Preface
This piece is a record and reflection of my life from 2022-09-19 to 2022-09-26.
This week was unusually busy, with several days where I returned home quite late. Yet, strangely, it’s during such times that I seem to find more motivation to do more. I finished a book, caught up on many movies and TV series, and accomplished numerous tasks, both big and small. Besides that, not much else happened, to the point where even writing this weekly review felt a bit dragging.
The Joy of Stealing Time from a Busy Schedule
Today, while scrolling through Twitter, I stumbled upon an interesting conversation between Ivory Mountain Liu Neng and Cloud Wind:
Ivory Mountain Liu Neng: During work hours, I always think about doing side projects, but when the weekend comes, all I want to do is play games and watch shows…
Cloud Wind: Why not always work on side projects during work hours, and do actual work on weekends? This way, you won’t play games or watch shows, because if you don’t work on the weekend, you’ll have done no work at all. There’s another benefit to this approach: if your work is interdependent with colleagues, there won’t be any conflicts since there’s no parallelism. You can also fully consider the ever-changing product requirements before starting.
Netizen: The implication of this idea is that the work can be done in two days.
Cloud Wind: The actual effective workload of a long-term project is far less than 2/5, I’d say. If it really can’t be finished, you can extend your weekend work hours accordingly. Also, having five days a week to estimate this workload usually means you won’t get it wrong. So, in essence, this method suggests: think more, do less.
Ivory Mountain Liu Neng: The point about thinking more and doing less is indeed true. Often, the longer you delay, the smoother it goes when you finally start. However, doing serious work only on weekends seems quite challenging. I thought you were just joking, haha. And it probably wouldn’t suit many people. For instance, if I pushed all my work to the weekends, I’d probably end up slacking off due to the overwhelming pressure. 😳
Cloud Wind: It’s half a joke :) But in recent years, I’ve indeed done a lot of key work on weekends/public holidays.
Upon reflection, I seem to have always had this tendency. In my sophomore year, when preparing for the TEM-4 and the software qualification exam, despite the already tight revision schedule, I somehow found time to learn many unrelated (but not entirely useless) things. The time squeezed out felt particularly precious, and everything I did carried an extra sense of joy.
When I’m incredibly busy and fighting for every minute, I often have this thought: “I can accomplish so much in this short week, so when I’m done with exams/on holiday/have free time, I’ll surely be able to learn/finish xxx.” But when that moment actually arrives, I end up “slacking off” instead.
Thinking carefully, most of my extra skills or learned things were accomplished while “neglecting my duties.” Even now, long after, I still benefit greatly from them. Yet, those official tasks are often completed at the last minute before the deadline, seemingly with good results. This makes me ponder the correlation between time and efficiency, and how mindset affects one’s motivation to do something.
Everyone has different patterns for task arrangement and time management. I might be an efficiency freak, but I’m definitely not someone who’s extremely meticulous about time arrangements. To some extent, I enjoy a sense of randomness that somehow manages to complete everything, rather than feeling enslaved by a task list. As a side effect of this mode, I often find myself having to “turn the tide” at the last moment. Over time, my mentality has become more stable, or rather, I’ve accumulated some standards and confidence in my problem-solving abilities.
Additionally, inertia and enjoyment play important roles in this process.
This was particularly evident during the period from May to June when I was locked down at home due to the pandemic, unable to go out for nearly 50 days. During that time, because my mental state wasn’t great, I threw myself into work. In the intervals between many meetings or tasks, I was constantly learning many extra things, and also started writing blogs to record again. It seemed as if I wanted to exhaust all my energy in extremely limited time. Even now, I still benefit from many of the accumulations, decisions, and habits cultivated during that period. But in the slightly idle period of July and August after the project ended, although I was still doing some things according to plan, it was hard to find the same sense of immersion as before.
Later, I realized it depends on how you view these things. Learning or relaxing during busy work times is an extra state outlet, allowing escape from the heavy and repetitive daily routine, making it easier to feel the joy in it. Moreover, it doesn’t require much state adjustment or preparation steps at this time, and it’s easier to switch relying on the inertia of the work state. However, when it comes to truly disposable free time, we have to treat it as a task item, needing to arrange time for it and switch ourselves back from a state of rest or entertainment, which costs more and encounters more resistance.
Therefore, in the possibly incomplete time after returning home on workdays, I will try to arrange some side projects or learning parts. Weekends, on the other hand, I hope to use more completely for outings or input activities like books, movies, TV series, or games. It seems that better segmenting my state might be a good approach, and I will try to explore it.
Miscellaneous
This section will record some of my inputs and outputs, as well as other things I find interesting.
