D.R. Cootey 🧠

I live in a dreamy ADHD fog, but it's fun there.

Blogging A Splintered Mind since 2005. Wrote some books and stuff, too.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Going out for a walk in the wilds of Mira. I may not be back for a while.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

@Grummz The shame is so many devs were obnoxious browbeaters & cultural tyrants, silencing gamers when they could, then blaming gamers for their own failures, that they’ve used up what little good will ppl had left.

But remember, if you cheer their passing, you are the monster. 🙄

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Xenoblade ChroniclesX for the Switch 2 arrived today. It’s not much different than the version released for the Switch last year except the graphics are astounding. So much better than the Wii U graphics.

I hear there have been changes made with the release on the Switch, but it begins similarly enough. It’s been eleven years since the Wii U version. I never finished the game. I got lost out in the weeds exploring and collecting. I have no regrets about that. I had a lot of fun. It was one of my favorite games on the Wii U, but I’ll try to stay better focused this time.

For now, laundry, work, and life call, so I’ve put the game aside. I’ll have to sink in deeper later today.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

@roikfbuwgc254 @SuturesSelf It used to be quite tasty, but the recipe has been whittled away at over the years to cut costs, and now it’s as unmemorable as it is unhealthy.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

As I plod through my day and lean on my journal to keep me on track, I find myself winded again. Little stamina means I need to make wise choices about how I spend my time, but I grow tired of “important” things eating the time of the side projects that will lift me higher.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

@TMZ Sidney Sweeney is topless, sucks a pacifier, wears a diaper, spreads her legs for the camera, and ppl online blame a Jew. Some of you have got to pull your heads out. Sweeney owns this.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

@ShamashAran I don't know what's worse: the AI or the fake harmonic playing! 😅 But "stupid hilarious" is a good description.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Putting each idea through a gauntlet to determine its value is a great idea, as is doing all of this on a separate piece of paper and not in your actual journal—all of which I have done before.

It’s fascinating to discover how similar our own solutions are to those that are promoted as the best solutions. However, somewhere along the way we diverged. I’m curious to find that fork in the road. Will the different path he took be compatible with my way of thinking?

For now, I have written a new list of should dos. It’s expansive. There is no way on earth I will have time to do it all. Putting them through the gauntlet is necessary.

However, writing these down has taxed me cognitively, so the gauntlet will have to wait. Time for a brain break.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Instead of watching Ghost Whisperer reruns while laying on the couch, feeling miserable, I decided to dust off The Bullet Journal Method and see if I could gain any new insights.

The current chapter is on Decision Fatigue—a real problem for all—but which now exhausts me physically thanks to my medical condition. Since I’m pruning my storage mess every day, I’m also exhausting myself every day.

I’ve done mental inventories before, as recommended here, where I wrote everything out that I felt I should be working on. Then I sorted it into what I was working on versus what I needed to be working on versus what I WANTED to be working on. (The wanted column never gets any love.) Will The Bullet Journal Method give me tools to conquer this issue?

When I blogged about it, I referred to the issue as Too Many Irons Syndrome. My solution has always been to eradicate all but the most important projects, but I’m usually left with what shouts at me the loudest every day instead of living purposefully with intent. This means that I’m productive, but at the cost of self-actualization and personal pursuits. It’s not satisfying.

It’s been a while since I’ve trusted somebody else to intrude their ideas into my working space. Many people have great ideas, but they aren’t great for me.

It reminds me of that time when I read a book about dictating your story ideas. It’s a process that works for a lot of high output authors. I had tried dictating stories years before, but I just ended up with two shoeboxes filled with cassette tapes loaded with ideas and fragments of ideas. I was hoping this book would show how to manage that jumble of cassettes and/or digital audio clips.

The TOC didn’t seem to address the problem, however, and a flip through the rest of the book didn’t reveal any solutions either. When I had a chance to describe my issue to the author, he interrupted me and tersely said “Read the book”. I tried to explain the problem again, and he interrupted me again. “Read the book.” He wouldn’t respond to my question. He wouldn’t even let me finish my question. It was a disappointing experience.

Perhaps he and his co-author only dictate one book at a time. Perhaps they never have mixed ideas on a tape or file. But I have ADHD like a kaleidoscope of butterflies in a field of wild flowers. Not only did I have shoeboxes of dictated tapes that I might as well just throw out because they were so disorganized, I also had folders and folders of digital transcriptions. Knowing how to transcribe wasn’t my problem. I’d been doing it for decades. My problem was more fundamental: organization.

With that in mind, I wonder how Ryder Carroll‘s journal system will fit with my own issues. I’m more optimistic about this book and this experience because he also deals with ADHD. We’re not all the same, but perhaps there are some kernels of wisdom that will help me tailor a system that helps control the chaos of my mind.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Instead of watching Ghost Whisperer reruns while laying on the couch, feeling miserable, I decided to dust off The Bullet Journal Method and see if I could gain any new insights.

The current chapter is on Decision Fatigue—a real problem for all—but which now exhausts me physically thanks to my medical condition. Since I’m pruning my storage mess every day, I’m also exhausting myself every day.

