The System

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It's a celebration!

It has always been hard to stay "caught up" on magazines.  I'm a life member of some organizations so it's not even possible to cancel.  I used to read Aviation Week and Newsweek.  Yes, those are weeklies, that's a big drag on a busy schedule.

Most all I ever did with the growing pile was restack, or just throw unread things away when moving.

On 2006 January 2, I was looking at yet another big restack, a whole bookshelf of back magazines, and wrote up a plan with milestones and rates.  There were 254 periodicals and I hoped to "catch up" within a year by reading one every work day, 260 per year.  (This did not allow for new editions arriving during that year, it was intended as a calibration attempt to see what might be realistic.)  The piece of paper stayed taped there for 2-1/4 years.

Nothing happened until sometime early in 2007.  At that point, I was even further behind.  I didn't care how much, but I did restack into categories and made up a rotation based on the categories.  I started keeping "fall behind" records, carried magazines to work to read at lunch, and kept up with the "catch up plan" for over a year.  I even kept close to the goal during the month I spent in Hillsboro for mother's knee surgery.

At New Year's 2008 the back-stack was getting thin (even though Texas Observer came twice a month all of 2007) and I wondered if it was about to end.  Counting, it looked like I might make it by my birthday or a little earlier if I bent the "read most recent first" rule a little.  I didn't do that until mid February, but during the week of my birthday, did reach "caught up."

"Caught up" is defined as having no issue of anything on the stack that is more than one issue old, that is, not having more than one of any periodical on the stack, and the one on the stack is the latest.

This having worked so well, I had crowded five other activities into each day:  Bible posting, four bills paid, e-mail backlog, composition, and "barely works technology" (my DBA) (which rotates among Trustees, BWT, Webmastering, Adventure, Family, and Chores).  Yes, this is complicated and overloaded.  Also, I'd added five, then cut back to three pages of Knuth at work every day.  This got to be too much and I cut them back to four a week each.  This still being too much I've cut them back to three a week, one thing per day for six days (three magazines, three Knuth).  The Knuth is open ended until finished (started with the directions manual for the HP-35S at ten pages a day) which will be a few years, but we'll see if I can stay caught up with magazines on only a dozen or thirteen slots a month.  So far so good.  Long as this doesn't slip (no slips, i.e. "fall behind" records), maybe it will work.  And, it will be real control of subscriptions.

It is helpful in the moment to not put something aside for later.  This experiences teaches that there is "something else for later," not a continuation of this.  That helps make choices about what's really worth reading or following up on.  Not much.... there's not that much "later" out there.

I also threw on the stack reports (for BWT and web listing) for QEX, QST, AMSAT-NA Journal.  That doesn't help, but is part of the tension.

So I've taken the taped list off of the bookshelf and filed it in Clips and now I'm actually on track with something.  Is it worth it?  Well, I've come across several good ideas for ham projects that I won't do, and some that were so compelling that I have done them.  That's progress.  The tensions carry on everywhere, but prioritizing against finite time is working.  I choose what to do and what to drop and pick where to draw the line rather than having it just happen due to lack of discipline.  Can I live through the discipline?

Update 2010 February 12.  When GRAIL got busy, I stopped Knuth.  It was sad but necessary.  Some day I may describe the evolved "system," though cranking through such a description holds little appeal for me and I doubt that the "system" would be much use to anyone else, save as a starting point for developing their own "system."  (For those who even want "system.")  I find it effective in terms of being intentional about the choosing and maintaining the balance I want.

Status today is that magazines are still caught up and, after having fallen a whole month (that is 23 days X 5 per day = 115 items) behind as of thermal vac day 2009 December 11, I'm now under a week behind and could be "caught up" with the whole system this President's Day weekend.  That doesn't mean having everything caught up to the day, it only means having worked ahead as many items as there are behind.

celebrated 2008 March 28, cbd
edited 2010 February 12, cbd

(c) Courtney Duncan, 2010