Day 1

Oh my god, I have to get this out of me so that I can focus! All of these things that I'm carrying around in here are keeping me from suceeding.

I can feel myself having to push thoughts out of my head. when I fail a task, I can usually tell that I was thinking something else while being shown the puzzle.

I've found a small meditation technique that involves picking one spot and I can sort of tamp things down a bit after staring at it.

I think I might start some extra-curricular mediation, as I've been meaning for a while. But I can really feel the application here.

The letters and lights one is a little bit easier than I was anticipating, but still challenging. I also kind of wish that it asked for a second letter so I can try keeping it in my head longer and not just dumping it when I get the letter (or miss). I might start picking another for myself.

15 is a lot. I know that I'm getting close to finishing this first round, and they've started off really easy but getting up to my limits. I seem to have it together for the first 10 or so, but about that point I get a small giggle fit and I need to get that out of my system or there's no way I'll get the next one.  we'll see how that goes as we progress.

I'm realizing now that I've always belived in my abilities to accomplish what I want. I guess the problem is that I know how hard I've had to push myself. But this is exersize. The harder I take it here, the easier everything else will be.

Oh lord. The closed input panel is going to kill me. But here we go...
It wasn't as bad as I thought. I was really in the groove for a while but then I started over-thinking it.

I think this technique is a good idea. Maybe I'll make a Write-Only Twitter client that lets you pump out short messages that you need to get out of your head and get back to work. You can save them and then tweet when you're done.

I saved Rotating Data Link for last. I think I should have put it in the middle and saved Rotating Dots. I've always been confident in my senses of movement and place (thanks, video games). I think that point about 2/3 is really when you need to do the hardest stuff and let down a bit easier.

In games where the lights come on, I make a noise in my head. I can't help it. "Deep Dahp Doop" is my current favorite. I've tried counting once or twice, but that can seemed to make it harder or more confusing. Maybe the lights go by too fast for me to think of a sound in time, so something simple like "tik tok tik tok" is more appropreate.

I think the giggles mean "I know I got off easy with that one." Like it was a sequence that I would have failed if there wasn't something sticking out for me to grab onto.

"Do you want to play Robot Racing?" "EFF YEAH!"

Oh good, I can turn off the comments. I have a mental allergy to encouragement that smells at all insincere. I've had a lot of exposure to it. I know when I've done well and when I haven't. Platitudes don't do well for my attitudes.


I think this is going to work out pretty well. I can tell how it's going to be difficult, but I think the best thing we can do is set up a lot of structure and ceremony over me going in and doing it. Also THIS! Keeping a journal of my experience is something I would have sneered to myself about if somebody suggested it to me, but damn. I really need to push some of this stuff out of my brain so that I could just pay attention. I think a lot of what's going to make this work is finding all the little things that I need to do in order to actually accomplish these tasks. The best strategies are the ones that get used, and those are going to be the ones that evolve naturally. I know that doesn't guarantee a globally optimal (best-of-all-worlds) solution, but it does get you to a local optimum (best-of-what-I've-got) and that's really all I'm after.