I’ve done mental inventories before, as recommended here, where I wrote everything out that I felt I should be working on. Then I sorted it into what I was working on versus what I needed to be working on versus what I WANTED to be working on. (The wanted column never gets any love.) Will The Bullet Journal Method give me tools to conquer this issue?

When I blogged about it, I referred to the issue as Too Many Irons Syndrome. My solution has always been to eradicate all but the most important projects, but I’m usually left with what shouts at me the loudest every day instead of living purposefully with intent. This means that I’m productive, but at the cost of self-actualization and personal pursuits. It’s not satisfying.

It’s been a while since I’ve trusted somebody else to intrude their ideas into my working space. Many people have great ideas, but they aren’t great for me.

It reminds me of that time when I read a book about dictating your story ideas. It’s a process that works for a lot of high output authors. I had tried dictating stories years before, but I just ended up with two shoeboxes filled with cassette tapes loaded with ideas and fragments of ideas. I was hoping this book would show how to manage that jumble of cassettes and/or digital audio clips.

The TOC didn’t seem to address the problem, however, and a flip through the rest of the book didn’t reveal any solutions either. When I had a chance to describe my issue to the author, he interrupted me and tersely said “Read the book”. I tried to explain the problem again, and he interrupted me again. “Read the book.” He wouldn’t respond to my question. He wouldn’t even let me finish my question. It was a disappointing experience.

Perhaps he and his co-author only dictate one book at a time. Perhaps they never have mixed ideas on a tape or file. But I have ADHD like a kaleidoscope of butterflies in a field of wild flowers. Not only did I have shoeboxes of dictated tapes that I might as well just throw out because they were so disorganized, I also had folders and folders of digital transcriptions. Knowing how to transcribe wasn’t my problem. I’d been doing it for decades. My problem was more fundamental: organization.

With that in mind, I wonder how Ryder Carroll‘s journal system will fit with my own issues. I’m more optimistic about this book and this experience because he also deals with ADHD. We’re not all the same, but perhaps there are some kernels of wisdom that will help me tailor a system that helps control the chaos of my mind.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

One thing I have in common with the Bullet Journal Method is incorporating task lists—action lists, as he calls them—into my journaling. Been doing it for years.

Lately, I tried out a small form journal because it was cheap and I couldn’t find my nice Leuchturm 1917 journal at the time. The smaller factor means I opine and ponder less. It’s not very exciting writing, or as cathartic, but having my process journal and ToDo lists together in my pocket has been helpful.

This entry reflects how weary I am of being sick for almost a week. My sleep schedule has been shot up like an outhouse in a ghost town, but by jotting down a small group of tasks, I could shuffle through them at a steady pace without getting fatigued or discouraged. In lieu of mental focus, task lists are a vital coping strategy for me.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

It’s a rough day today. May have picked up something when I took my daughter to the InstaCare. How’s your Saturday going?

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

I gained users during the bot purge, so I guess I’m doing okeh. Would be nice if some of them engaged with my posts, tho’. That’s part of the point of 𝕏.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

@nikitabier Any plans to let us leave voice posts on our timeline?

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Testing out Voice Notes on XChat. Works well. I’d love to be able to leave audio recordings for X posts instead. There’s still a hole in my heart where Utterz used to be.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

@nichegamer I still remember the original fondly. I spent hours exploring the ocean on my shiny new PS One.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

It’s been over two weeks since my car lost its sudden jousting competition with two mule deer. In a few hours, it will be ready for battle again. I’ll happily take gridlock and rude drivers over doofus deer any day.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Tonight I tossed two boxes of VHS tapes, one box of FireWire & Mini USB cables, and I found that box of CPAP supplies that’s been missing since before the move. I precooked several days of food, and labeled and stored away five other pruned boxes. It was a productive day.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Pruning decades’ worth of boxes calls for short working sessions when dealing with ADHD & Long COVID. It also helps to have a healthy sense of humor. I’m discovering the oddest things.

Anybody interested in a sealed, VHS copy of The Santa Clause?

Why do I have this? Why is it still unopened after 31 years‽ What will I play these on? 😅

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Scaremongering never stops being laughable in hindsight.

[𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @CharlesCMann]

Ouch! Researchers find many previous measurements of microplastics in environment may have been accidentally inflated by microplastics coming off their own lab gloves. "Contact w/ nitrile and latex gloves can cause overestimations of microplastics (~2K false positives /mm2)."

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

It’s been a warm and pleasant Easter Sunday spent at home with my daughter. General Conference has been filled with uplifting messages about the life, gospel, and resurrection of Christ. It’s been an edifying day.

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Been sick this weekend, which meant Pokémon FireRed was just my speed. I sacrificed a starter in my Japanese LeafGreen to trade over, then did it again for the dex.

I am learning how to read these menus in Japanese, but decades of playing Pokémon means that I have all those slots memorized as English instead. I’ll work at it. It’ll come to me. もっと勉強します！

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

Thought I’d unwind with Pokémon FireRed on my Switch 2. It’s been fun playing this version of the game. Then I hit Misty’s gym…

[D.R. Cootey 🧠 @SplinteredMind]

It probably wasn’t worth the effort, but with a bunch of SRs, I caught Abra while watching a documentary on YouTube. It’s fascinating how different FireRed is. I remember Abra being easier to catch in Yellow using this technique https://t.co/tPAEW22ZRC #pokemon