Digging out of a hole

I haven't updated this in a bit but that's because I found myself in a downward spiral. Over-analyzing is pretty typical of how I think, but this got a bit out of hand.

I had been thinking of how I could label the materials in this bleeding control kit that I had been making. To the point that I had sketched out what would go where so that the instruction could be delivered more easily. I started how things would be laid out in the physical kit itself so that it could be labeled so that it could correspond with the instruction. And after looking at the kits that Stop The Bleed sells, I tried to improve on the timing of physically how long it would take to get materials in hand... and on and on and on.

In the end, I was making things so much more complicated than they had to be.

I went back to the core of the project and reminded myself why I started doing this in the first place. I decided to focus on what I've already made, to keep refining this prototype.

So I returned to my research, and I found something. Now, StopTheBleed strikes me as something that is a perfect reflection of our governmental process — well intentioned but the result of a bureaucratic quagmire. There is different information that I've found on their website, on other agencies' websites, and on YouTube. It all creates a lovely Venn diagram of really useful information, albeit disjointed. I mention this because in an article on the Department of Defense's website, in conjunction with Uniformed Services University, I found that National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health had created an app for Stop The Bleed... in 2018...

The very thing that I had been working toward for months has already been done. In hindsight, I should have searched it out first. I should have realized that of course they would have created an app. And just like how information is disseminated from Stop The Bleed, the app is a bit of a nightmare. It's more of an educational tool than one that you would use in an actual emergency. It focuses on the training not how people access that training. It's still more proactive than it is reactive.

I was so frustrated when I found it though. So frustrated that the tool that I was trying to develop was made without much thought for accessibility or how someone could use it in an emergency (After all it is an app, YOU have to download it before it can be used). Mostly I'm frustrated because of the deadlines that I blew and the time that I wasted feeling sorry for myself. Because that's not why I started this, it's not why I continued it, and it's not why I'm so passionate about it.

So that's where I'm at: annoyed and behind schedule but still plugging away.