As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...including 2010 musings on computers, sorry!
The purpose of this "diary" is not to complain about say a flu that
slows me down, or to grovel with self-loathing on the days when I'm less
productive; I try not to do that too much in "real life," and writing
about those things only seems to make them worse. (I hope that I do not
sound even more arrogant than I am as a result!)
So far this week I finished the 1st of 7 volumes of my copy of the
Jataka tales! Though still have a few pages of notes to write up.
I also finished our South Asian history library reorg a few days ago.
It's already been very helpful to know where all my sources are.
But I am having to adjust to my much more normal very varied routine.
It's less efficient, though I think necessary, and really as I said more
enjoyable. It was more predictable to sit down every single morning to
zillions of archaeological reports and see what they had to say about
the sites in which I was interested, with planned breaks for Sanskrit
and French and German study. It's easy to get efficient at similar stuff you do
over and over. Now there's still the language stuff, but the rest just
depends on where I am in researching my current period in approximate
chronological order.
I'm not only less efficient but much more easily distracted as a result
of the variety. It doesn't help that I rarely really enjoy the religious
ancient writings, which most is for ages here. So many are so abusive
of women, for one thing. And it's so sad to think of the past humans who
must have swallowed some of the nonsense. In the past I came up with
all sorts of tricks to keep me focused (including a reward of x minutes
of break for x minutes of work, though I hate having to keep such
tedious notes); maybe I'll return to some.
But overall what I really think I prefer is simpler: Just do my best for
that day, making allowances for feeling under the weather, and keeping
in mind that one page can be packed full of fabulous information and
implications for my projects whereas sometimes I can get through 50
pages with almost nothing -- so I either have the thrill of getting
loads of new information, or getting through zillions of things on my
to-do list, and rarely both on the same day.
I also need to budget not only my money but my time for pleasures like digital music, possibly my chief distraction! Though also my chief ally against
distraction when I play certain playlists that help me focus.
Next week may also be easier not only because of getting used to my more
varied routine but because I usually break up my physical activity
("exercise") over the week. Physical activity helps one's brain work so
much better, but of course the effects wear away so it's better not to
do it all in one day. But this week I did it all in one go on
Monday, with several hours of carting heavy books all over the library, including up and down to the mezzanine.
I got distracted today with a very long presentation by Steve Jobs et al
on the new iPad. I've decided that in its present version it won't be
my next laptop. Though I adore its lightweight-ness for travel! But I
need something that runs lots of software at once and that supports the
trillions of digitized journals and archaeological reports I have and
happily brings up loads of documents at once across as large a screen as
I can afford so I can compare sources as well as my own notes, written
chapters, whatever. I adore Macs and have always had one at home and in
my most civilized jobs, and I love my iPods, but this doesn't fit my
needs right now though I hope it will in the future because small is
wonderful as long as I can still see the print or can make it larger...
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
