sonal goals. Wish me luck!