Mark Bult Design: San Francisco, CA, Established 1988

Web design and development for small and large business, e-commerce, b2b, b2c, SAAS, and community websites. User experience design and usability testing.


Wednesday, February 13, 2008

What I've been doing

Despite what you might think, it's not all fun and games now that I don't have a full-time gig anymore.

If you know me well, you know I've always been obsessively busy with dozens of little projects (and some not-so-little ones). On top of that, having a full-time job for the past several years has often left me so tired by the end of each day that lots of little things had piled up that I wanted to do, but didn't generally have the energy or time to accomplish after a full day's work.

So now I get to do those things. And there are a lot of them. I haven't even finished listing them all. But here's some of the ones I've already been doing in my first three weeks as a free man.
  • Making lists.
  • Blogging more.
  • Calling the car insurance people.
  • Looking up sections of the California vehicle code online (to no avail).
  • Resigning myself to the fact that I have to go to the DMV.
  • Going to Berkeley to buy a used laptop for Velma's dad.
  • Picking up a specific kind of powdered milk at an obscure Indian grocery.
  • Sleeping as late as I like.
  • Listening to NPR.
  • Planning all sorts of things and putting them on my calendar (I have more stuff on my calendar now than I did the last three months of my job!).
  • Posting photos to the photoblog.
  • Developing specs for the Western Front News project.
  • Designing an entirely new blog template.
  • Trying to figure out some weird WordPress behaviors.
  • Having coffee with Holly to hear about her latest projects.
  • Going through enormous mounds of little pieces of paper that have all manor of things written on them that I meant to do when I had time; and doing them, little by little.
  • Writing a how-to.
  • Moving tens of thousands of MP3s onto a new drive so I can consolidate multiple iTunes libraries.
  • Reading some of the magazines that have been piling up for 9 months.
  • Updating my address book.
  • Working on my portfolio.
  • Fighting a losing battle with the spammers.
  • Drawing.
  • Researching all kinds of things online.
  • Writing reviews.
  • Organizing my LP records.
  • Going through my Ozzy collection.
  • Making a photobook.
  • Watching DVDs.
  • Designing an ad or two.
  • Organizing my fonts.
  • Updating the Mac Mini to Leopard.
  • Organizing all my Ozark Handspun files.
  • Posting BAA photos to Flickr.
  • Reading the gas meter.
  • Paying bills.
  • Consolidating accounts and passwords.
  • Taking more photos.
  • Petting the cat. A lot.
  • Downloading.
  • Uploading.
  • Reviewing scans.
  • Organizing my photos (digital and otherwise).
  • Checking out new software.
  • Consolidating all my notes from three computers on one.
  • Figuring out a backup strategy.
  • Sneezing (damn allergies).
  • Eating bagels.
  • Doing laundry (okay, only once so far).
  • Reading books.
  • Letting the cat in and out several times a day.
  • Reorganizing my bookshelves a bit.
  • Fitting all my stuff from the CNET office in the home office.
  • Stirring the sourdough starter.
  • Taking the car down to Los Gatos for storage again.
  • Doing taxes.
  • Updating my knowledge about the state of green design (and attending a conference about it).
  • Organizing my drawers.
  • Trimming trees.

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Posted by espd at 6:34 AM | 
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