Organising and where have I been?

I wrote a few posts ago that I probably wouldn't be writing on here as much, this must be about the longest break I've had over the last couple of years (13 days).

I'm not sure I should write everything for the whole world to read anymore. Yes I want to record my walks and runs on the internet for me, not for everyone else. The things in my head are possibly better kept to myself or if I feel I must write them down, keep the privatively. I don't know yet!

I will write a few things I've been up to over the last week, Monday last week I went to the lakes and walked up Scafell Pike from the bottom of the Hardknott Pass. The fog/cloud was terrible and I couldn't see anything on the top. I had decided to take an off track route up. A very bad idea in those conditions, as I found out as I was literally climbing up the side of Scafell Pike. I got a bit worried at one point but carried on regardless. I will probably post the route and stuff at some point.

I have put some weight on over the last few weeks and I don't like it. Lots of people have told me I needed to put weight on, one person who I don't know very well said I looked very gaunt and drawn. Maybe I did but I felt a lot better than I do now, I don't feel very motivated and have been getting worse over the last couple of months.

As I just said I have had a total lack of motivation recently, in everything. I find myself sitting doing nothing at home for hours which is very depressing. At work I have also found it hard to get interested in what I'm doing and have found myself putting sticking plasters on problems, because I haven't had the time to find proper solutions so they don't reoccur. I realised I was working from my inbox constantly waiting for the next thing to come in and deal with it. Even though I had loads of old emails and tasks just sat there waiting for me to do something with them.

I decided over the weekend that I needed to do something about my motivation and organisation at work. I have over the last 10 years or so tried most tech solutions to getting organised from PDAs, Mobiles phones, online calendars and task schedulers but there had been problems with every one of them. I have also tried a standard diary but a normal diary was too limiting and mine was too big.

I realised I needed to find something that was gonna work for me and the way I think and work. Going low-tech is the solution, I hope, after reading several articles over the weekend. I have ordered a FiloFax (yeah they still exist) but I intend to not just use it in the way most people would. I have also ordered "Getting Things Done" a book that has almost cult following among tech people. The way this works appeals to me and I'm hoping will start to sort me out. I intend to use some of the templates form DIY Planner instead of the standard stuff that comes in a FiloFax. This will take a while to implement but one thing I did start today was "Inbox Zero", its a very simple way to deal with your emails and it worked today. I felt so much better and had more time to concentrate on my work.

The guy behind the "Inbox Zero" idea gives presentations on it and I enjoyed (if thats the right word) watching his presentation at Google. Much better than reading through all the stuff on his website.



I'm not sure if any of this stuff will work because one of main problems is sticking with something, I become bored easily but if I can see this working I'm hoping I will stick at it. We will see over the next few weeks once I have everything in place and I tailor it to me.

Scotland Border Time Out

Tonight I decided I needed a drive out to clear my head and have a bit think. Ever since I got back from Canada I never seem to of gotten away to think. The only problem with tonight was I had to wait in for Tesco to deliver my shopping. So it was 10pm by the time I set off. I had already decided I was going to drive to the Scottish Border then turn around and come back.

It was 130 mile round trip, which took 3 hours. That was including going to Crook for Petrol (closed) and missing my turning off the A69 (head not with it).

I got the Scottish Border at 11:30 stopped to take a picture of the Stone saying Scotland (it was too dark though). Then turned around and came back. Going up it was like being on a rollercoaster going over the blind summits, in the dark and thick fog in places. I got back a few minutes ago (just before 1:00am)

Cleared my head a little bit I think, could probably do with a weekend walking too. Maybe I should take Monday off!