In this post, I’d like to explore the completed project that led to the not-so-humble-brag that in turn led to creating this blog. That project was organizing my digital media (photographs and videos) collection.
This project was massive. Imagine all pictures from 2000 (when I graduated High School) to the current day. Almost 20 years of memories. I needed to consolidate from Facebook, my iPhone, Flickr, Dropbox, and multiple external drives. It included a total of 30,262 assets in total topping out at almost 64 GB. The result had every asset in three different locations, with two of those on separate physical hard drives that I owned and one stored in the cloud. Each asset was categorized by year first, then by top-tier category (I.E., Family Pictures, Hikes, Beach Days, etc.) if possible, then the event, then by day(s).
Finishing this at the end of 2018 felt like such an accomplishment because I could start my 2019 folder with a completely clean slate.
This project is something that I had been trying to do for years. I used to fancy myself as an amateur photographer. I wasn’t that great, but I enjoyed it regardless. My focus was on documenting the experiences with the right stream of photos and then trying to find the right composition to tell the story most entertainingly. Post-production was an afterthought; however, figuring out an effective way of distributing and sharing these images was front and center. What good was it to create these storylines if I was the only one who ever saw them?
Asset sharing even inspired me to create the very first website I built: a photo sharing website. The time was back when Facebook was only available to a select number of colleges, the term selfie didn't exist, only “geeks” had quality cameras, and photo sharing wasn’t widespread. There were sites out there that could share pictures, but they were pretty rudimentary. So was mine. It was built only to distribute my photos to my friends and family. I took asset sharing very serious.
During those early years, I had all my media files organized on the website. Eventually, I decided maintaining a subpar site was pointless when the public photo sharing sites and their accompanying social networks were mastering their craft. I turned off my site, and my media collection essentially scattered. Seems counterintuitive but by releasing control of my content, I was at the whim of these 3rd party companies. They would turn off features, change their pricing plans, modify their cap limits, or go out of business. Each website or social network organized their media in different ways along with having different types of metadata. It became chaos. It was a bit discouraging, but with so many other priorities in life, the scattering just continued.
Once I started my Boredom is my Goal philosophy, I decided this was one of the first projects I wanted to tackle. I had tried starting it a few times in the last couple of years and each time never got past the first session of organizing. It was just too monumental, too tedious, and too boring. This time it would be different.
Don’t get me wrong. Reminiscing over all the memories and experiences is entertaining. It’s both uplifting but also a moment of somber reflection. Thinking back on all of the good times, but also all the times that could have gone much better. Regardless of how much fun that might be, looking through and cataloging tens of thousands of photos is downright exhausting and boring.
Which brings me to how Boredom is my Goal worked on multiple levels to accomplish this task. Not only did it help me focus on this project for an extended period, but it also found a way to make it fun. Let me explain.
When I came up with the “Boredom is my Goal” phrase, I googled it. What I found was a lot of articles talking about how to overcome boring tasks, how to power through them, how to embrace them knowing that only by getting through them could you achieve something great. Let me tell you, all of that is bull. That implies you should numb your mind so that you can get past it.
I didn’t realize it until after I completed this project, but this Boredom is my Goal turned those tedious, painful, and boring tasks into an exciting break. What would be more fun? Staring at a wall for 15-30 minutes each day, or cataloging digital pictures? I choose the latter. When compared to being in my chasm of Boredom, it was outright exciting. And since I’m a husband and father with all these unignorable distractions, taking a break to catalog digital files was my peace and relaxation. When my alternative was staring at a wall, five minutes, 30 minutes, sometimes even a few hours of supposed tedious tasks was appealing.
I look back, and if I hadn’t adopted this new philosophy, this attempt at completing this project probably would have failed like all of my previous efforts. Crazy if I think about it. If I had followed the advice of other productivity experts, I would have found some excuse to bail. But now I was thrilled to be working on it and would be discouraged when life happened, and I would be forced to take an extended break from the project.
This conquering of boring tasks has even spread to different areas of my life. Household chores (laundry, dishes, etc.), cleaning, and also tidying up is a much-avoided task in my household. With both parents working full time and three kids, that was frequently a contentious topic. Now, I usually look forward to it. Sometimes I might be exhausted and just tapped out, but often I’m excited to have an important task (having a clean and tidy house is very important to me) to break the boredom.
It was satisfying realizing this fact, some gravy to go along with this philosophy both in helping to accomplish major projects but also in those day to day tasks.
