It’s tough to learn what your limits are when it comes to how much you can get done in a day. It used to be that if I didn’t clear everything off of my list my motivation would be destroyed. Even worse if I felt like I didn’t have enough time I wouldn’t even try. Now I’ve found that it doesn’t matter as long as I make sure to push myself.
This morning I didn’t get out of bed early enough to accomplish everything that I would have liked to before I headed into the office. To make matters worse I ended up staying there a little bit later than usual. By the time that I came back home I had much less time than usual to work on all of my other projects.
In the past I would have looked at everything that I wanted to get done and almost immediately given up. I would have ended up watching tv, but not really enjoying it because of the crushing mix of guilt, failure, and procrastination. I’m sure most of you can relate to that feeling. It’s that feeling you get on a Saturday morning when there’s literally only one thing that you need to do, but rather than just getting it over with you dwell on it all day, pretending that you’re enjoying the time you take putting it off.
Instead tonight I ate dinner with The Girlfriend, then locked myself upstairs. In less than an hour and a half I’ve gotten almost everything done, that’s about 1/3rd the time I thought that it was going to take me. It’s only 7:50, in a second I’m going to hit publish and enjoy the rest of my night fully. I don’t worry about whether or not I’m going to finish everything by my self imposed deadlines anymore. I give myself set hours to do everything in, and I push myself to get it all done. If I don’t there’s always tomorrow.
>”In the past I would have looked at everything that I wanted to get done and almost immediately given up. I would have ended up watching tv, but not really enjoying it because of the crushing mix of guilt, failure, and procrastination”
Yeah, I know what you mean. The What-the-hell effect.
http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/03/the-what-the-hell-effect.php
>It’s that feeling you get on a Saturday morning when there’s literally only one thing that you need to do, but rather than just getting it over with you dwell on it all day, pretending that you’re enjoying the time you take putting it off.
I did that for this WHOLE past week. Jesus Christ, I’m feeling waay better, almost happy because I finally finished and got that awful task out of my life. If I had done that 4 days earlier… but ok, it’s living and learning
I’m getting a lot better about it. But it’s amazing how you can know that you’ll feel bad until you do something and end up still putting it off. Talk about self sabotage.