I had a lovely (and sunny!) weekend, which was ended this morning by someone four-footed and furry purring, very loudly, into my ear. Which means something along the line of "Get up, lazy human, it's time to give me treats!" Being a good human, this is just what I did.

Last week's first try at using the pomodoro technique was interesting and, actually, quite successful, so I will be keeping on with that. I did appreciate the breaks much, much more (especially the lunch break, being longer than the long pomodoro breaks), and it made me realise how much time is spent by all those just-a-minute-breaks inbetween, reading just one post on facebook or taking just one look at this or that. So. If it continues in that line, I will be very content.

There's one modification that I had from the start, though: The original technique wants you to concentrate on one task during the pomo, from start to finish. My goal is just to work through the whole time, no distracting myself with something else, no taking illegitimate breaks inbetween - but switching tasks is allowed, as is finishing one and picking the next one. (No long thinking about which one to pick, though - it's a ten-second-thing, ideally.) That does seem to suit me, and work for me, so I'm very happy to venture on in this trial of the technique.

On the list for this week, by the way, is some more Forum work - it's time to look into all the offers we have and do a first draft of the programme...

Not so very long ago (as in just a few hours), I did have a different idea about what to blog on than semi-random work-related stuff, but it has miraculously evaporated from my brain. Which is, at the moment, a tiny little bit addled by having heard construction-type noise for all of this week, with the extra serving (as in: in close proximity to me) yesterday afternoon and today. (We're getting new windows set in, which is lovely and very nice, but obviously connected to some work being done.)

In work-related news, I will be hunting for evidence of medieval furniture in England. Also: preparing for two short on-event workshops that will take place when I am in Herzberg, and I'm very much looking forward to this. Also on my list of things (exciting and nice things) to do: get an overview about our paper and workshop/practical session offers for the Textile Forum and update the website. I have been drooling over some pictures already this morning, and I can tell you - I'm really, really psyched about this.

Finally, and also Forum-related: You can actually pre-order our first volume, "Ancient Textiles - Modern Science", aka the European Textile Forum Proceedings. It's a collection volume of the last years, and not every paper given is in there, but it's a very nice variety and a good spread over times, materials and techniques. We hope that it will be successful enough to lead the way to a second volume in the future.

Back in February (wow, it's been that long now!) I blogged about a form of to-do list that gamifies life. I'm quite happy to tell you that even though the productivity spike from trying something new has ebbed, and even though there are some things I'm still doing badly at, I have stuck with the game and actually get stuff done a bit better, or so it feels. (This is always hard to tell, I think. How do you know that you are more, or less, productive than you would be with another method? Or none at all? Unless you go from, say, 5% good use of time to 95% good use of time and stick with that over several months at least, it's pretty hard to say.)

However, it was time to try something new in addition to the list. I'm suffering from the same problem many freelancers do - very little structure in a given day. Yes, there's getting up, there's the need to eat something at some point, and there's the need to sleep, and to take a break. But otherwise, my time can be arranged quite freely.

While that can be an asset - for instance, being able to take half a day off easily in case of unforeseen stuff, or re-arranging for something that came up suddenly - it can also be a hindrance. I can do that later. I can take a break now. I can read now and write later. Or whatever.

So yesterday, I decided to try the Pomodoro Technique. You may have heard of it - it's actually really simple, even though there's a whole book been written about it (a free pdf copy is linked to in the article above, or in the Wikipedia article). You take a timer (any sort will do) and set it to 25 minutes. That's time for work, and nothing else. Then you take a short break, 5 minutes, before starting on your next slice of worktime. After 4 slices (or pomodoros), you get a longer break - 15 or 20 mins, for example. Rinse and repeat.

The intention behind it is to give some structure, cut the worktime down in manageable slices that make it easier to concentrate and to tackle things that seem daunting, and provide enough breaks for recovery. It might work well, or it might not, but I'm giving it a go. After all, the worst that can happen is that I am not going to stick with it as it won't help. Should you be curious now and also want to try it, here's a link to several free timers intended especially for the technique - and there's lots more suitable on the ol' Interwebz.

