keep it to yourself

i find it hard to get things done. every couple of springs (by coincidence, rather than tradition) i’ll write down everything i need to do, set up a system for collecting and accomplishing tasks and i start achieving things. it also helps if i have plenty of uppers.

one time my best friend bought me a giraffe tray. i would write down everything i thought of and throw it in the tray. then at nights i’d go through it and read each of them. i’d throw away ones that didn’t interest me any more, categorise the rest, and put down the very next step needed to complete them in my tasks (like GTD).

this will last for a few weeks to a month, before i hit a snag where i can’t capture an idea (because of where it happens or because of being a bipolar fucking wingnut) and i start to lose track of things and become overwhelmed by how much i have to do and then give up and give in.

this is part of the reason i don’t get things done. but i’ve noticed recently that there is another reason i don’t get things done, and that’s that i tell people about them.

telling people your plans leads to one of two things:

they try to talk you out of it (by telling you it’s dumb and you are dumb and stupid, or telling you that somebody has already done it)
they tell you wow that’s a great idea

now, number 1 is quite discouraging. and that disappointment can mean you don’t feel as great about the idea any more. and that can make you want to do it less. and that will mean you don’t get it done.

number 2 seems great, but i’ve noticed that it /also means i end up not doing it/. maybe because i’ve already got the reward for having had the great idea, so now i don’t need to do it? having already gotten my delicious endorphins? secreted within my brain and nervous system?

recently i’ve actually finished a few things. without having set up a system or finding someone who loves me enough to buy me a giraffe tray. and all i do is keep it to myself until it’s done.

the excitement about the idea, the anticipation and the eagerness to tell someone. and knowing you can’t tell anyone until you’ve finished it. these things make it a priority. and you have to do it til you’ve done it. and then you have the thing. and then you don’t need to tell anyone anyway because fuck them.

FOSDEM 2017

i went to FOSDEM again this year with mass and grim.

we slept in sleep well which was a hostel close to the station, and where we had stayed before. it was cheap and good and easy to get to from the airport.

i saw mass give his diversity talk.

i saw some great talks on the Rust track and the JavaScript track.

we ate a mass of frites and drank a great amount of beer. zero_cool would have been proud of us.

~~we did not have a great time~~ actually it was a really great time.

adding commands to git

did you know that you can add commands to git by naming them right and placing them in your path?

if you put this:

#!/bin/sh
git branch | awk '/\*/ {print $2}'

into a file called git-current-branch, make it executable and put it somewhere in $PATH (i use ~/bin which i’ve added to $PATH), you will be able to use it like this:

$ git current-branch
feature/lolSausages

and bash/zsh completions will tab complete them too

that example would probably make more sense to be an alias, but what about something like this:

#!/bin/sh
branch=$1

if [ -z "$branch" ]; then
  branch=$(git current-branch)
fi

git branch -u origin/${branch}

ooh! or this, to show changes to a specific function:

#!/bin/sh

function=$1
file=$2

if [ -z "$function" ] || [ -z "$file" ]; then
  echo 'usage: git log-function <function> <file>'
  exit 1
fi

git log -L ":$function:$file"

i’m sure you can come up with something more useful

— chee (hi@chee.party) 2017-01-12