Hey, @gregbd, I'm trying to catch up but

ON ANOTHER NETWORK, four days past, long time friend Greg Dickson asked what I was doing. He noticed I was quiet on Twitter and hadn't uttered a word on several of the social audio apps I use. So here's a quick public update.

I'm feverishly trying to get ahead of 80 students who are taking four different academic modules I teach at the Technological University of the Shannon. I know that the next three months will challenge me with pop-up events connected to (1) major programmatic reviews and (2) COVID scares. So I'm trying a few structural interventions that should help me circumvent the potholes that will crater my calendar.

I've adopted a calendar discipline that my best students have shared with me. My academic timetable is part of both my Exchange Calendar and my Google Calendar. When I'm in class, a red dot appears on all of the university contact systems. This ensures people can easily see my availability. The Google Calendar hooks into our household and my daughter can tell whether it's possible for me to be her taxi service based on what she sees in the shared calendar.

I also set extra brackets around key events by making those very important events into Calendly items. This generates a natural buffer of prep time around the event and directs a loud SMS text message to me one hour prior to the start time.

I've also started another electrical wiring project. This time I'm letting my wife take the lead in wiring the attic. However, there are important supplemental tasks I'm doing to help keep the cables and fittings in stock.

The attic is a major clutter black spot in our life. Because we intend to add stairway access to the top of the house, we need to shift around 15% of the clutter we have on top.

There's a bigger challenge in the garage and I've decided the best route is to fill the car every weekend with things that can be trashed, recycled, or upcycled. We've already discovered an elderly couple who would like to claim some toys for their grandkids so we have the motivation to follow through on clearing out the first two square feet of the garage. I hope to map the entire garage as a grid with Dylan (11) and then clean out a tonne of excess material from the garage before the start of summer 2022.

I have a bigger problem with my digital stash. I have to squelch the snippets at source or funnel the best bits into my personal knowledge management system. I use Roam Research and Readwise as my primary buckets. There's an entire thread of conversation I'd like to have with Greg Dickson about this slice of life. Perhaps I'll start that conversation during an audio clip. After all, it was a social audio conversation that sparked this post.

Listen to "Automation Should Be A Normal Reaction #IxD E574" on Spreaker.

[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel Digital Campus of the Technological University of the Shannon.]