Input
Books
- The Details of the Rule of Law, I had watched some videos of Professor Luo Xiang before and read his book “Circle of Justice”. Rather than saying he’s “clear-headed”, I think Professor Luo just maintains a sense of “awe” and “humility” towards everything. On top of that, although he feels he can never achieve it, cannot draw a perfect circle, he’s always in pursuit. I’ve benefited a lot. The part about reading classics was very difficult, I reread it several times but still couldn’t digest it. Such big themes as “freedom, equality, and fraternity” can be narrated so eloquently, indeed more accumulation is needed.
- I’ll Give You a Bullet, currently reading, I really like Liu Yu’s speaking style.
Podcasts
- Fork It - #22 - PoW vs PoS, With the occurrence of “The Merge”, this topic has become popular again. It’s a very good episode for concept clarification and exploration, worth listening to repeatedly and taking notes.
- Fork It - #23 - Is PoS a Lie?, It took three days of commuting to listen to it completely. I repeatedly went back to listen to several concept explanations and still found many loopholes in my understanding. I plan to look at BTC Study to supplement.
- Tech Hodgepodge: Have You Been Fooled by ‘Sheep a Sheep’?, A quite phenomenal game recently, but I’m not very interested. I learned about it through this episode from the hosts. It’s very short, but quite interesting as a popular science topic.
Movies
- Spring Fever, At first, I felt the male lead was a bit too jumpy, but later I slowly realized that this is a lifestyle without limits, so joyful. Watching it back-to-back with “The Breakfast Club”, I felt my inner rebellion was awakened.
- Piper, Recently, I’ve been working overtime to the point of mental exhaustion. I remembered some animated short films that had been lying in my list for a long time. Somehow very healing.
- Dallas Buyers Club, The film’s depiction of despair and suffocation is too detailed. The sound effect of tinnitus and the cramped frame create a strong sense of immersion. I saw a cowboy’s attitude towards life, seeming to be tired of everything yet truly loving life, appearing indifferent to others yet willing to devote true feelings, so cool. Also, although there’s not much romance, the eye contact and expressions exchanged with the female lead in the latter half are really worth savoring for a long time, such a good match.
- In the Mood for Love, The repeated shots of walking through the alley and brushing past each other, the restrained depiction of desire and unspoken feelings, it turns out that love can truly grow and spread from the eyes and brows. You can feel its charm without it becoming vulgar, the grasp is just right, perhaps this is also the unique temperament of Hong Kong and that era. Also, I really like the English title of this film, “In the mood for love”, it’s so beautiful.
- La La Land, Interestingly, I’ve been to the live concert of the La La Land suite twice, but this was the first time I’ve really watched the movie in full. Back in the distant 2016, I booked movie tickets for Valentine’s Day when it first came out but missed it due to circumstances, and never made it up afterwards. Recently, a friend mentioned it, so I watched it over two nights, and only then did I truly feel the charm of the song “City Of Stars”, one song that walked through an imagined lifetime.
- Casablanca, When watching “La La Land”, the female lead mentioned watching this movie repeatedly as a child and imitating it, and it was also on my list before, so I dug it out to watch. I have to say that films from that era are indeed classic, not needing too much drawn-out plot, the dialogue is enough to present most themes. The final scene at the airport with the conversation between the three people, about revolution, nationality, and love, in just a few words, vividly presents each character’s personality and corresponding choices, a unique charm.
- Dunkirk, There are no grand war scenes, just the constant switching between the devastation of war on the beach, the unwavering small boats at sea, and the dogfights in the sky, creating a strange sense of beauty. The contrast between the burning plane and the train running on the homeland at the end, the cost of war hidden beneath the speech, is heartbreaking.
- Nope, It took me about three times to finish watching it. The narrative is indeed a bit messy. Even halfway through, I was still somewhat confused. Perhaps it lacks build-up, and if it were that director, the plot progression might make more sense (but it’s very understated). It’s just that the motivation for the sibling pair to do these things is really insufficient (maybe it’s some kind of strange family pride), to the extent that even at the end, I still couldn’t quite understand.
TV Series
- Severance, A series with good reviews recently. I really like the overall style and pace, especially the opening, it’s so stunning. The story setting is quite new, a rebellion against a distorted “Work-Life Balance” technology, but maybe because of the abrupt end of the first season, I always feel there’s some lack of motivation. Looking forward to future developments.
- Capture, Among similar types, the most classic is still “Person of Interest”, but the unique compact rhythm of British dramas is also very suitable for this narrative style. I feel like I might have watched the first season several years ago, but there’s no problem with connecting the plot. About halfway through, I could roughly guess the ending, but when the final twist of the large-scale show unfolded, it still got me fired up. I can only say, as expected of the BBC among BBC dramas, very strong.
Anime
- Paprika, Catching up on Satoshi Kon’s works. Originally, I mainly wanted to look at the storyboards and transitions, but I found that it really hid many metaphors and imaginative parts. I can also understand the origin of so many tributes to Kon afterwards.
- Summer Time Rendering, Currently following the series, it’s about to end. Ushio is too good.
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