For your consideration: a list of things that sound really intriguing and tantalizing, yet I am making sure I don't go anywhere near lest they suck what little focus I have these days like some sort of creativity vampire.

  1. 1.

    Build an invite-only LinkedIn where you have to actually make introductions to people and there's no social feeds.

  2. 2.

    Build a progress bar/goal tracker ATProto app to replace the void NaNoWriMo left (but generic so people can track things that aren't word counts).

  3. 3.

    Reconfigure my most recent Factorio save so I can get the final (pre-Space Age) achievement of making a zillion green circuits.

  4. 4.

    Start a new Satisfactory game where I'm really going to do my base properly this time I promise.

  5. 5.

    Design a corporate-life sim game that is less "Sim Business" and more "gamified e-mail-based realpolitik."

  6. 6.

    Knock together a Discord bot that posts my leaflet.pub articles direct to my server so I don't have to copy-paste it over there for my friends each time.

  7. 7.

    Figure out the perfect bike to buy. Something lighter than my brother's mountain bike from high school, heavier than the 1970s Schwinn racer I used to ride in DC, and cheap enough that if I use a cable lock and it gets cut, oh well.

  8. 8.

    Continue chipping away at a multiplayer RTS game idea involving physics-based trajectory travel and heavy fog-of-war elements.

  9. 9.

    Spend a weekend (or other 48 hour sprint) on a game jam where I'm organizing the team. I'm a sucker for a fun time though so if you need someone let me know...

  10. 10.

    Do an exercise a day from The 3 A.M. Writing Epiphany. Still will do some, but as a play thing not as a grind thing.

  11. 11.

    Create a reporting interface for internal reports so I can direct a big category of the things people ask me for into a self-serve portal.1

  12. 12.

    Source paints, clear-coat, primer, and brushes to finish painting my 3D-printed Settlers of Catan set.

  13. 13.

    Start a company to build the OctoPDS infrastructure provider so AppViews can have something generic to use for account hosting. is well on their way already!

  14. 14.

    Go totally nuts fixing some annoying nonsense that requires rolling over an IRA into something else to de-tangle. This is not a moment to rebuild my finances!

  15. 15.

    Pick back up my simultaneous-turns TRPG, and the full-fledged studio commitment I started behind it while I still am working a full-time (and increasingly busy) job.

  16. 16.

    Write a novel sent in the ancient era of my fantasy world that's more than a little reminiscent of Xenophon's Anabasis. It would be called The Death of Alexander (no relation to the Great) and it could later be referenced by novels set in a tech era I'm more interested in.

  17. 17.

    Write a novel about a billionaire (or multi-millionaire) that suddenly wants to just divest of all his wealth and just starts building trains everywhere. It would take several jabs at Atlas Shrugged and would grossly misrepresent what is involved in building train infrastructure.

  18. 18.

    Start a social "club" that is a terrible business because it's basically just me, family, friends, and friends of friends who are going in on a shared third space (preferably with a bar and some comfortable seating).

  19. 19.

    Get back into studying chess and push to go from "strong club player" to National Master.

  20. 20.

    Write a new screenplay, about any topic or subject. I've done one, I know I can do it, but I don't have anything I feel needs to be written (in that format) right now.

  21. 21.

    Become a streamer. Playing video games is fun, a public persona feels like it could be fun, talking at my computer screen for hours at a time is not fun.

  22. 22.

    Figure out some sort of open source server-in-a-box you can put in your house and it "just works." It would control all your smart devices, run your PDS, your Jellyfin or Plex servers--it would be for your home.