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What could I ask you that I can’t find on Wikipedia?
Fair question, Pigeon, you old left-brainer, you.
And I think it’s a really supportive gesture on your part to set this sort of precedent for the very first question on my new blog. Pitting my own limited knowledge/failing memory against the collective knowledge of virtually every know-it-all on the planet. Really setting me up for success.
The thing is, Penguin, you’ve got it confused. I am an authority on exactly nothing. But I LOVE gray area! Surely I can find my way around any old question Wiki can handle. I may not answer “correctly,” but I promise not to cheat and copy/paste from some other website that does have it right.
I’ll draw my answers from an obscure and underrated place; a form of intelligence Wiki editors would never tolerate. It’s called personal wisdom. (Which happens to be the source of all the tools and practices you’ll need for the successful implementation of Personal Management. But we’ll get to that later)
So, to answer your question, little pigeon. What can you ask me?
Anything!
What I like best is the title of this blog. Question: Why did you give it that title?
Question 2: Is it good for ADD?
Thank you.
Hi Anne,
Wow—exciting questions! Thanks for asking.
I’ll tell you, it was hard to come up with a title for this blog because, unlike a book or a script, the content that follows isn’t yet written. I had to be careful not to limit the possibility of what it could become based on an inappropriate title.
For example, if I had called it HorseBlog, it would be hard to justify writing a list of my favorite words, unless they were words like gallop, equine or side-saddle. But none of those are really my favorite words, so I don’t think having a horse blog would be very honest. If I had called it ListBlog, it would be hard to figure out where to include an essay. Unless, of course, I had two or three essays, and I listed them in a certain order. But if one is about how much I love horses and the next is about how much I hate horse-related vocabulary, I might be taken for a hypocrite.
Choosing an appropriate title seemed like a big responsibility. Whatever name I gave the blog, it would eventually assume that identity. Like Sophia Loren. How could you have a name like that and not eventually become a cinematic vixen? Although, sometimes the opposite is true. Like, China, Maine. It’s such an awkward combination of two things that, when juxtaposed, is neither one or the other. It just feels kind of gross. I don’t want my blog to turn out that way.
Even though I needed the freedom to discover what this blog is about over time, I felt that it should aspire to some sort of goal. The blog should feel worthwhile but expressive, satisfying both the practical and creative parts of me. I wanted a structure, but within it, anything would be allowed! I didn’t want to change the world, I just wanted to share my experience of it. And I was curious about how that would change over time. If I could somehow graph those changes, I would. But it’s likely I’d get the math wrong and the results would be totally misrepresented. Maybe someday a mathematician will make sense of it all, who knows. I’ll admit I was feeling satirical when I started brainstorming titles that sounded statistical and fact-based. But I got on a roll and suddenly math seemed fun! During this brainstorm, I came up with the following titles:
Status Report
PMS Blue Book
Indefensible Polarities
Modicum of decorum
None were quite right. I kept thinking. I was really relieved when I finally came up with “Trends in Personal Management” because just before it came, look where my brainstorm list had gone:
BreakDown
Emergency Exit
Between Here and There
I have no idea why these titles came to my brain, but aren’t you glad I didn’t choose one of them?
I’m happy that my blog is called “Trends in Personal Management” because it sounds like something I want to stick around for, and find out what it will become. Maybe you agree, Anne, and that’s why you said your favorite thing [so far] about this blog is the title.
*I added the “so far” because that’s my wish.
And now for Answer 2:
If you’re wondering whether tracking your own management (or managing your own person) is good for channeling your attention into one activity that keeps you focused for hours, thus “being good for ADD” then, yes, it is.
If you’re wondering whether reading a blog entitled “Trends in Personal Management” will help ease your distractible tendencies through some vague, vicarious means, based on the suggestion of it’s title. Then, No. I’m sorry. It most certainly won’t help. It will only make it worse.
Sincerely,
Emma