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Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful lack of beauty,
Namely, it isn't as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or night every
time you neglected to do your duty;
You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round of unwritten letters is on me.
- a snippet of Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man by Ogden Nash

Slay the beasts

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Here's a nice thing to try the next time you're feeling overwhelmed, just like the feeling I've had a touch of lately, as with most Septembers:

  1. Grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle of it.
  2. List 8 to 10 of the projects requiring your attention on the right side of the page. List them in the order they come to mind. No job is too small! If it's a pressing concern, it belongs on the page, whether it'll take an hour or a solid week to get done. If you can't think of that many tasks, write what you're planning to have for dinner instead.
  3. Pick out three of those tasks as the Most Pressing. These aren't the most important or immediate tasks - you're not making an Eisenhower Matrix here - but they're the biggest stressors. Circle them, star them, number them, or highlight them in neon and gold. These tasks are in your sights now.
  4. Pick out a time to work on these tasks. Here's the fun part: you should choose a time when you wouldn't normally work on such a thing, but the total elapsed working time can be as short as you'd like. You have three tasks to focus on, so you can even break them up into This Evening, Tomorrow Morning, and Tomorrow Evening. Write that time on the left side of the paper next to each of the three tasks. Then, when that time arrives, get to work! Even a five-minute interval is fine if you use it to organize and record your thoughts about a project.
  5. Repeat as necessary!
The goal here is not to use this activity as a task manager. Rather, it's intended to provide reminders about the work we're focusing on, how we feel about it, and how eminently feasible it is. It's far too easy for even the smallest projects to grow into mythical beasts when left to roam through the recesses of our minds. Remaining aware of the work keeps it in perspective.

I've never really found a single time-management strategy which balanced the immediacy of day-to-day responsibilities with the Sisyphean toil of long-term projects. That balance is especially difficult to manage in academic environments. Between unruly faculty schedules, unpredictable experiments, and students who really ought to ask for extra help, even minor projects can rapidly evolve into Minotaurs. The existing time-management philosophies usually go just half-way. Structured Procrastination is one example: it seeks a similar stress-management objective to what I've mentioned above but exists in the minefield between "don't sweat the small stuff" and "my ambivalence has alienated everyone around me". Professional philosophers may find this method ideal. I find it difficult to implement.

Though, to be fair, everything's procrastination when there's something else you should be doing. Perhaps the key is just to trust that you'll get that Something Else done in time, and that you should be doing what you're doing now.

Not Amsterdam. It's Düsseldorf.

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The lady and I got into Essen with flexible plans. They looked much like this:

  • Visit friends
  • Visit Düsseldorf
  • Find sushi
  • Visit Ochtrup* 
The first step was in progress by Friday so we started in on the second. That's the easy part - it's just a short train ride from Essen. The third may seem surprising if you're unaware of Düsseldorf's large Japanese population and selection of all-you-can-eat sushi places. They're high-quality and quite inexpensive. They're also quite popular as our first choice was far too busy to ever have a table ready. Luckily, there was a great alternative not far away (the rain had finally caught up with us, so we didn't feel like searching for long). It's an atmospheric, classically German city, especially if you don't mind Nordrhein-Westphalia serving as the representative of the whole country.

In Essen, waiting for the right train.
In Düsseldorf. You can tell because they sell gazpacho in bottles (don't believe me about that - it's a novel thing to do in most places).
There's that rain again.
"What's Beef Burgers". There isn't a question mark so I don't think it's interrogative.

This building may be competing with Philadelphia's Comcast Center for the title of Most Sinister-Looking Tower.

We made it to the Rhein and had some Spaghetti-Eis (not shown, but it looks like this).
The trees by the river had managed to survive all the recent volatile weather.
The Oberkasseler Brücke. It's technically the oldest bridge in the city if you ignore how it was rebuilt in the 1970's.
Looking out at the river to see where it's going today.
Back to Essen and to this wonderful place. 
Next time: To Ochtrup.


*What's an Ochtrup, you ask? It's a small town. It's right here. They make ceramic whistles there called "nightingales". They don't look like birds but they sound like them (the ceramics, not the people of Ochtrup).

Amsterdam - Day Three. Also a bit of Essen.

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One wall at the de Hoek is papered with exotic foreign currencies.

We began at the Koffehuis de Hoek and pancakes. Pancakes with raisins, apple, and bacon, to be specific. It's quite cozy and supposedly very Dutch in a difficult-to-define way.

The proprietor is also named Harry. He's had the place for 50 years, at least according to these photos.
Not shown: boat captains who may or may not have been drunk, an entire tour group, and the nearby Heineken Experience.
We followed this Authentic Experience with the requisite Amsterdam canal tour. I'm usually skeptical of guided tours as they can seem hackneyed. This tour was enjoyable, especially as it's the only way to see a number of local fixtures (oddly-angled buildings, concrete houseboats, and the inner workings of the lock system) without renting a boat or illegally swimming around in the canals.

My Heineken Experience is usually disappointment and regret about ordering a Heineken.
Theft-proofing, I presume.

An exemplary façade.
Out on the IJ. The wavy building is the EYE Film Institute. It's called that because IJ and Eye are phonetically similar. The nearby tower was once owned by Royal Dutch Shell but is now being redeveloped into offices and entertainment space.
The top of the NEMO science museum, looming.
The Montelbaanstoren. The prerecorded tour stated that the tower's bells don't ring on an exact schedule.
Have I mentioned how nice the Amsterdam city logo is? Here it is on the side of a tram platform. It's ubiquitous yet simple and recognizable.
We went shopping for some lunch - Marks and Spencer sandwiches - and made our way up to the train station.*

An ICE to Germany.

The atmospheric platform in Essen.
The eventual destination: Essen, or more specifically some friends' apartment. They're great people.

The next day: rain and the fight for sushi.


*We had left our luggage in station lockers, a precious commodity. Don't count on their availability should you plan a visit.