Failure

Oops! Things went somewhat off the rails, and I've ended up nearly a week behind. I think this is probably my most spectacular failure in the history of this site. And right on the heels of the 365 milestone! I think that is mostly a coincidence, though; the root cause is just too much going on.

I wrote in my last failure post that I just had a lot going on, perhaps too much. I implemented a fairly effective strategy for dealing with the workload, but while it helped the workload didn't really change and that really left me at substantial risk of another failure. I ended up with three fairly major deadlines for three different things in the same week, and that's when this failure happened.

Probably the main lesson here is to just not commit to too much. It sounds facile, but realistically that is, near as I can tell, the root cause. I'd like to be able to manage that level of workload without dropping stuff, but I don't think I'm at that point yet. Hopefully some of the habits and tools I'm working on will help, but that doesn't change the reality today. Luckily, my workload has also decreased, so the immediate problem should resolve itself.

Separately, I have the question of what to do with such a substantial post deficit. Normally I would use a failure post to bridge the gap of a single day, but this is a lot of posts to catch up on. I considered just skipping the intervening days, but there is something motivationally powerful about having a post for every day in an unbroken line stretching back, even if I take some liberties with exactly when they were written.

Ultimately, I think the only thing for it is to just take that on the chin, and write lots of posts to catch up. In its own way, it feels like an appropriate disincentive from slipping this far again. And, to be honest, I'm looking forward to the challenge a little bit. Onward!