Review

Habit List – Personal Commitments and Visual Management

| Mac

I struggle to keep up with my chores. I procrastinate. I spend my time practicing escapism rather than being productive. My nature of sensible hedonism could typically be expressed in pseudo Spanish as “mañana”. It’s terrible… I know.

I also know that I am, like most people, exceptionally malleable… just look at my visual management, willpower and weight loss post… it’s 5.5 months later and I’m still down 18.1 pounds, simply by weighing myself daily on a fancy, graph generating scale… scary!

But what to do about all those commitments I most recently refactored in my post on personal commitments, “The Speed of Trust”, and poster art? Is there something I can do to help with them? Fortuitously after a few search attempts I happened upon Habit List an inviting, balanced, skeuomorphism rich app.

Habit List elegantly adds visual management to your recurring to-do list. Red dots along the left margin indicate you are not delivering on your commitments. Green dot’s mean you are doing well. The number centred in the dots indicate how many times you’ve either made or missed your commitment in the current streak.

Each habit has its own exploded calendar view where details of your best streak, your current streak and your current completion rate are displayed. After just a week of using Habit List I’m addicted. Scratching items off the list feels rewarding. Daily reminders are much needed motivation and I’ve already grown my list of personal commitments. I am pleased to bestow 4.5 out of 5 stars on Habit List. There’s just one or two things missing.

Though the app has flexible scheduling options it’s still not enough. Working 9 out of 10 weekdays, and having some commitments that are only applicable when I am at home mean I either artificially pad or compress my streaks. I think there needs to be a “Not Applicable” option, perhaps only accessible from the calendar view, that allows the user to opt ad-hoc days out of the calculation of streaks for a specific habit. Also the ability to “snooze” reminders would help me procrastinate… I mean meet my commitments!

Habit List is well worth the $1.99. Do yourself a favour, get this app and start a routine of completion, you’ll be more productive and have fun while crossing things off your list.

The Happiness Project

| Mac

Irony is everywhere. When I started my continuing education Fine Arts Diploma Program (FADP), and this blog, it was in a mini rebellion against the self help industry. The Element with its tagline “How finding your passion changes everything” was the major culprit that made me look down my nose at this entire section of books and enrol in FADP instead. Of course as you know from my review of The Element, which I wrote immediately after reading the book an entire year after my initial shun; I loved it.

I stumbled upon another self help book that I devoured this weekend entitled The Happiness Project and I loved it too. This book is probably old news for anyone who is into these types of books but it resonated with me and I feel inclined to reflect on it and its implications for Exploring-Art.com, which in some light could be looked at as the brand for my own Happiness Project. The output of this rumination will be the subject of the next few rapid fire blog posts. I am splitting it up to keep the outpouring of ideas digestible. It is interesting that I had alluded to some change ideas brewing from Wordcamp Victoria and which now, post weekend read, have been significantly altered.

First we will start with why I loved the The Happiness Project, then in later posts we will talk about what it means for me and our adventures exploring art.

It’s personal

The author Gretchen Rubin bares her soul. She shares graphic details of her temper, her husband’s illness and also profound glimpses into her inner conflicts. It is really inspirational to see someone open themselves up to complete strangers in this very rare way.

It’s relatable

Her personal stories resonated with me so much because I found the material so relatable. I had struggled with these challenges and came to many of the same conclusions. Her advice was often it depends – your situation may be different, you may have different needs. All of our journeys are unique.

It’s practical

The books is brimming with practical advice of little things you can incorporate into your own Happiness Project without having to travel to an Ashram.

The Happiness Project was wonderful. If you’re at all interested in promoting happiness in yourself and thereby in others as well, go get this book! More coming soon on its implications for me and Exploring-Art.com.

RED – A review

| Mac

If you are in Victoria, Seattle or Vancouver and you are at all interested in theatre or Mark Rothko get yourself to the Vancouver Playhouse to see its production of RED before it ends February 4th.

My wife and I saw the play Friday January 20th, and the performance was outstanding. The two man show received an enthusiastic standing ovation from a not quite full crowd.

RED is writhing with dark humour, philosophy and poignant commentary on being human, art, and the perils of classification. I am not an art historian or well read about Rothko yet the general arc of the story was known to me. Even so, the playwright has managed to keep the play unpredictable and full of drama and suspense. The intermission free RED brushes past you at a perfect tempo, giving you enough time to reflect but not enough time to get restless.

For a play of this sort the set has incredible production values. Large canvases are used as props and curtains between acts.The use of light and the shadows cast by the actors are used to parallel the darkness in Rothko’s famous works both literally and symbolically. Rothko constantly smokes and drinks Johnny Walker, sometimes even offering a drink to his assistant. A record player is an important inanimate member of the cast that builds the atmosphere and sets the serious tone. The play creates an immense tension and tables some great philosophy with out being pretentious, obvious or boring.

Even if you have to travel to Vancouver go see RED. My wife and I just missed seeing it in NYC during our honeymoon two Septembers ago and I must say it was worth the wait. Don’t miss it, buy your tickets and make your plans today.

(The featured photo below is a no flash photo I took of a Rothko at the Abstract Expressionism exhibit at the MOMA in September 2010)