The Beginning of the End of My Caffeine Addition

At the beginning of 2008, I stopped regularly drinking regular soda, switching to diet soda (Diet Coke, Diet Dr Pepper, and Diet Mt Dew). That cut back on my sugar intake quite a bit, and that was a good thing. But I was surprised by the effect of caffeine without the sugar. I was hungry much earlier in the morning compared to when I was drinking the sugar-laced sodas, and the caffeine "highs" were much more pronounced. It was like in the past the caffeine burned up the sugar, each almost negating the other, and when I switched to diet the caffeine had free rein.

Even though I know too much caffeine makes me irritable and upsets my stomach, I still crave it. I look forward to getting to work so I can start drinking caffeine. It's gotten to the point that I almost always have a diet soda in front of me.

I've tried a couple of times to cut back on the caffeine or stop altogether, but I have not succeeded. I tried Caffeine-Free Diet Code, but that didn't last - it didn't taste right at all (I know a lot of people say that about "regular" diet, but I could tell a difference), and it made me feel even more dehydrated. I've tried low-sugar drinks like Vitamin Water and Gatorade G2, and I was able to make some progress with them, but it didn't last. The diet soda is too easily found; if I don't have time to get anything else, I can always fall back on diet soda - and I fall back on it I gladly will.

I need to make a change. I realize this will take some time, but I'm sure it will be worth it.

So I've started searching for ideas that will help. I did some searching and came across a posting on Dumb Little Man about How to Give Up Coffee and Caffeine Altogether. It says to slowly replace coffee with caffeinated tea and to slowly move to decaffeinated tea. I'm not sure how well that will work for me because coffee isn't my main problem. I've noticed that simply making sure that I have a bottle of water in front of me helps - I'm used to having something to drink in front of me. But I don't think I can simply switch to water because I need something to replace the taste as well. Maybe the tea idea won't work for me, but I should be able to find something that will work for me.

Tomorrow morning I will look for something at my normal convenience store that might eventually replace diet soda.

It's the beginning of the end for caffeine and me.

“I Want It All…”

“…and I want it now!” –Queen

I’ve been thinking about patience, and this song by the rock band Queen – “I Want It All” – came to mind. The theme of this song is not patience. I think that someone with that attitude is going to be disappointed: he won’t get it “all” now, and whatever he does get, it won’t be “all.”

Impatience is associated with youth; patience is supposed to be easier as a person ages. But as I get older I don’t know that I’m getting more patient. I think I’m simply avoiding things that take a lot of time, focus and commitment.

As I look back over my life, I’ve always had a fear of commitment; I don’t think I’m unique in this – most people like having choices and commitment reduces choices. But over the last few years, I’ve added the inability to focus to my fear of commitment - I’ve become less able to focus on any one task for long. I don’t seem able to concentrate, partly due to a lack of patience.

I can trace the beginnings of my current mindset back to early 2006 to mid-2008; I coordinated a large project at work during that time. At the beginning of the project, I found myself getting bogged down in a lot of details. I had to learn to delegate. My boss at the time told me, “It’s not your job to do all the work. It’s your job to make sure the work gets done.” That helped a lot.

Once I learned to delegate, I came to like it because I could keep the big picture in mind without spending a lot of time on any one problem. This fit nicely with my fear of commitment – I could pass off time-consuming tasks on the legitimate grounds that I didn’t have time to do them.

But my current job – prototyping – involves spending a lot of time on problems so I need to change my mindset from “delegate”-mode to “problem-solving”-mode - getting down into the details is what I’m supposed to do. I need to remember that there is no one to delegate to anymore. Finding the best solutions is my job, even if those solutions take time.

Another side-effect of growing older is the perception that time is running out. When I’m focused on a task to the exclusion of all else, time goes quickly. Part of me doesn’t want time to go quickly. I’m afraid that if time goes quickly, I’ll look around and realize that my life has passed me by while I was busy. (See the song “Time Stand Still” by Rush.)

But at the same time, we have to keep moving; life is motion. I don’t want to be stagnant either. So I find myself in a dilemma: I don’t want life to go too fast, I’m impatient, I want to grow as a person, I don’t like focusing on one thing for long, and I don’t like commitment.

With that combination, my life should be filled with frustration. Maybe when I am old I’ll look back at my life and wonder why I didn’t focus more on worthwhile pursuits instead of being frustrated by my conflicting tendencies and desires. Or maybe I’ll be too lazy to care.

Information Overload

There is a lot of garbage on the Internet.
     I try to avoid it.

There is a lot of dumb stuff on the Internet.
     Occasionally humorous.

There is a lot of useless stuff on the Internet.
     I spent more time than I should being entertained by it.

There is a lot of interesting stuff on the Internet.
     I try to follow as much of it as I can.

There is a lot of very useful stuff.
     I don't have nearly enough time for all of it.

Here are a couple of examples of the later category:

The Top 50 Productivity Blogs Of The Year
50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills

I could - and probably will - spend a lot of time looking through these resources, looking for useful information.  But I doubt I will have time to go through all of it, maybe not even close.  And even if I could take it all in, how much could I absorb and apply?

Sometimes I despair of every mastering any subjects because I spent all my time barely scratching the surface of too many different topics.