doug nelson: DISENGAGE!

I am again inspired to alter my life, briefly, then slip back into my old ways. This time, the plan is:

Keep learning Japanese.
With flashcards, audio files, and a nice little book, I’ve made sort of a fresh start on this recently. Perhaps I will finally overcome my record of short-lived enthusiasm for difficult subjects.

Exercise more.
I have an exercise machine coming in the mail. No, really. It works for the rest of America: Why Not Me?

Increase Typing Speed/Learn To Touchtype.
Using some freeware (at first), I plan to increase my already formidable typing speed by using more than three fingers. It’s finally time.

Increase Reading Speed.
This one can wait a little bit, but I’d like to learn some Photo Reading eventually.

A Daily/Weekly Quote Of Time Spent On These Items.
Quotas always work for me in the short-term, but tend to fail after two months or so. Fingers crossed.

Illustrate With Tablet.
Having a Wacom tablet will greatly increase/improve my method of design, which usually relies on scanning penstrokes and layouts and recreating them digitally. A tablet removes a step.

Eek: Polyphasic Sleeping.
As of tonight, I am no longer bound by the trappings of a secure society built around night and day: I am a beneficiary of our evolutionary ability to maintain long periods of alertness and evasion of saber-toothed tigers through evenly-spaced 20-minute naps.
What will be good: Polyphasic sleeping frees up between five and eight hours of every day. Let’s face it: I sleep too much. On the weekends, I can go for eleven hours, but most of those hours are just drifting between levels of consciousness, slowly building up headaches. Then, I feel groggy all day. During the week, I feel my best with only five hours of sleep (more than this tends to depress me), but I have big circadian issues at around 6. Polyphasic sleeping supposedly will keep me in this state of alertness, give me free time at night, and hasn’t been proven to kill anyone yet.
What will be not as good: If you skip a nap, you reportedly crash really, really hard. There’s no alternative to sleeping in my car over lunch breaks. This sounds like it might be way too difficult and inconvenient to keep up, but, the benefits might make it worth it.
Why this is the best time to try it: I have a ton of freelance to do, Japanese to learn, typing to improve, and I have a good three weeks before my potentially psychotic sleep-deprived behavior has an opportunity to really wreck my career and relationships.

IT BEGINS TONIGHT. On the way home, I will pick up a kitchen timer and perhaps one of those stupid eye-covers. Hooray for experimentation!