Geoff Holden

I’m easily distracted. OK I’ve said it. But now lets add some restrictions. I don’t get distracted by TV, music, people talking close by, etc. I get distracted by (what could be) interesting or useful projects.

Right now my priority is supposed to be (and really is) the background reading for my masters’ research, and the coursework that I have to do.

Now, distractions… What’s really interesting is that I don’t get distracted from my distractions. I realized this (again) when I spent many hours over the last couple of days looking for a web calendar that would meet the needs I laid out in my Internet Dependence post, going as far as trying some and attempting to judge how much work would be involved in adding a few features to them. After not finding anything acceptable, but having a few ideas, I’m very tempted to just start building the application from scratch (probably taking some code from some other open source projects). But I need to show some restraint, as I have other things in the queue as well.

Currently in the queue, there are a few side-projects in various stages of completeness:

• A program for numbering tickets, forms, etc. for digital printing (this is pretty much done)
• A database backend & HTML/CSS frontend for an upcoming history section for the IEEE Newfoundland & Labrador Section website
• A good web-interface for reading Tellico collections (so I wouldn’t have to write out a web page every time I update the database
• This web-based calendaring application
• Any talks I give to the St. John’s Linux Users Group
• I may have a hand in building a conference management system
• …and any other ideas that pop into my head.

I have to now show some restraint and not let things which may be more interesting (right now) take time away from things which should have priority, or which have deadlines.