Friday, May 26, 2006

On Preparing to Sleep (or not)

Gahd, what a week. Finally at the end of it, I settle back in relative luxury--Jones soda, Serial Experiments Lain and certain herbal comforts, ahh. And typing. Always loooove typing.

A bit on preparation, since that's what I'm doing now: I'm a planner-type; I advocate preparation. In my current situation it's damn necessary. But it might not always be to all people, or in all situations.
Of course, prepping for a book at the same time as preparing to adopt this rather daunting change is double the pleasure (and double the notes), but I do have to stress that even the first time I did this, planning probably saved my butt in terms of being successful where others weren't. The fact that I'm naturally inclined to do it was just, er, grace I guess.

The single most important piece of preparation I did was to buy a kitchen timer. The kitchen timer is everything. But after that, and a bit less obvious, was having a list of things to do with all the extra time.

After a while, "life" expands to fill the extra time. But until it does, WOW can one get bored. I've watched more than a few people try to fill the time with TV or books, and yow, does that look miserable. A big part of what got me through the first week was the huge list I made of things I wanted to do. I was thinking "everything" when I wrote it; I never thought I'd get a third of it done, just wrote down every damn thing I could think of (and I have a lot more interests than I've ever had time, even on Uberman). I ended up clearing 90% of it off in the first three days.



More on planning if you click "Read More"...


This time the list is harder to come up with, not least because there's simply a lot less to do in suburban Detroit than on campus in Santa Fe. And getting anywhere interesting takes half an hour. And, as if that weren't enough, I happen to live in a basement. With two other people. One of whom is three.

I did mention that I was fucking crazy, right?

Something that might be good or bad, depending on how it shakes out, is that I almost have enough "life" already to fill that gap, between a seriously hoo-rah job running a young business and almost full-time school this summer and the aforementioned "three" person. Maybe I won't need a big list of interesting projects....though it will suck that I can't clean without waking people up. Cleaning is the best too-tired-to-think-but-must-keep-moving activity. My dorm room was effing spotless.

So, the kitchen timer, and the list of things I want to do, and in addition a list of places open 24/7 where I can go a) study and b) have fun. a) shouldn't be hard, but b) is gonna be a biiiitch. Also interesting places to eat, because I get bored easily of food, but I always had to eat extra on the Uberman schedule (and even then I lost some weight, but I can actually afford that now, so no biggie).

What's really going to suck is lack of company. Having my best friend around at night to talk and watch movies and do whatever with was a big blessing last time. Hopefully at some point I run into a midnight [something] group, but I may just have to tough it out in the beginning.

I'm doing good with prep; been getting something done every day. Next week I need to start calling and bullying the sleep clinic, because they blew me off through email. I bet I can find somebody who'd be interested.

Or maybe not. Maybe nobody finds this at all entertaining but me. The important part is that I'd be willing to do it anyway.


I really have missed the Uberman schedule. It changed my life. Even just knowing that I'm really going to try it again has got me all unhinged and jittery.

-PD

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