I'm back!

Yes - no more living in hotels or driving 9 hrs in a day, and no more paid 16 hr shifts. Its back to my so called 'normal' routine.
I'm back in school doing a full course load again (it seems like its been forever!).

Thanks to the demands of a number of my faithful readers I've taken a break from a project I've been working on to post an update or two.

As anyone that knows me well will tell you - I like to keep busy. I don't do it intentionally. It just seems to happen for some reason. One thing turns into another and next thing I know its all due at the same time. Partly because of the timing of others but more often than not, because of my own poor planning.

So this year I'm heading back to school determined to finish. I have a few good reasons to do well this semester but I'll leave those up to the imagination as they are irelevant. Whats more drastic is the fact that I'm taking some form of interest in school, and doing well in it.
I'm shocked too.

With an attitude to succeed in school comes a few major changes to my life schedule, priorities and plans. I don't have alot to be doing for my classes yet, but I know that once thigns get going I'll be working on some rather complex labs in short order. Interesting ones thankfully, but still challenging. None of which I can take home, or work on my own for. So as the weeks progress I'm slowly going to be loosing control of when my free time is, and having to bow to my group members equally backward schedules.

Over the summer I have been slowly closing off old design jobs that were still lingering, and although I have several still open and on the go I have closed the majority of the headache ones leaving only a few minor tweaks and adjustments on the ones remaining. Thankfully everyone has been understanding of my new approach to life and my need to delay projects when school interferes.

With less things on my back I've started to feel free to take new things on, which I've been doing my best to resist although as usual the odd little thing does sneak through. But all in all I have done fairly well in committing to the only two things I'm letting in during this coming semester:
- My close and important relationships (I'm not cutting anyone off here, just won't be online / around as much as I have in past semesters)
- My school work.

With school schedules and workloads comes organization. Strangely, one of my forte's, but rarely dislayed in my own room or office. I do have the capability but lack the need for structure in order to work. Whoever said neccessity is the mother of invention was right.

I know what will happen if I continue on my old approach of doing things as I remember them and usually the night before. So this term I'm going to do my best to prepare ahead of time and dare to even complete assignements before they are due. It seems to have worked for some of the academic successes I know (Although I don't think I'm going to complete work quite as early as you do Ash!).

I considered buying a new PDA and once that idea got scrapped I've been toying with several other options. One neat one is the hPDA. Its free...

Now, I have a nice clean desk, clean office, well scheduled school plan and an outline of due assignments for the semester (well.. will have soon).

This leaves me with a clear mind and the new ideas have already started to pour in.

In order to get them out of my working memory using the GTD principle, I'm going to post them here. So don't expect to see any of these come to fruition until after the semester. I even have a portable voice recorder (in the form of a creative nano mp3 player I picked up for cheap), to jot my thoughts down so I can keep focused.

- Getting the JokeAWhenever mailing back up and running (automated so I don't have to remember to do it each day).
- Starting a new blog / writing a book. Yes, I have been debating writing a book for a while. I haven't bothered to mention it to anyhow yet as its not on a topic of interest to most of the people that read my blog. I think it may just be a collection of blog posts along another theme (similar to this entry actually). Discussing some of the big flaws I notice people, and companies doing. Talking about making the right first impression, and taking a good look at how you come across. It may be hypocritical to write, but at least I feel that I have an awareness of the issues. Instead of ranting about business issues on this blog to a group of friends, I'm going to target my niche area and write with them in mind. Likely in the form of a autoresponse/newsletter setup with 10 or 15 short articles on different common mistakes. I'll post a note here when I do start that though.

Anyhow, I must get back to my work again. My break is over and I finally have some new blog material to boast.

Take care all, and leave a comment won't ya?

- Ed