No blog yesterday. Things were rather off nominal, and I didn't quite get around to writing something.
At the weekend, I dived into a deep Satisfactory hole. Satisfactory is a logistics game about building, yes, factories on an alien planet. Those logistics style strategy-type games are a big brain trap for me. Sometimes in a nice way -- in that I find them utterly absorbing in a way that soothes and pleases my brain. But also in a negative way, where I find it hard to think about or do anything else.
I think I have a weekend like this once or twice a year where I just... play a game like that. And then the feeling passes, and it's mostly a positive experience. Still, I got to Sunday night feeling a bit... underprepared. Like all the carefully-stacked boxes in my head had all been cleared away. Which, on the one hand, was quite welcome -- it deals with the clutter! But I did have this feeling of absence, like I was missing stuff that I was probably going to need.
My Sunday morning process//ritual is one of the best things I've ever instituted. I have a checklist that I work down to get my head around the week ahead, going through the calendar, planning, making sure I know what's what and making any last-minute adjustments. This also involves filling in the big whiteboard on my wall.
It has an immense practical function, obviously. Spending even 30 minutes or so just delving in to what to expect from the week is really valuable. But what's also valuable is the feeling of control that it gives. I feel like I can relax more over the weekend and not worry about what's coming up, because there is an appointed time to address that.
I think this double-benefit is true of a lot of my little processes and systems: there's the obvious, practical benefit of actually doing the organisational work or whatever -- but there's also the bonus that you don't have to spend attention worrying about that outside of the appointed time for it. Assuming the system is well set up and working as intended, obviously.