Books read in January 2021

New:

1. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss with Tahl Raz

2. Feeding My Mother: Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives with Memory Loss by Jann Arden

Reread:

1. Divided in Death

Things They Should Invent: all bathrooms must be completely slip-proof

A household accident that often has devastating results, especially for elders, is slipping and falling in the bathroom. 

 

And one of the things I dread most about eventually having to go into long-term care is that you aren't allowed to bathe unsupervised because of the risk of slipping and falling.

(Which literally adds insult to injury, because some people end up in long-term care because of a broken hip caused by slipping and falling in the bathroom!)

 

 

Both of these problems could be solved by making 100% of bathrooms completely slip-proof. Floors, tubs, showers, everything!

 

 

At this point, you might be thinking "surfaces become slippery when wet - it's just basic physics!"

 

But since time immemorial, humans have been inventing things to defy the laws of physics.

We have devices that allow us to see in the dark even without a light source. 

Most modern kitchens contain a device that will heat food without becoming warm to the touch itself.

 

We've had a device that makes it possible to safely jump out of an airplane and land unharmed since long before we even had airplanes.  

 

Surfaces becoming slippery when wet is just another physics challenge that human innovation should be able to overcome.

 

 

Googling around this idea, I did find bathroom tiles that purport to be slip-proof. 

 

However, the fact of the matter is that people still slip and fall in bathrooms, and bathing alone is still seen as an unacceptable risk for elders in care. So either the existing slip-proof tiles are not sufficiently slip-proof or they aren't being used and slippery tiles are being used instead.

 

In either case, this needs to be fixed. All bathrooms should systematically and without exception be slip-proof. Just like how all cars have seatbelts by default, all bathrooms need to be slip-proof by default.

 

It would be a vast improvement to everyone's quality of life and, if we need an economic argument, will significantly reduce medical costs.

Vaccine conspiracy theory conspiracy theory

If I were to assemble the elements of the current situation into a conspiracy theory, that theory would be that people in positions of power were contributing to the spread of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and/or not working to debunk these theories to create conditions where those in positions of power would have to be at the front of the line for any vaccine roll-out in order to set an example.

If vaccine reluctance wasn't a thing, there would be no reason to vaccinate politicians and public figures ahead of front-line workers, health workers, food workers, etc. But now that vaccine reluctance is a thing, politicians and public figures can very publicly go straight to the front of the vaccine queue, be photographed getting their vaccine, and be lauded for setting a good example.

My 2021 new year's resolution

 I hadn't been planning on making a resolution, but a simple and useful one came to me a couple of weeks ago:

While the coffee brews, I'll do something I've been procrastinating.

Normally, while the coffee is brewing, I stare blankly at the internet doing nothing - after all, I can't do anything productive when I haven't had my coffee yet!

So now, instead of doing nothing, I'll do something I've been procrastinating. Something small, because it doesn't take that long for coffee to brew. Empty the dishwasher. Break down a cardboard box for recycling. Make an online purchase.

Since it doesn't take very long for coffee to brew, I might not finish my task. I might just empty one rack of the dishwasher, or just manage to remove the tape from the box, or just add one item to my cart. That's okay. I can stop when the coffee is ready. Or I can keep up the momentum, whatever feels right in the moment.

This works well for me for several reasons:

1. I respond well to "sprints" - working full-out at a task until some external phenomenon interrupts me. (Yes, I've heard of the pomodoro method. No, it hasn't solved all my life problems.) Coffee brewing time is the perfect length for a sprint.

2. This doesn't require any additional time commitment. Not even the infamous "just 15 minutes a day!" Coffee brewing time was previously unused dead time, and I've found a way to make use of it.

3. It helps me address the things that fall through the cracks in my system. Some things pile up because there isn't a place for them in my system (which I never managed to figure out how to reboot), or because there isn't enough room for them in my system. This lets me make progress on those things without having to figure out how to revamp the system, or having to take the emotional risk of completely disregarding the system.

4. There are no specific "shoulds" or tacit prerequisites on my "to do while the coffee brews" list. Part of the problem with my system is I've inadvertently imposed prerequisites on myself. I keep falling into a trap of "I can't do the thing that really needs doing because the system dictates that I have to do other things first!" (Unfortunately, removing prerequisites isn't sufficient to fix the system and sometimes would bring its own problems.) But while the coffee brews, anything that needs doing meets the requirements.

I've been doing this for a few weeks already, and have made a noticeable dent in my tangible and mental to-do piles. (If you could see my piles, you'd be like "That's an after picture???" and the answer is yes, it is.) We'll see if it's enough to affect my quality of life in the long run.