Somehow, these last few months have been more crazy and subjectively much shorter than they should have been. Life is, somehow, crazy - even though there is not that much going on (or at least that's what I tell myself). However, my to-do list is growing faster than I can cut it down to size again, there's workmen in the house this week to fix some windows (consequently making some noise, that's not helping), and I'm sadly behind on my reading. My day needs more hours! (Or my hours need more productivity... but I'm not doing so very badly, my timetracker says.)

Maybe I just need to wash my brain into total complete productivity mode. Speaking of washing: There's a Viennese living history group wishing to tackle exactly that. The "Wienische Hantwërcliute 1350" have a nice (German) article about washing in the late Middle Ages on their blog, and they got a colleague to make them a washing paddle according to medieval sources. Nice!

While you are thinking about clean, white fabric now (at least I am, sort of), Teffania thinks about white dresses that are not white dresses on her blog. White garments like these are definitely candidates for a good wash if you wear them on events with rain!

The rain has stopped. Thank goodness! Now I'm hoping we will actually see a bit of sunshine today, that would be really, really nice. Also my little half-drowned tomato plants will probably love to dry off for a change. As will about everything else.

Book-keeping is a nuisance, especially when you have to check how to file things... which can easily take much, much longer than expected. (Yes, I know, that's a TYCO.)

There are several partly-filled spindles lying on my desk, and I have no idea what to do with the stuff. Most of it is just little bits, but some are at least enough to ply them up... so the plied yarn can then hang out with all the other small bits.

My desk, by the way, needs tidying. Again. I wonder who always drops all that stuff onto my desk?

Not only the desk needs attention, though - I will need to clear half the room this week, it's getting a new window. Yay! (I think. I'm not yet sure I will like the clearing part, nor the cleaning-up part, nor the putting-stuff-back-into-the-window-end-of-the-room part. Also? There's a bookshelf rather close to the window. I will have to ask the window guys how much space they need.)

It's still raining outside, and by now, everyone and their dog and its fleas are hoping that the weather will improve soon. It would be okay weather for March, but not for the start of June! And all the rain has led to real problems around here, with floods coming to visit people in their houses.

Luckily, neither we nor our parents and family live in houses really close to water, or endangered by flooding. In case you have not seen pictures of the flooded places yet, here are a few.

It's supposed to dry up tomorrow, however, and then slowly become a bit warmer for the rest of the week. High time! And I guess that once the sun comes out and it's warmer, all the plants that have not died during the endless rain will go for an incredible growth spurt...

Now that I'm finished whining about the weather, here are some links for you. Cathy writes about the Lengberg Linens again; if you don't know her blog or have not been there for a while, don't stop reading after that article - there's more interesting stuff there.

While you are checking out blogs for their links - here's another one to take a look: pearl's blog (including links to the free online archives of Fennoscandia Archaeologia, Baltic Archaeology, and Czech Archaeologia historia).

Finally, if you're looking for an excuse to go visit Oxford in January 2014, the next Experimental Archaeolog Conference might be just what you need. The Call for Papers is already open and will remain so until July 31.

It's raining hereabouts, again. And while the willows in the garden do not mind (they like water and can't have too much), I think the other plants will soon develop fish scales. As will we! This is not a good spring, weather-wise.

After having the winter with the least sunshine for the last, oh, 40 or so years, spring was very late in coming, with snow into the month of March. Then, slowly, it got warmer and stuff started to grow. About a month late, but hey, at least there was green, and flowers. Both March and April were really dry, though - and now it's the end of May, and the month seems to try and get caught up on all the rain that was missing in the last two months.

So the last days (and it feels like weeks), we had a lot of rain. And, with the late start into spring, and the slightly-colder-and-a-lot-wetter-than-usual May, the tomatoes and chili and zucchini plants I put outside are just as small (but wetter-looking) than when I put them outside. Maybe also due to the fact that we're behind on sunshine hours...

At least the weather prognosis says it's going to be a bit better next week (after the weekend, mind you, when there will be... even more rain). And our garden is not looking like the sports playing field shown in this article! Hopefully the summer will not be as yucky and wet as this month was, though. I've had enough grey skies and rainy days for a while...