As the year winds down, I am getting to one of the dreaded tasks. There are a few blogs and podcasts that I have subscribed to that I never got to.

Clicking the unsubscribe/unfollow button is a tough click. Giving future me a cleaner list in the future is a big gift, though.

My trick is to not forget the blogs or podcasts. I just need to store them somewhere better. I note the name on my someday/maybe list and then remove it. It's still somewhere. Just a better somewhere than in my face every day, making me feel guilty for not getting to it.

Been noticing lately with my scrap paper memo pad that there is a perfect amount. More like a satisfying amount. Having about 10 sheets is better than having a 5 cm tall stack. Getting through the 10 sheets and filling the clothes pin back up with paper is having a "check me out...I have so many ideas" effect.

Yes...my mind is that easy to game. Go to know both positively and negatively.

The "converting rants/complaints into personal notes instead" thing I've been practicing lately is starting to take hold in my mind.

For example, "That x is totally a y because x did z!!" becomes a note I append to a text file saying "X was a total y. Don't do z.".

Reviewing (and laughing) at all the "deep" thoughts at the end of the week is turning out to be one of the most entertaining times of the week.

On the train home from our show last night, I saw someone who had on socks that said, "You are what you love."

I was walking down a crowded sidewalk, running over the new song we were going to rehearse later on. I had to take a right to the studio, which disrupted the stride of someone behind me.

They sighed a huge sigh, and that made me slightly forget the song for rehearsal. That pissed me off, which made me completely forget the song.

So I let the sigh of some random person who could’ve been having the worst day ever, unrelated to me, make me forget going to play drums.

Not worth it.

This year, I switched from storing individual notes in separate text files to a centralized system using Drafts and Dropbox. It's working so well that I am going to keep going with it for 2025.

The problem with my previous system was that I was spending too much time organizing and became anxious about the ever-growing number of files.

For my new system I need something that was as simple as possible. So I created a folder in Dropbox for each life context and set up a Drafts action to store thoughts with tags, dates, and locations in a single text file.

When I need to find something, using a text editor to search for information in a smaller number of files is so much easier. Using an app like nvAlt or Obsidian was working with the old way but the sheer number of files was making my brain hurt.

The benefits of this year's method is it's easy to find information in a manageable number of files. I've also been allowing myself to fix/tidy one or two things during each search session. That gives me that little jolt you get when you organize but I don't do it for hours like before.

Ruminating on what my New Years resolution is going to be for 2025. Usually it is some sort of drum resolution. Last year it was to learn Jazz drumming. Did it for a solid month and it was an incredible feeling when I got a beat off the ground.

This year I was thinking of doing something like "for every album older than X, I have to listen to something that came out in 2025".

This is subject to change but fun to think about.

The experiment for the day is to use the Reminders app to remind me of random stuff in the future. When I stumble across some quote or cool thought, I am scheduling them in Reminders for random dates in the future.

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.

The other thing I am scheduling are things like "One year ago you were thinking [thought here]" or "One year ago you wanted to ". It maybe cool to get reminded of where I was at a year ago to see how far I've moved pieces.

I switched from using a 5B pencil to an F pencil. F definitely sounds more pencil-y. The "scritch scritch" level is a lot higher. I do like the dark line of the 5B though.

My current pencil next to the laptop status is now:

• F
• 5B
• a 5B that is barely holdable

One of my pinball philosophies is if you win a free game in pinball, you leave it for the next person. Better someone else comes along and gets the joy of finding it.

I usually don't have a better game if I play the free game so it's better to leave it and move on to a different machine.