I'm trying an experiment tomorrow: a "no downtime day."

I'm trying an experiment tomorrow, that I'm calling a "no downtime day" -- in other words, a day where I spend every moment from waking up to going to bed doing something productive, with no "downtime" spent on things like television, goofing off online, etc. If it's successful, then, I'll add it on a semi-regular basis to my usual "Getting Things Done" time-management system; a customer-created supplement if you will, where on top of your usual action lists and project lists and daily processing, something maybe like once a month you try to go an entire 16 hours without any "vegging" time at all.

Now, note that this is not the same thing as an "all-go-go-go" day; there will be certain times tomorrow when my pace will be slow, for example when sitting around on my ass getting various online things done. But there will also be very active parts of my day tomorrow, too; 9am to noon, for example, will be dedicated to traversing the route of my fourth in a series of bike maps for Google Maps/Earth, this time from my place in Uptown to the Loop, using only inner-city designated bike lanes (i.e. not the lakefront path). It's a ten-mile round trip for me altogether (16 km), basically being done to show off the interior of the city, and also to detail what one can expect when making a long ride within Chicago itself among vehicular traffic. (I've done the trip to the Loop before, actually; the downtown area can admittedly get a little scary, just from the sheer volume of large industrial traffic, but certain tips I'll be sharing can make the whole thing both safer and less nerve-wracking.) So you see what I'm saying; a normal day like always, with its normal ups and downs, but just while trying to cut out all non-productive activities. I've never tried such a thing before, so we'll see how it goes!

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it because I'll probably be posting a few live updates throughout the day tomorrow, via my Palm Treo and the excellent mobile client VOX provides its users. Here's hoping everything goes well.

Funny story: Today I was riding my bike as usual, the daily 6 miles (10 km) or more that I'm trying to do this summer, but the wind just felt like it was literally knocking me backwards, even while pedaling. And the whole thing was just so exhausting, and I was thinking the whole time, "What has changed about me today, so that I can't handle a windy day nearly as well as before? I can't be getting less healthy, can I? Hmm, knowing me, maybe I can (sigh)." And then I got home and checked out the weather, and found out that the wind was blowing in my neighborhood at the time at 48 miles per hour (77 kph). Yeesh.