I’ve spent the last two and a half hours attempting to hit hyper-mode on my ‘Org-mode zero’ summer ‘project’ of getting all the ‘interesting things to look at later when I have more time’ in my Org files looked at, since I now have more time. This has been accompanied by extremely loud music, from the StarCraft II OST and DragonForce, and has involved a lot of reading and a flood of posting to this blog.

And right now I have my agenda open opposite this post, including the day’s timeline which is just a mass of green DONEs and orange CANCELLEDs, next to all sorts of subject matter—and this doesn’t even include all the items I’ve checked off one way or the other and then immediately archives (probably at least the same again). Sitting here typing furiously—the key sequence to publish a blog post and check it into git I am now actually doing without thinking about it, in the sense that if I think I get it wrong, like when entering familiar passwords—I now look at it and say, this is my life, this big list of green and orange and zenburn’s colour for hyperlinks?

Before setting out on this project I took a few moments to consider whether it’s actually valuable. These things didn’t command my attention at the time, so are they really worth it? Why not just archive the whole lot and have done with it? Alternatively, why do I have such an objection to just letting this stuff sit here: it’s all marked with SOMEDAY, not TODO, so it’s not as if it’s going to pop up anywhere telling me to do it until I actually want to. Firstly, I’m very glad that I’ve been going through this stuff. There is a great deal of uninteresting things to consign to the flames of CANCELLED, but I’ve come across many others I’m very glad I’ve gone back to.

And secondly, the mass of SOMEDAYs weighs on me. I feel as if I am constricted in what else I do until I go back and clear out the backlog. I think the system is pretty good if I actually clear it more often. I should also be more willing to just read stuff straight away and blog it, but when this isn’t appropriate, it’s a easy way to put stuff aside for later. Aside from playing and watching StarCraft II and clearing e-mails, for the past four or five days all I’ve done at the computer is clear out these tasks. I want this to be over because it’s stopping me from doing things because I seem to want to have it done, hence I’m attempting to blitz it.