Wednesday 10th February 2021

It’s been a busy day here in the Faulkner household.  Ordinarily this would be my day for doing a bunch of weekly Warcraft tasks but I had an IT seminar this morning.  I’m not sure that I’m ever going to need this information but in IT it’s very easy for your technical knowledge to get out of date.

I made a bunch of notes, but there was part of me that wondered if I’d ever look at them again.  My big problem was that the instructors were obviously giving overviews rather than training, and as such went at record speeds.  And because they were webinars rather than recorded training, there was no opportunity to pause, think, and take proper notes.

I’ve been watching a few videos on notetaking the last few days.  I’m a little jealous of beautiful notes.  Mine seem like an ugly first draft whereas their always seem like a polished product.  I found that the act of them spending a few hours after a seminar, creating the notes was what aided their learning.  I can understand that.  I did something similar with handwritten notes when I was in university, although studying Maths, there’s not much to present other than formulas.

My problem is one of time.  I just don’t have the time to sit there and produce beautiful notes, especially for a subject matter I may never use.

The volume of tasks I currently have is a concern for me right now.  I have a number of big projects I want to do, that haven’t moved forwards because I simply don’t have the time.  |It’s got me wondering if I’m trying to do too much or if it’s just a case of letting those projects move forward slowly on their own.

For example, Warcraft has been moving a bit slowly currently.  Other than doing the weekly renown and raiding, my mains aren’t doing much.  I leveled my 8th level 60 and it would be easy to see that as a waste.  Yet, there’s the Valentine’s event now gone live where there’s a chance once a day for an exclusive mount.  Unlike some events which require a max level character, this can be done on a level 50 and above.  And so I was able to run it something like 18 times today.

This is the pay off.  It’s about trickling all those tasks forward so that there comes a day in the future where everything is ready and I can just do.  And yes, just like writing, leveling those characters has been uneven over the months of the pandemic, but the important thing is that I got to the event and things were ready.

I think I worry a little too much that, especially during the pandemic, my progress isn’t smooth.  Like my notetaking, it’s ugly and unelegant.  But it’s the fact that the notes are there, not so much that they are pretty.  It’s the fact the character is leveled, not that I put in time every day to level them.  It’s the fact that my writing moves forward, not that I write some words each day.

I still strive for elegance and urgency, because I try and focus on the journey rather than the goal.  But sometimes it’s the fact you reached the goal, not how smooth the journey was.

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