(adhd, garden)

[elainegrey]

The cold snap Saturday night to Sunday morning seems to have come at a time when the blueberries are at risk. "By the time individual flowers begin to protrude from the bud," -- and yes, the corollas are about half out -- "temperatures below 20°F will begin damaging the most exposed flowers." Temps are predicted to just get to 20°F on Sunday morning. I have the sheets, i should probably just cover and not worry about it any more. The peonies are just shooting up out of the ground. Not sure if i will bother for those.

Now that i can fend off rabbits, i went to look for the cabbage white butterfly decoys i bought in January -- and i fear the cardboard tube they were left in was rounded up and recycled. The garage is frustrating in its mess. I was disappointed, but decided flailing about hunting and getting frustrated wouldn't be helpful, so i've bought generic white "3-D butterfly decals" of Amazon. They aren't shaped just so and don't have the little black mark but maybe it will be enough to discourage the fluttery marauders. I saw one flitting around last weekend, when it was so warm.

The most important yard task at hand for Saturday is getting the plants i bought in the ground, and then a quick job applying tanglefoot on the elm trees where i had some nest of caterpillars that skeletonized the leaves. It's a tree in a visibly prominent location, if it wasn't, i'd let the bugs be.



--== ∞ ==--

So, there have been two disruptions. First, Evernote became unusable in a number of ways and by this time last year i was regularly using airtable as a to-do list and a place to keep track of contacts.

Then there's been the growing awareness of ADHD in my family, along with recognizing it in myself, circa Oct 20th.

Given learning about ADHD, i am recognizing that my obsession with recording isn't so much a quirk as a major coping technique. So, instead of resenting the time it takes to manage my recording, i am now framing it as an investment. Instead of suspecting it's a procrastination trick, i'm more willing to look for improvements.

On the other hand, i am recognizing no mere to-do list is sufficient. The cause of my frustrations is deeper than me being "flaky". I have to develop a deeper tool kit. So in December, i worked out a schedule for the morning - brushing teeth and getting dressed level of scheduling here. It's been three months -- i'm not exactly sure when i started -- but it's worked in a few very important ways. On the other hand, I'm consistently spending so many minutes no longer journaling or dealing with email or whatever would distract me when i first woke.

I have wondered if i had a specific day for certain tasks, if that would help with intentionality. I hate the thought of it. But there are certain things that i pass over and over. Just like i will wrap up this writing -- no matter where i am with it -- in a few minutes, maybe saying Wednesdays are for bill paying and card writing will mean i do those things. So, i'm starting an intentional practice for the computer time in the morning: not every morning - so i can shift if needed for dealing with any novel events (like my niece spending the night!), and it's probably not all the things, but it's a start.


I have bent Airtable to my will, and have one more automation to develop. I'd have my todo list table, which i've been using over the year, and a "chore" table, which has a sort of template for things that need to happen over and over. I've added automation to take a templated item and add it to the todo list for tasks that occur

* daily,
* weekly on a day of the week,
* some number of days before the end of the month (mainly reports at work), and
* some number of days after a specific date (mainly prep for regularly scheduled meetings).

I've got the scripting skills now that i think i can create my holy grail of repeated tasks, which is to add something to the to do list N days after it was completed. This allows me to have a "wax the butcher-block counter" task "every thirty days." Except what really happens is i have it on my to do list for a few weeks. If it was just on my list every thirty days, i'd end up with a pile up of reminders. So far i've been handling these things manually, instead of marking something done, rescheduling it for the thirty days in the future when i finally finish it. This works for a while, but i inevitably forget to reschedule. I'd had something like this in an excel todo list aeons ago and it was very helpful.

Having this makes it easier to use the list to remember and record things. I'd been frustrated by having good intentions, slipping, and loosing track of the intentions. Believing i probably have some level of ADHD now, [and no time]

Comments

[amaebi]

Here the ground is frozen under a new gracious inconvenience of snow. I have fruit trees waiting in a bucket.

[elainegrey]

I frequently forget just how unusual our gardening winter is. We can get in fruit trees and perennials for months before the seasonal urgency sets in.

[amaebi]

You are in Elizabeth Lawrence territory. :)

[altamira16]

It felt like Evernote wanted people to pay more strongly than it did at first, so I quit using it as much. I feel like I should pay for things that I use, but I was only using it to remember where I parked at the airport like once or twice a year.

Are you keeping these lists on Android or iOS or desktop in airtable?

[elainegrey]

I had been paying for Evernote: some of the changes included becoming cloud first (and having terrible performance) and breaking their encryption integration.

My replacement for Evernote has included

(1) markdown notes in my own file system using Visual Code Studio and pushed to AWS's git repository. This is free tier of AWS's git, and it ensures i can get to the data if something happens to my laptop or sync it to other machines if i need it. This is generally long record stuff, like "Where is the warranty for the dehumidifier?". GPG plugs in to Visual Code Studio so anything i want encrypted can be encrypted; i'm using asymetric keys . Eventually i'll get a key to my spouse so she can decrypt what i encrypt. I have keys on all my devices and can decrypt across all of them. (With caveats that getting to the passphrase reminder is on my macOS keychain.)

(2) Noteshelf on macOS and iOS for a scrapbook and visual notes, exported to the filesystem (instead of back up to evernote).

(3) Zotero which syncs notes and links across machines and has a cloud view for notes about technologies, personal research, recipes, etc. I have a shared collection with my spouse to replace sharing articles and links in evernote.

(4) Airtable is all cloud - you have to have a net connection to get to it. One of the first automations i implemented is to have a daily trigger at 1 am to push the day's todo list to an email. I am somewhat unhappy with its cloud only status, and pull the data down. On the other hand, the shared editing of our grocery list base from windows, macOS, android, and iOS is very nice. Easy to review the grocery list (and the todo list) on my android phone app, manage it from the web interface. I do pull csv copies of the data down periodically. And i am paying for the pro version.

[yourlibrarian]

I know quite a few people find checklists helpful, so good luck -- sounds like you have a good plan!

[amaebi]

I'm happy to say that snowdrops and early croci are now turning up. So at the least it sounds like there wasn't inverse decimation, which had looked plausible....