Improvements and Future
27 Jun 2020This is a special post to mark a new version of this blog. New posts will now have a set of tags associated and these tags have their own page where it is possible to see all related posts. Besides this, I can generate rss feeds for specific tags, like the special KDE rss feed that is linked direct to the KDE Planet site. The old generic feed still works. There also possibility to add comments with disqus , but it will be deactivated for now, as I don’t want to pay for a plan or have ads in my personal blog.
All of this is done to let me write about more than KDE, expanding the subjects of this site to my personal projects and my life. For some time I wanted a place to write freely about what I wanted to do now and in the future, and this is a place for this. So, I am not only trying to improve the blog, but also myself. To become a better programmer, a better researcher and a better human overall.
But, for now, let us talk about the future. I am in the end of my masters degree and the future is uncertain for me. Trying to enter a PhD, writing my dissertation, trying to find a job to add to my curriculum, mentoring a student in the Google Summer of Code 2020, trying to maintain my personal projects and keeping my personal life in check takes a toll on the mind and body (and the pandemic does not really help much).
When the pandemic began, I was having serious problems in keeping up the same amount of work that I was doing before. But, as the weeks went on, I developed some techniques to overcome my limitations: First, I needed to explicitly list what I was going to do everyday with a flexible and simple system of markings that permitted me to postpone some checks and mark a work as half done (I used a very nice handmade notebook that I bought some time ago). Second, I needed to divide my room space into places where I could work, have fun and sleep, based on this video. While I already did some of that before, this time I had to be more strict to myself.
But then, I had to face against my worst enemy: A good sleep time schedule. Keeping bad sleep schedules and working in the worst possible hours always have been my worst problem since as a child. Although I did not yet fully fixed this, I am way better nowadays. I applied some rules to my day-to-day life that helped a lot (I do not remember from where I saw this for the first time):
- Stick to your plan;
- Give yourself time for adequate sleep;
- Maintain a strict and consistent sleep schedule;
- Don’t vary by more than 60 minutes on the weekends;
- Limit caffeine after lunch;
- Create a relaxing night time routine;
- Avoid electronics, bright lights and stress before bed;
- keep your bedroom quiet, dark and cool;
I adopted blue light filters to almost all electronics that I own and I am limiting my caffeine intake to just one mug in the morning. The problem is the relapses that occur when I feel that I am more anxious about my future or personal problems. I still don’t know how to properly fix this and maybe I will have to go to see a professional, but for now is good enough, as this last weeks I seem to be maintaining a good morning routine. I am a lover of breakfasts (a good coffee, some bread & butter in a good morning sun and cold breeze), so these last days have been great.
In future posts I will describe better my personal project and goals, but I will list some of my interests and goals for now:
- Finish my master’s (PRIORITY);
- Finish this years GSoC with success for me and my student (PRIORITY);
- Finish some planned papers;
- Go back to working in the Graph Isomorphism problem;
- Submit PhD applications;
- Submit job applications;
- Focus on my old Automated Greenhouse project (future posts);
- Focus on the SwarmBot project (future posts);
- Help the Hackerspace Maringá in some projects and improvements;
- Finish 2020 still sane and alive (PRIORITY?)
There is many things to be done, but so little time. Thank you for whoever read this post, stay well.
Discipline and clarity of mind for a better tomorrow.