First Post in a Month

Well, it's been over a month since I last posted anything, and the only excuse I have is that I've been incredibly busy, working up to 70 hour weeks, and have felt too tired in my spare time to blog, or have had other priorities. To be honest, when I read that sentence, I feel it's pretty lame. A wise man once told me that to best utilise my time, I should break it down into small segments and try to achieve something within each segment. So, if you say to yourself you are going to do A, then B, and finally C, in a day, the chances are that with some other commitments, some prevarication and some natural human laziness, C will be pushed aside to be completed the next day. However, the next day comes with it's own set of tasks, so C may be pushed back to D on the next day and so on, until it is a forgotten to do task that simply slips away. Now, if instead of trying to do 3 things in a day, 3 hours are chosen during the day to achieve something, then it is probable that all 3 things will get done (assuming they are no more than an hour's worth of work each), and it is even possible that the necessary tasks are achieved within the first 2 hours, leaving the third on to do something else. Even better, is to split the time further into 30 minute or 15 minute segments. This would mean that quick tasks, such as writing an email,don't take a whole hour. So I have decided that during my busy schedule I need to prioritise my time in a more effective way, splitting it into 15 partitions where I can attribute time to getting this blog back on track.

Cool, that was one 15 minute segment successfully utilised!

Of course a lot has happened in the past month in the chess world and while I've tried to follow the exploits of the top players, I've found it difficult in the current work climate. The thing that really got me excited was that this blog has had a heap of viewers recently, and as I haven't been writing I wasn't sure why. Well, it seems that this blog comes up near the top of the google search engine for "chess blog" which surprised me, and then I found that top blogger, GM Kevin Spraggett, had linked to me on his excellent blog (note this has recently changed from blogger to wordpress. I hope Kevin gets along well with wordpress as I had trouble finding a chess viewer that worked well with wordpress which is why I changed to blogger). So I suppose I have to start producing some new content to keep these new readers happy.

I will ask my chess readers to be tolerant with me for the next couple of months, as I will then be going on holiday to the USA with my wife, and if I spend some time on this blog sharing my excitement of the upcoming roadtrip then please just go with it, and indulge me. I've also joined Goodreads which is great for finding ideas for spending some relaxing 15 minute sessions losing oneself in a good book. I'm currently about two thirds of the way through "Oscar and Lucinda" by Peter Carey, and I would have to recommend it to all my Australian friends (and all readers as it is a beautifully crafted novel) as it addresses some fundamental issues endemic to Australian society.

Wow, another 15 minutes well spent :)

I guess I should sign off now, and spend the next 15 minutes that I have spare improving my time management skills, so that I can fit more into the day.