Phew, okay. Regroup.
Yeesh. Okay. BRAIN. I has one.
I have work to do. A good amount of work. This is good. A good thing! By many accounts I am running a successful self-business! I have to actually DO the work, however. Story of my life, right? Procrastination. I am the procrastiMASTER. I talked last year about developing better habits. Rewiring my brain. Breaking down all the bad habits and bad responses and creating new ones. At the time I did in fact make a lot of progress which carried me through the last year, but over time without proper nurturing Most of the positive gains have faded and I'm just about back where I started.
I need to start thinking in that regard again. Training. Mental exercise. Little by little, one small piece at a time. I cannot expect big changes to happen overnight. It's that type of thinking that makes procrastination possible! (Oh, tomorrow I'll be super inspired and I'll be able to accomplish it in no time!).
I have to anticipate these thoughts and redirect them on a consistent basis. I need to constantly remind myself that, no, there's no magic fix. Things take TIME and a lot of it, but also that if you just put in a little time consistently, things will eventually get done. I need to stop being afraid of the time and effort commitment for every little thing.
This is no new news, of course, just reminding myself.
I must anticipate my own demise so I can plan around it. I know well enough about how my brain works that I should be able to plan ahead and create an environment conducive to productivity, despite myself. I have a reasonable start with my workload right now, which is that I put together a fairly detailed list of all the small tasks I have, broken down in to fairly manageable chunks, but that's just a start, I have to execute it.
I know that tomorrow my alarm will go off and I will hit snooze several times. Eventually I will drag myself out of bed and probably sit in front of the computer going "I should shower and get to work." Instead I will browse stuff on the web and chat with people for several hours until I feel really guilty!
So... problems->solutions!
SNOOZING: In the past I just set more alarms. Downside to this is increasing resistance to alarms. I also set the computer to play music in the morning, again, resistance is building up. This seems like a trickier and trickier problem until I realize that most of the problem is merely that I'm getting to bed too late and not getting enough sleep.
So, how do we fix that? I mean, when I was at my best last year was when I was actually going to bed at a reasonable time every night. It wasn't even like I was really forcefully disciplining myself, it just felt kinda natural at the time. I think there's a few aspects to this. The tricky thing about this particular paroblem is that your sleep tends to regulate based on your activities for the day. If I'm really active both mentally and physically, I have a much easier time getting to sleep on time. However, I'm having a hard time being really active because I'm short on sleep and not waking up well.
THE ACTUAL SOLUTION (or a big part of it): Gotta get back to the gym! A lot! I mean DAILY. I'm not joking here. This will help me in so many aspects of my life, not just sleeping. I'll feel better, I KNOW I will. Also, yes, I'm going to have to discipline myself to bed for a week or so until my body starts to regulate itself again.
Of course, all I've done now is proposed two new problems. First, how do I discipline myself to sleep? How can I encourage bed. I can plan beforehand my bed-activities. Stuff to read, perhaps. I can make a point to do my night-time chatting from bed on my phone. I could also get out the ol' pencil and sketchbook and keep it next to bed so I can go doodle. This way, going to bed doesn't necessarily mean "ending the day," it just means "doing things over there for awhile."
The other problem is actually getting myself to go to the gym. It's tough because gas money is short right now, so that's one excuse I have to not go. The other issue is time, and that's one that I really need to shed. It only FEELS like I'm short on time because I'm using it poorly. I always feel rushed because I'm never doing anything. I need to remember that I have PLENTY of time. Furthermore, since going to the gym helps me sleep and focus, going to the gym helps me use that time more effectively, and thus in a lot of ways taking the time to go to the gym actually pays off in giving me MORE time. It's an investment in time, really. It takes 2 hours to drive, work out, and drive back, sure, but eventually if I'm getting 3-4 more productive hours out of each day because of it it's a fantastic investment, not to mention all the yummy healthy side-effects, too!
Okay... that's enough for now. I'm going to try and tidy up my room a bit in preparation for bed!
