Countdown is on!

I have 158 days until I submit my fourth year review materials.  Roger convinced me to add a countdown to my desktop. I use TimeLeft.

 

Goals:

1) Finish Virtual Worlds Chapter

2) Submit Paper on multiple logics and VWs

3) Submit revised terrorism paper

4) Submit something from my dissertation

5) Work on Relationalism and Networks essay

6) EGOS 2012 conference paper on collaboration and virtual worlds

7) Beyond that there are many good ideas and I’ll need to look at them and decide on priorities.

Writing and Blogging

Writing and Reading (x posted at Nets We Weave). One of the aspects of blogging that I love is the chance to participate in conversations with others who have similar interests. This is why I enjoy academic blogs Orgtheory.net so much. At the same time, it can feel like a time suck of seeming to be productive when it actually does not do anything to advance my writing. How to balance the goodness- feeling connected and part of the dialogue- with not becoming a blogger instead of a scholar? I also find myself often with lots of random thoughts in my head that want to get out. I tend to ignore them out of a belief that to use energy and time to put them to paper or screen dissipates my limited reserves of time and attention. But maybe this is flawed. Maybe it would actually be better to just get them down and out instead of using energy trying to push them aside. As a new experiment in the relationship between blogging and scholarly writing, I will use short bursts of time to write about my writing process or to simply record the random assortment of theory and social science-related ideas and tangents that pop up in my unquiet mind. Rules: •Write for no more than ten minutes. If it is not publishable, save it as a draft. Minimize worrying about sourcing or linking as these activities often turn a ten minute blog jaunt into a hour of blog marathon.

Webware Voting- I could waste a lot of time here

Webware 100 2009 – CNET

I don’t use a lot, but as a catalogue of goodies and tools, wow.  I could waste a lot of time here.

Hope for me! Willpower can be trained.

Wow!  Hope for me.  The article does state two contradictory results.  In the short term, you should avoid wearing out your will power.  If you try hard not to eat ice cream, later you  will eat something else.  So, avoid exposure to the ice cream.   In the long term, exercising willpoer increases capacity.  So, if ou wnat oa void eating icecream today and tomorrow, keep avoiding it until you can avoid ice cream and cookies afterward.  That seems logically problematic since avoiding will power today will make me susceptible to impulses tomorrow.  Maybe you build up will power in different arenas, like, going to the gym then helps you control the impulse to eat ice cream and cookies in a month.

Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind – New York Times
In psychological studies, even something as simple as using your nondominant hand to brush your teeth for two weeks can increase willpower capacity. People who stick to an exercise program for two months report reducing their impulsive spending, junk food intake, alcohol use and smoking. They also study more, watch less television and do more housework. Other forms of willpower training, like money-management classes, work as well.