Fixing Problems

May 2nd, 2009 by hmatt

One of my strengths is “Restorative”. I like to fix things.

I also am a “Learner” and related to this is the desire to share what I’ve found with others. But how does one share the progress of a set of problems, their progress, and then their solutions?

A website.. of some kind.

I tried using my blog for this.. but then I get myself all confused when I try to use tagging as a sorting feature. I start to think about the organizing I have to do first and what type of tag I might remember later.. and I give up trying to capture that idea.

Currently I have my 100 projects. These are pages, and I made them so they auto-update the date, but then there is no ‘sub-update’ of each little thing and I have to type them in myself with a date. Also, I have to basically hand-type these little codes to myself so I can find them easier. There has GOT to be an easier way!

But having ALL of my stuff in my blog makes it look REALLY messy and then I forget the process I’ve created for organizing and sorting all those problems.

Now this is a problem.

My options?
-create a new blog that ONLY deals with the 100 issues. Then I could have an RSS feed come off from there and show the progress
-join a website that offers similar things.. then I’d be in a community and not have to re-invent the wheel.. but then I’d have to change my process to whatever they already have set up (43things.com comes to mind)
-a wiki of some sort would show every update on a subject, but it too might get a little messy.

I also want to have flexibility to have access to it on my macbook, online and locally on my iPhone. Having a webpage would take care of the first two, and I’d just have to deal with the times I need to access the content or edit it when I’m underground on the metro.

Sometimes my ‘problems’ I discover relate to each other. Computer program, website and iPhone apps are all related in that they deal with how I organize my technology. It might be nice to have a way to see those as a group. This is not as important though.

In a way this is me trying to be very scientific about things. I want to list my progress and solutions so I can look back and see my ‘accomplished’ projects (so I don’t get frustrated at the never ending ‘to do’ items.

Currently, when I use THINGS on the mac and iPhone, my old to dos vanish. Then I have to keep a separate ‘resource’ folder that has those solutions I have found.

Also too it gets my normal chores and to dos all mixed up with my more complicated projects that I’m working on. Also getting even more crossover with my desires-wants-wishlists on how I’d like my life experience to be.

*whew* this feels long winded, but someday I’ll be glad that I captured all these current frustrations. And I CAN’T be alone with this! Sometimes it feels like it. Lists seem like such an obvious way to identify the next steps to accomplish a goal, and not having them seems like it would all have to stay in my brain. I’d like to think up new stuff rather than brew on the same processess all the time. I think I’d get stagnent and set in my way of thinking. Then it would be difficult to change becasue whatever process I had been brewing on would be a habit and I wouldn’t remember what I had or hadn’t tried in the past and I’d end up duplicating those same mistakes. Then my life time would be wasted on the same fruitless processes.

Anyway. I’m going to do some timeboxing as I might let the wee hours slip away and currently I think I can use this time most efficiently to lay out my plan for this week/month/year/life.

–now to figure out how to write up problems and systematically solve them– (because a blog is too messy with tags)

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