I have work to do. A good amount of work. This is good. A good thing! By many accounts I am running a successful self-business! I have to actually DO the work, however. Story of my life, right? Procrastination. I am the procrastiMASTER. I talked last year about developing better habits. Rewiring my brain. Breaking down all the bad habits and bad responses and creating new ones. At the time I did in fact make a lot of progress which carried me through the last year, but over time without proper nurturing Most of the positive gains have faded and I'm just about back where I started.
I need to start thinking in that regard again. Training. Mental exercise. Little by little, one small piece at a time. I cannot expect big changes to happen overnight. It's that type of thinking that makes procrastination possible! (Oh, tomorrow I'll be super inspired and I'll be able to accomplish it in no time!).
I have to anticipate these thoughts and redirect them on a consistent basis. I need to constantly remind myself that, no, there's no magic fix. Things take TIME and a lot of it, but also that if you just put in a little time consistently, things will eventually get done. I need to stop being afraid of the time and effort commitment for every little thing.
This is no new news, of course, just reminding myself.
I must anticipate my own demise so I can plan around it. I know well enough about how my brain works that I should be able to plan ahead and create an environment conducive to productivity, despite myself. I have a reasonable start with my workload right now, which is that I put together a fairly detailed list of all the small tasks I have, broken down in to fairly manageable chunks, but that's just a start, I have to execute it.
I know that tomorrow my alarm will go off and I will hit snooze several times. Eventually I will drag myself out of bed and probably sit in front of the computer going "I should shower and get to work." Instead I will browse stuff on the web and chat with people for several hours until I feel really guilty!
So... problems->solutions!
SNOOZING: In the past I just set more alarms. Downside to this is increasing resistance to alarms. I also set the computer to play music in the morning, again, resistance is building up. This seems like a trickier and trickier problem until I realize that most of the problem is merely that I'm getting to bed too late and not getting enough sleep.
So, how do we fix that? I mean, when I was at my best last year was when I was actually going to bed at a reasonable time every night. It wasn't even like I was really forcefully disciplining myself, it just felt kinda natural at the time. I think there's a few aspects to this. The tricky thing about this particular paroblem is that your sleep tends to regulate based on your activities for the day. If I'm really active both mentally and physically, I have a much easier time getting to sleep on time. However, I'm having a hard time being really active because I'm short on sleep and not waking up well.
THE ACTUAL SOLUTION (or a big part of it): Gotta get back to the gym! A lot! I mean DAILY. I'm not joking here. This will help me in so many aspects of my life, not just sleeping. I'll feel better, I KNOW I will. Also, yes, I'm going to have to discipline myself to bed for a week or so until my body starts to regulate itself again.
Of course, all I've done now is proposed two new problems. First, how do I discipline myself to sleep? How can I encourage bed. I can plan beforehand my bed-activities. Stuff to read, perhaps. I can make a point to do my night-time chatting from bed on my phone. I could also get out the ol' pencil and sketchbook and keep it next to bed so I can go doodle. This way, going to bed doesn't necessarily mean "ending the day," it just means "doing things over there for awhile."
The other problem is actually getting myself to go to the gym. It's tough because gas money is short right now, so that's one excuse I have to not go. The other issue is time, and that's one that I really need to shed. It only FEELS like I'm short on time because I'm using it poorly. I always feel rushed because I'm never doing anything. I need to remember that I have PLENTY of time. Furthermore, since going to the gym helps me sleep and focus, going to the gym helps me use that time more effectively, and thus in a lot of ways taking the time to go to the gym actually pays off in giving me MORE time. It's an investment in time, really. It takes 2 hours to drive, work out, and drive back, sure, but eventually if I'm getting 3-4 more productive hours out of each day because of it it's a fantastic investment, not to mention all the yummy healthy side-effects, too!
Okay... that's enough for now. I'm going to try and tidy up my room a bit in preparation for bed!