Sticky Notes, Old Friends, and Finding My Focus Again
August 29, 2025 – Friday
Entry #10
Yesterday I spent a lot of time prepping. I was able to get most of my tasks completed for my YouTube sprint (that’s what I decided to call it). There were a few things I decided to skip, like time blocking. I felt like this was something I don’t need right now; this would just add unnecessary stress with little reward. I think the best part about skipping it is not feeling guilty about it.
I do, however, need to consider how I will make sure to remember to make time to do the tasks that the time block would have reminded me to do. But I’ll allow myself to naturally adapt a system over time. This is an attempt to allow things not to be perfect and allow me to start.
Yesterday, I officially started publishing these writings on my website. Not having read any previous ones until yesterday took me by surprise. How depressing were my first few? And wow, does writing look longer on paper than on the screen. After reviewing my previous entries (I only got to the first four), I had two thoughts.
First: could my fear of not being real/raw—because deep down I know these will be public—be true? Maybe I am trying to write these to include some type of value instead of expressing my emotions subconsciously. But maybe I just didn’t know what to write at the beginning, so it ended up being the sad and depressing thoughts that easily came to mind. Over time, those turned into useful reflections naturally.
I’ll go with the ladder, that will make me feel better, and there’s part of me that believes it’s true. To support that belief, I hated doing this. It made me feel sneaky, but when Zoe walked in the room as I was uploading these to my website, I quickly changed tabs. I was scared she’d see, but even more scared she’d see the action of hiding it and start to get suspicious.
Recently, my ex-girlfriend (who was also my first) reached out to me. She lives in the States, far away from me, but regardless, it bothered Zoe, which I completely understand. The thing is, ex-girlfriends of mine don’t really threaten me. Sure, there was love at one point, but I can easily remind myself how lucky I am to have Zoe, and what past experiences have happened to almost lose her.
I mean, one of Zoe’s best friends is my ex, and I’m the one who introduced them to each other while she was my ex, which is such a funny concept. But I love it. Zoe has a new friend, one whom she actually connects with on a deep level, and I have a connection with who I got along with really well with, just not romantically.
I think this ex that recently reached out bothered Zoe more because she was technically “my first love.” Which is true, but my feelings aren’t like that anymore. I can easily remind myself why it wouldn’t work long-term from experiences while we were together.
One funny thing, though, is that this ex is so much like Zoe in style and interests (way more than my ex that she’s friends with), and she’d probably get along really well with her. But considering the distance, it probably won’t happen.
Anyways, she reached out just to check in. It’s been a decently long time since we last talked on our last brief check-in. This time though, we have talked for a bit longer. I’ve enjoyed it. It feels like reconnecting with an old friend.
I don’t respond as frequently as her, mainly because I am too busy to commit to respond. But also because I don’t want Zoe to get the wrong idea. I told Zoe she can read all the messages. I am hesitant to present them without her asking because I know it may bother her, not because of what is said, but just the concept.
But it’s nice to have an old friend back in my life, especially when I don’t have many right now. I wish they could meet. I do think she reached out because she has no friends and wants someone to talk to.
AND FOR MY SECOND THOUGHT: yesterday I mentioned I hate using AI for certain things. Well, these writings aren’t one of them. I never had a plan on how I was going to convert text on paper into words on a screen, but I knew I could use photos to copy the text and then just paste it into a blog page. But little did I know that it would copy/paste so inaccurately.
My first two entries, I spent over 10 minutes fixing issues with incorrect spelling (not from me but the process of the copy/paste), but also reorganizing the sentences because they weren’t even in order. The beginning of some would be in the center of others.
I almost decided to abandon the idea of uploading these because of the time investment, and those were the short ones. I assumed it was due to my awful handwriting, which is fine, but then I had the idea to try ChatGPT—and all I’m going to say is: take offense Google…
ChatGPT: 1
Google Lens: 0
I also found it useful to use sticky notes when writing this. I have so many ideas of what to write before and during me writing these, and in the past I’d often forget things and spend time trying to remember what it was. Sticky notes have saved me here. I write quick notes to spark my memory once I’m done writing the current section. I even write things I thought of that I need to do after writing for the day.
As someone with ADHD, before it was “cool” to have the stereotype of sticky note abuse, I always avoided using them. But maybe I was actually missing out.
Today, I decided not to do some (mainly one) of the tasks from the book “The Artist’s Way” (Affiliate Link) said I should do daily this week. The task was to pick affirmations from week one, I believe three, but I only did two, and write them five times at the beginning of this daily entry. I really didn’t want to, but pushed myself to try.
Here’s why I stopped:
I felt like I chose short ones because I couldn’t be bothered to spend extra time on longer ones.
As I was writing them, I was either annoyed and trying to get it over with or started to question if I even believed it.
I did it for one day, which may be too short, but I’m happy I decided to stop. If that started to make me avoid or start to get annoyed when writing these, that’d be bad.
But I’m also proud of myself. One of the affirmations I wrote was: “I have the ability to subtract what isn’t needed.” This was mainly in regards to editing, but I guess if the book “Essentialism” (Affiliate Link) taught me anything, I need to be more focused on what’s essential.
Okay, last note. I decided to re-read the book “YouTube Formula” (Affiliate Link). I read this early on and stuck a bunch of sticky notes as markers to come back to—but of course never did. This is something I have done a lot since I started reading a year ago.
After maybe 8–10 months, and many abandoned sticky notes. Not only was I not taking in much of the info, but I was also making my bookshelf ugly. Aesthetics is everything💅.
My Fix: I started to write down every bit of info in my Bujo (Affiliate Link). If it’s an action, it went on my daily tasks, even if I didn’t do it that day. I’d be forced to rewrite it the next day and on and on, until it was done, or manually cross it out to abandon it. This helped as it felt harder to abandon a task intentionally rather than easily forget about it.
So I’m re-reading “YouTube Formula” (Affiliate Link), starting from Part 3, the action step-heavy and sticky-note-littered section of the book. Reading this again, months later, and months of doing YouTube videos, is nice. Some of the things I “get” now and can actually understand, or understand why “blank” is important.
So, the chapter I read, which I will do today, is creating your ideal viewer, or avatar. Even though I have some data to pull from, I’m going to start with some guesses, then compare and update to whatever data I can from my YouTube analytics. I’m excited to see how it turns out.