(Written 2019.01.05)
This project was massive. Imagine all pictures from 2000 (when I graduated High School) to the current day. Almost 20 years of memories. I needed to consolidate from Facebook, my iPhone, Flickr, Dropbox, and multiple external drives. It included a total of 30,262 assets in total topping out at almost 64 GB. The result had every asset in three different locations, with two of those on separate physical hard drives that I owned and one stored in the cloud. Each asset was categorized by year first, then by top-tier category (I.E., Family Pictures, Hikes, Beach Days, etc.) if possible, then the event, then by day(s).
Finishing this at the end of 2018 felt like such an accomplishment because I could start my 2019 folder with a completely clean slate.
This project is something that I had been trying to do for years. I used to fancy myself as an amateur photographer. I wasn’t that great, but I enjoyed it regardless. My focus was on documenting the experiences with the right stream of photos and then trying to find the right composition to tell the story most entertainingly. Post-production was an afterthought; however, figuring out an effective way of distributing and sharing these images was front and center. What good was it to create these storylines if I was the only one who ever saw them?
Asset sharing even inspired me to create the very first website I built: a photo sharing website. The time was back when Facebook was only available to a select number of colleges, the term selfie didn't exist, only “geeks” had quality cameras, and photo sharing wasn’t widespread. There were sites out there that could share pictures, but they were pretty rudimentary. So was mine. It was built only to distribute my photos to my friends and family. I took asset sharing very serious.
During those early years, I had all my media files organized on the website. Eventually, I decided maintaining a subpar site was pointless when the public photo sharing sites and their accompanying social networks were mastering their craft. I turned off my site, and my media collection essentially scattered. Seems counterintuitive but by releasing control of my content, I was at the whim of these 3rd party companies. They would turn off features, change their pricing plans, modify their cap limits, or go out of business. Each website or social network organized their media in different ways along with having different types of metadata. It became chaos. It was a bit discouraging, but with so many other priorities in life, the scattering just continued.
Once I started my Boredom is my Goal philosophy, I decided this was one of the first projects I wanted to tackle. I had tried starting it a few times in the last couple of years and each time never got past the first session of organizing. It was just too monumental, too tedious, and too boring. This time it would be different.
Don’t get me wrong. Reminiscing over all the memories and experiences is entertaining. It’s both uplifting but also a moment of somber reflection. Thinking back on all of the good times, but also all the times that could have gone much better. Regardless of how much fun that might be, looking through and cataloging tens of thousands of photos is downright exhausting and boring.
Which brings me to how Boredom is my Goal worked on multiple levels to accomplish this task. Not only did it help me focus on this project for an extended period, but it also found a way to make it fun. Let me explain.
When I came up with the “Boredom is my Goal” phrase, I googled it. What I found was a lot of articles talking about how to overcome boring tasks, how to power through them, how to embrace them knowing that only by getting through them could you achieve something great. Let me tell you, all of that is bull. That implies you should numb your mind so that you can get past it.
I didn’t realize it until after I completed this project, but this Boredom is my Goal turned those tedious, painful, and boring tasks into an exciting break. What would be more fun? Staring at a wall for 15-30 minutes each day, or cataloging digital pictures? I choose the latter. When compared to being in my chasm of Boredom, it was outright exciting. And since I’m a husband and father with all these unignorable distractions, taking a break to catalog digital files was my peace and relaxation. When my alternative was staring at a wall, five minutes, 30 minutes, sometimes even a few hours of supposed tedious tasks was appealing.
I look back, and if I hadn’t adopted this new philosophy, this attempt at completing this project probably would have failed like all of my previous efforts. Crazy if I think about it. If I had followed the advice of other productivity experts, I would have found some excuse to bail. But now I was thrilled to be working on it and would be discouraged when life happened, and I would be forced to take an extended break from the project.
This conquering of boring tasks has even spread to different areas of my life. Household chores (laundry, dishes, etc.), cleaning, and also tidying up is a much-avoided task in my household. With both parents working full time and three kids, that was frequently a contentious topic. Now, I usually look forward to it. Sometimes I might be exhausted and just tapped out, but often I’m excited to have an important task (having a clean and tidy house is very important to me) to break the boredom.
It was satisfying realizing this fact, some gravy to go along with this philosophy both in helping to accomplish major projects but also in those day to day tasks.
(Written 2019.01.05)
