revjim.net

There's something about simple, menial tasks that require less than 10 minutes of my time that causes me to put them off at all costs, often times wasting much more time in an effort to determine a new and better way to perform this menial task automatically or more effectively.

A good example of this is with my (coming real soon now) photoblog. I've got all the important things squared away with one exception: I need a place to put the images I intend to display in the photoblog. There are lots of options, of course. The simplest option is to resize the images and create thumbnails by hand, upload them to a standard directory on my server, and link to them directly from the photoblog posts. A more complicated option is to use photo gallery software to host the images, handle the resizes and create web albums along the way.

I spent the better part of my "free time" from two full days researching the troubles and issues I was having with various pieces of software that might help me achieve this goal. In that time, I could have hand created resized versions and thumbnails for almost every photograph I've ever posted in a public medium.

The same thing happened with the book. I put off building it because I desperately wanted an automated process to build each and every page so that I could simply spend my time tweaking this and that from the automatically generated pages. In the end, I finally found a not-quite-perfect piece of software and paid for it. Then I struggled with it for weeks before finally getting it to do what I wanted and then sent the book off to the printers only to waste money on a proof that looked terrible. In the end, I decided to build the book by hand and did so with less than 2 hours of work.

There are always 3 (and sometimes 4) options every time I'm presented with a problem. Here there are in order of preference:

# The first option (which isn't always available) is to find something that someone else has built that does exactly what I want the way that I want it and use it. This is rare and quite amazing when it happens.
# The second option involves spending time searching for something that someone else has built that does almost what I want in almost the way that I want it and then spending some of my own time customizing it to suit my needs and hoping that doesn't take longer than expected.
# The third option is to build something myself to handle the problem I wish to accomplish.
# Finally, I can always just do it the old fashioned way.

I will always, of course, seek option 1. At some point, however, the search for a preexisting "perfect" solution has to end. Sure, there may still be something out there, but I can't spend forever looking for it. Eventually, I'll move on to option 2 looking at all of the solutions I considered for option 1 in a different light. When none of those pan out and I've come to the point where my search feels exhausted I often consider option 3 briefly. More often than not, however, option 3 will appear too daunting and I'll skip directly to option 4. And then, of course, I simply use option 4.

The problem inherent in all of this is knowing when to move down to the next option and when to just go for option 4. This marks two projects in a row where I wasted more time looking for options 1, 2, and 3 than it would take me to complete option 4 many times over.

So, in an effort to help myself see the value of not attempting to streamline and mechanize every small task that I need to accomplish, I'm going to select 5 menial tasks to accomplish each day that I've been putting off because I just didn't feel like doing it. Hopefully, in putting my nose to the grindstone and simply *doing* these things with no consideration for "better ways" or what I could be doing instead, I'll regain an appreciation for simply doing tasks without trying to whittle them down to nothing.

Today's tasks are:

* Complete, envelope, and stamp both rebates for recent LCD monitor purchases.
* Soak yellow jacket nests with wasp spray so that tomorrow they can be knocked down.
* Put away the mangled mass of wires on my desk in the office.
* Clean out my truck from my West Texas Trip.
* Deposit commision check from last month's Photo Sales.

Since we've got plans this evening and this is my first attempt, I won't be too angry with myself if I skip one of those 5.