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How was the first half of the year for you? Mine was busy and productive, thank you. I certainly would like to have a few days totally off, but things are not always the way we wanted them to be, so here I am trying to organize myself in order to get what I planned for the second half of the year done.

It is also time to start looking for some “year from now” deals and opportunities. This is a tiring move, as you have to make plans based on probabilities. However, there is no way to move on to real actions without going through the sphere of intentions. What do I mean by that?

Intentions are all those messages you send that are not always answered. Intentions are also the projects that you put together in your head, but mostly will not survive the shock of reality. I, for example, often put together imaginary tours that work great in my mind, but have little bearing on my budget reality.

For these and other reasons, the second half of the year is a time for desk work, which means hard work, but no visibility. To tell the truth, moderate levels of invisibility are welcome from time to time. They are perfect for health check ups and treatments for the hair and skin, deeply mistreated by stage make-up and curling iron.

The problem is the hard work itself, that is, how to manage it in an intelligent, productive way. More precisely: how to build up an effective work routine without deadlines?

Say what you will about the oppressive nature of deadlines, but they guarantee that the job gets done. Without them, I oscillate between a mindset of “work, work, work and work” and “hey, how about finally watching that movie from your must see list?”

I am not only talking about indulging yourself to a little bit of laziness on a Thursday afternoon, but also about being awere that, well, it is now or never. As soon as the first booking confirmation arrives, the pre-production process begins, the deadlines pop up, and you can forget about finishing that one book that has been living on your bedside for ages, much less watch that 2016 movie that everyone was talking about… in 2016.

Maybe this mismatch between “take a break” and “you have a lot of work to do” comes from my current difficulty getting restorative sleep. I may not be in the position to give you any advice, but what the heck! So here it goes: my five items list of little tricks that usually work:

  1. every time you feel guilty about an afternoon nap, think about how many times you worked on Sundays, holidays, including Christmas and carnival;
  2. do not, I repeat, do not take your cell phone everywhere with you all the time and, if possible, leave it far away from your bed, to avoid falling into the temptation of “quickly checking what time it is”, and end up up hearing the alarm clock go off with your eyes wide open, after pointless spending the night reading posts on socials.
  3. some of the symptoms of a bad night of sleep can be avoided with careful hydration during the following day, so do not forget: drink water!
  4. your energy is not one hundred percent proportional to the number of cups of coffee you drink throughout the day, but maybe your heartburn is, so go easy on the coffee, will you?
  5. mint or lemongrass tea can work miracles in some cases and are woth trying.

Now to that 2016 movie.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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Today I saw a headline about a foolproof method to sleep in sixty seconds. As is often the case with headlines, there was a lot of exaggeration. In fact, it was just a method of breathing that consists of inhaling for 4 seconds, holding the air for seven seconds and exhaling for eight seconds. The 4-7-8 technique, for short.

And you know what? It really works! At least it worked for me in the last couple of nights, when I went to bed feeling too anxious to fall asleep. Sounds familiar?

The reason for my sleepless nights was an unpleasant decision I had to make. After more than ten years as an evaluator for a scientific journal (for more info about my secret identity as a sequential art researcher, read more here), for the first time I issued a negative opinion, recommending not only the rejection of the article, but also that the author revise, well, everything: spelling, methodology, references.

It was not an easy decision to make. Ok, I know that having an article rejected in a scientific journal is far from being the worst thing that can happen to someone, but I also know there is always a lot of time and working involved in it. That is the reason why my comments to the author were very respectful and I also included a series of suggestions, among which that a new version should be submitted to the journal.

In other words: in the worst scenario, the whole episode will help this researcher to learn the ropes and produce a much better article next time. Even so, I felt really bad. Why? After all, saying “no” is part of the duties of an evaluator. True, but yet it was the first time for me. “Publish after the suggestd changes” was the worst appreciation I had to give so far.

It made me wonder: with so many tools, tutorials and all kinds of apps available, why are people writing in such a sloppy way? Probably for the same reason that even with all kinds of cameras and everybody taking pictures all the time, we keep taking the same endlessly repeated “in-front-of-the-mirror-selfie”, over and over again .

Back to the rejected article, I was also surprised by the fact that it was actually submitted to a scientific journal. How many readers did the text have before me? Nobody (a friend, a research colleague, an advisor) suggested changes or, at least, a grammar revision?

Which link in the protocol chain of producing scientific knowledge was broken? And when did that happen? Actually, such questions could be addressed to various aspects of the current aesthetic production, too. Are we getting used to doing everything sloppily?

Sorry for bringing up so many questions. I hope it does not bother your sleeping, but just in case…. breathe.

Be seeing you!

G.F.