Overall the month has been pretty good. One week of the month I was away from my desk, so that skews things a bit. The biggest upset was a knee injury that knocked my steps way down. The irony is, this came on after injections of hyaluronic acid, to lube the arthritic joint. Those worked so well I think I overdid things, as a result of which I did some sort of damage to the ligaments and tendons on the inside of the knee. The doctor advised ice, rest and elevation, and occasional use of a brace. Those helped, a little, but it wasn't until I turned to ingested anti-inflamatories that things really improved, and that was only a couple of days ago.

The most important thing to note is that I was away from my desk literally for three weeks, on a wonderfully relaxing holiday. Of course, there were still work-like things to be done, and they got done, but mostly I wasn’t thinking or doing much “work”. Ever hopeful, I entered a podcast for the James Beard Awards, although the expanded duration allowed, one hour now as opposed to 30 minutes before, is a worry. I also set up some direct payment options so that people can support the podcast. Take that, Patreon.

It has been an interesting month, not least because on 11 November I pledged to be more alive to recording and reviewing my activities. This is the result, a few days late. Interesting too because I was away for 10 days, attending the memorial service for my PhD supervisor, swanning around (very) old haunts and spending time with my family. A good break.

On and off I take to heart the old adage about not being able to manage what you don't measure, and I think I'm about to swing into the on ramp again. This all started with an interesting post by Lukas Rosenstock at his Self-Improvement Blog. In a way it is just another of those monthly reviews that many people do, and which I read with a mixture of awe, guilt and imposterdom. How do people achieve that much? Why don't I do as much? Who am I kidding? This one was a bit different because Lukas mentioned three pieces of software that seemed intriguing and new to me: RescueTime, Focus Booster and Exist.