I started time-blocking over the weekend and am confused as to why I’ve never tried it before. By splitting my days into various chunks of specified work and leisure time, I’ve become much more focused and productive. I have a pretty good understanding of my energy levels throughout the day and what the best time of the day is for me to do certain work. For example, I’m probably my most focused and clear in the morning so I tend to block things that require more mental effort during that time. Whereas I tend to plan replying to emails before or after lunch since I can be somewhat fuzzy then, and writing and responding to emails usually doesn’t require too much brain power. Every night I’ll provide myself with a rough plan for the following day putting it on my calendar so I get alerts and have a quick reference for when I’m feeling lost or lack motivation.

Today was the first day I really deviated from the plan, and as a result I ended up wasting sometime watching clips of the Late Show with Steven Colbert – his interview with Joe Biden was one of the more moving things I’ve seen in a while. Since I was doing that, I was neglecting preparing the meals I had planned and working on the freelancing opportunity I’d been graciously provided. It wasn’t a complete wash though. I was able to completely fix my own AI algorithm for TicTacToe, and started looking into a Minimax implementation. I’ll write another blog post about the Minimax algorithm, but as I was researching it was really awesome to find that the most helpful and instructive resources were those that happened to be written by former 8th Light apprentices.

I feel guilty for vegging out a bit today. I have a a freelancing deadline on Friday and there’s quite a bit more work to be done until it’s ready. In addition,  I’m meeting with Kevin again on Friday and want to have a minimax implementation for TicTacToe and have looked a bit into RSPEC. I also of course have my work at Polsky, which I’m trying to not let fall by the wayside, a yoga lesson with James tomorrow, and an upcoming trip to New Haven (also on Friday). There’s only so many hours in a day, and speaking of which, it’s time for me to go to bed.