2019-01-19 Boredom and Brilliance? ****** Here is another somewhat shorter collection of sub-posts gathered from Evernote. ****** [2019-01-18 13:02] I've been cranking away at various items this morning. It's one of those days where you work hard, make a bit of progress on a bunch of things, but, in the end, you don't actually finish any one task. Yesterday, I managed to post my last series of timestamped entries I created on Evernote on my phlog. I also managed to get a big chunk of organizing and writing done for my next post on my WordPress blog. That's something I haven't made time for since autumn! I'm reading a very interesting book called "Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self" by Manoush Zomorodi (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33574185-bored-and-brilliant). While some of the reviews are rather haughtily negative, I'm enjoying this book. I already limit how much social media I consume but I don't spend a lot of time just being "bored" or unoccupied. I think this may be part of the answer to the question of why I don't seem to be as creative as I think I could be. Of course, I'm generally so busy with work and home duties that I don't really have time to waste on my phone OR to engage in informal thinking (or "default mode" as it is apparently called). I'm certainly not exhibiting the behaviour noted by participants in the "Bored and Brilliant Project" that the author ran via the "Note to Self" podcast/radio show she hosts, where people described having "panic attacks" when they purposely stopped using their smart phones. I do spent some time in this default mode while I run and I have to say I often have small insights or solve problems while I'm just running and listening to music. [2019-01-19 11:00] I'm working away at my part time job today. It is just freezing outside. I have the space heater running under my desk to keep me reasonably warm and the furnace is running every few minutes. I got up at 06:00 and went for a run on our treadmill this morning. I'm very pleased that I got that done. I ran 6.57 km in 46 minutes. My plan is to run again tomorrow morning after my spouse has a turn. I got to go first today because I was going to work this morning. The treadmill is one of the best investments we ever made in our health and fitness. It has paid for itself many times over in the time saved by just going downstairs to run in all sorts of inclement weather. [2019-01-19 16:25] Well, the day is almost done. I actually managed to finish and upload a blog post (https://is.gd/34A9XL ... don't worry, the link is good. I'm just trying to get the formatting to look good). This pleases me immensely as I've wanting to post something for a while. The idea came out of my musings on this phlog! In fact, I may want to expand on the "Bored and Brilliant" idea I wrote about earlier this week. That will be something I can pick at on another day.