Good morning from the Foster-Powell Triangle, where I'm deep into December. December is always when I start thinking about what went good every year, what sucked, and how I can do a better job of keeping things clear at work and life. This stuff has been the main focus in my morning notes the last few days (see below for my morning process), and I thought I would share them. This is one of those "Misha talks about tools again" moon memos. If you're looking for sex and dancing, you'll need to wait until I stop feeling so shitty about my body.

Anyway, I love you all, and I hope you are doing well.

Getting shit done 2025-2026

So I'm doing the usual thing at the end of the year where I'm starting to evaluate the different ways that I get shit done. I do this every year. Even if things are going well, i start tinkering. Mostly because I'm bored. mostly because I am obsessed with making sure I don't forget things. So, with that in mind, let's talk about the new system.

Capture: - All in digitally with Obsidian. Cross platform. I own the data. BUT I'm not allowed to download it on the work computer, which means I have... - Google doc in browser window. This syncs amazingly, and any Outside of Work thoughts that I have can be shared on there, and any work related stuff that I think of on the home and blackbook can be shared to the work computer easily. - Drafts on phone. Easy to capture something there, and send it where it needs to go. - Field notes for analog capture. Always in the fanny pack with pens. - Also the work notebook, which I don't use very much. - 4 plaintext notes on work computer: - Working Memory (for stuff I need to remember on the regular) - Today (for taking scratch notes, or to just work on shit. Nothing precious. You just want to be able to play around without it becoming permanent.) - Personal: for personal venting. - Project: for work on specific projects, or things I have to remember.

Planning and Tracking: - analog in a date book. Right now, I have one of those field notes bigger notebooks that they made for subscribers, the paint one. I've cut and pasted some calendar sheets in there, and then use a big sticky note to do todo lists. I like doing my planning analog because it doesn't feel as permanent, and it helps me to remember it. I have a field notes datebook coming, but I don't know if I'm going to use it. A bit too bulky. And a bit too permanent. If I run out of the current notebook, I can easily use a Mead composition book. - Dates are by 2 months. Cut and tape into the notebook. - Outlook calendar is for meetings ONLY. Just so I can see what is happening that day. The datebook is for What Actually Needs To Get Done on What Day. - Daily To do list is now Microsoft to do. I get it free from work. It's a checklist. It's easy. I like having that on the screens I'm working on. Paper=broad view. Digital checklist=granular, specifics. - Weekly to do is on yellow extra large sticky in the date book. Just the running list of projects that are in progress. Helps keep things done. Helps me see what is done, and what's coming up.

File management: - Personal: Dropbox. The same file formats I've used for years. Don't break something that you are already using. If it works, stick with it. Syncs between two personal computers, and phone. - Work: Microsoft cloud (what's it called? One Drive. That's right). - DON'T LOCAL SAVE ANYTHING! It's all gotta be in onedrive so it works on both the work and home computer. And also so you don't lose it when the computers eventually bork.

Work/Life balance: - No more work calendar or email on phone. - Teams but just so I can communicate when I'm on-Site, and so I can be away from my desk and people can get to me. - Keeping two phones with me is a pain in the ass. But I think I need to get rid of even teams so I can keep things balanced. Just use the damn work phone. - To dos I keep on the phone, just so I can input things when I think of them.

Do the work now so you can slack later.

Slacking off is the greatest thing in the world. It's what keeps us trying to better ourselves. It's what makes us human.

"that was horrible. How can I do things so I never have to do that again?" This is the key to efficiency.

Morning routine:

Get up at about 4:50 a.m. during the week, about 6:30 on the weekend. Pee. Go into the studio, and sit on the love seat.

First thing in the morning I check my RSS feed (Readwise Reader, on the iPad), and read the news from the day before. I'm not on algorhythmic social media at all anymore, except to post a poem or photo on instagram. I made the decision to do that last year, during the course of my depression, when the feed became all Trump all the time again. No one learned anything from the brain worming of 2017-2020, I guess.

RSS is mostly comic book news, some websites that I love, and a few news newsletters.

How do I handle news? I have 4 different summaries come to me in the morning:

What the fuck just happened today: https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com

Next Draft: https://nextdraft.com/

OPB first look: https://www.opb.org/firstlook/

Portland Mercury https://www.portlandmercury.com/collections/39943533/good-morning-news

I also read the headlines in wikipedia's current events page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events

If you want to know what's going on in a different part of the world than the US, I highly recommend the wikipedia Current Events Page. It shows what's going on outside of this hellscape.

These help me to be informed, but also not lose my mind. Just know what's going on. You don't have to let it infect your mind as a constant blip every day. You also don't have to learn your news on bluesky, where everyone loses their minds for a little bit, bring up their opinions, and yell at each other (I thought we were post twitter? I don't need people's opinions infecting me every morning).

Old woman reading the paper.

I also check in on my different private chats (the good morning/good night chat; the sadgirls; the wrestling girls in Seattle; instagram to see how many people liked my poem because I'm an addict).

I then move over to the laptop. It's already set up every night so that Obsidian (text editor of choice) is opened up. I have it so I can have a new today document open with a push of a button, one with a section called Prose, and another with a section called poem. Then I free write for about 30 minutes. This goes all over the place. Sometimes it's something like this: an examination of my systems, a way to decide if I'm doing it right, if I'm doing it right, if I'm doing it right.

And then my emotions and skill show up, and something shaped like a poem happens. Output of emotion and obsession. Of doing the same thing daily.

Then I cut and paste the poem draft (first thought best thought) into libreoffice (.docx), Save it into Dropbox, Screencapture it if I'm going to share, and send it to the sadgirls, to instagram, to Elodie, then I print the poem, put it on the pile of printed poems (a good way to see with my eyes that I'm writing on the regular), and make an X on my paper calendar (x the date if I write a poem, circle it if I write anything but it doesn't become a poem, leave it blank if I do nothing. I never do nothing. Don't break the chain). And then I go make coffee. I've done the most important thing for the day.

And I do this every morning. It's why I get up so early. I give the first hour or two of the day to this so I can be my own person. The poem is my emotional life.