Telescoping

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+---
+author: admin
+categories:
+- Non-Techical
+date: 2025-04-16
+tags:
+- time management
+title: Telescoping
+---
+
+Sometimes I try to figure out what to do in a given week, and my first step is to think "what are my long term goals?". Then I realize I have no long-term goals. I sit down and think, "Hmm, what do I want to do with my life?" Eventually I give up, depressed, and go make breakfast or something.
+
+Recently I tried going the other way, with much more success. I call this exercise **telescoping**. It takes 7 minutes, and is performed as follows:
+
+1. Open a text document or grab a piece of paper. Grab a kitchen timer with an alarm, or your phone's alarm app.
+2. For one minute, answer: *What do I want to do today?*
+4. For one minute, answer: *What do I want to do this week?*
+5. For one minute, answer: *What do I want to do this month?*
+6. For one minute, answer: *What do I want to do this year?*
+7. For one minute, answer: *What do I want to do this month?*
+8. For one minute, answer: *What do I want to do this week?*
+9. For one minute, answer: *What do I want to do today?*
+
+I found this a bit enlightening. Here's an early example (I type fast):
+
+2. Today
+    - Enjoy myself, do some intention journaling.
+    - Make at least a little progress on the zorchpad
+    - Socialize with someone enjoyably
+    - Become a little more long-term coherent
+    
+3. This Week
+    - Work on the puzzle contest with XXX
+    - Hang out with YYY
+    - Get enough sleep!
+    - Maybe get exercise
+
+4. This Month
+    - Make a prototype zorchpad and start carrying it around
+    - Release qr-backup with no scary warnings
+    - Continue to learn about electronics a bit, possibly
+    - Have some kind of new social thing in my life
+
+5. This Year
+    - Get an income source where I don't have to do anything, and relax
+    - Have a satisfying version of zorchpad
+    - Learn electronics
+    - Continue to learn programming languages
+    - Spend a bunch of time chilling with friends
+    - Get a boyfriend
+
+6. This Month
+    - Make a prototype zorchpad and start carrying it around
+    - Keep my focus on zorchpad and intention journalling through the puzzle contest
+    - Make 1 new friend --  might be hard, so at least attend social events in a more friend-condusive way
+
+7. This Week
+    - Breadboard a zorchpad
+    - Hang out with XXX
+    - Work on the puzzle contest with YYY. Wait, would she actually enjoy it? A: Yes!
+    - Help someone with their quest!
+
+8. Today
+    - Work on breadboarding a zorchpad
+    - Order zorchpad parts -- at least buffers/shift registers!
+    - Write up telescoping in a blog post
+    - Possibly, think about long-term planning a little maybe perhaps
+    - Think about how to get sleep consistently, maybe?
+
+I realized went from "Make progress on the zorchpad" to having a specific list of parts to order, and noticing I needed sleep. It helped me prioritize what I wanted to do.
+
+I did this two or three times, and kept finding it helpful. I decided to find out what happened if I did it every day.
+
+Two weeks of doing it daily, I will report: it was neither super helpful nor a waste of time?
+
+Basically, it was pretty helpful to think through things I hadn't. The main benefit of doing this every day was keeping long-term goals in sight, but I was no longer thinking through new things much.
+
+The most surprising thing for me was that one minute quickly became *too long*. I reduced it to 30 seconds per step.
+
+On the one hand, it's not that helpful. On the other hand, it takes 3.5 minutes, and it's a nice way to orient to the day. So, might or might not keep doing it.