In case you hadn’t already guessed, I’m kind of a fickle girl. I get obsessed and sink my heart into things very easily, but I have no discipline, I get bored quickly, and I’m still a horrible procrastinator. So, I’ve realized that while figuring out my workflow and learning the ins and outs of GTD was a lot of fun, it didn’t necessarily make me feel like I was getting any more done. In many ways, I’ve felt less mentally engaged than ever before.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten trapped in my own laziness. I’ve been losing steam in a lot of my personal projects and they’ve been getting way off track. You ever have times when you’re just feeling bogged down and discouraged? Where nothing is going according to plan and all you feel like doing is watching TV and going on Facebook to avoid having to fix any of it? I’m there.
For one, we decided a week before the date that our yard sale had to be postponed due to the forecast, and we still haven’t set a date for it. Because of that, all of our yard sale shit is still lying around the house taking up space, and we haven’t had the money to spend on the decorating project, so I’ve just kind of given up. Secondly, the entire month of May has been eaten up by parties. We had a first communion, a wedding, a graduation, and a baby shower — basically, mad gifts I hadn’t originally budgeted for. And Papi is throwing a barbecue at our house since his place of work is going to be closed for a few weeks for a remodel — meaning we have to buy food, beer, plates, utensils, etc. Throws my budget way off course.
Work has been another beast entirely. The project that went into our last major release was such a monster that it pretty much dragged us all down to a level where none of us understood our product. We lost our most knowledgeable resources over the course of a week to layoffs and a new job offer, so there was very shoddy knowledge transfer, if any at all. From a development standpoint, things kept breaking and changing as a result of the broken pieces. As for me, I was first tasked to work on updating the manual with lists of numerical codes that went on for days — basically weeks of straight data entry — then I’d be asked to update the manual with all the new features and changes in methodology; shit I just didn’t understand.
And while this might seem counterintuitive, having to process all this information at the speed of light on a daily basis has left my brain is feeling all sorts of fatigued and unused. I’ve actually implemented GTD pretty well; so much that I’ve been stuck in such a habit of “processing” — that is, skimming, sorting, and either acting (by putting that particular piece of information in another place) or saving for later — that I haven’t actually been able to read, absorb, or mentally process anything. At work, I’ve been having to rush a lot of assignments and basically craft manuals on things I only half understand. I haven’t really had much time (or at least, I haven’t been able to take the time) to really learn and understand things lately. GTD, I’m doin it wrong!
I haven’t read anything meaty in MONTHS, I have nothing of interest to talk about, and I can’t even concentrate at work. All my brain knows to do is continually hit refresh on Google Reader, rip pleasant interior design photos out of magazines and paste them into idea notebooks, and surt to Facebook even though the only people who seem to update are people I haven’t even seen since high school. I’m completely uninspired and lazy and it feels terrible. I’m disgusted with myself. I’m pretty sure this is the exact definition of a rut. I’m in desperate need for a reset, and I’m trying to scale back all the things that are standing in the way of my getting stuff accomplished and actually feeling like I’ve been spending my time doing worthwhile things.
Firstly, in terms of workflow, the obsession with finding the perfect app for any task and the subsequent search for the perfect deal for that perfect app as such a timesink that I’ve just had to quit it already. When it comes to any task I actually want to get done, most of the time apps just get in the way. Writing, for example. I maintain that Scrivener still had the best bells and whistles out of any writing app, but the truth of the matter is, I did and still do most of my writing on janky-ass Notepad on my work-issued laptop during downtime at the office. The only thing I’ve ever needed to write was a simple word processor (sorry, handwriting is also a waste of my time) and unwavering concentration.
That being said, I also took the extra ridiculous step and downloaded Freedom, which basically blocks your machine’s connection to the internet for the amount of time you set. The problem is, I don’t even have enough discipline to do that. I’m sort of at the point where the only thing I can do to honestly save myself is to just delete my Facebook presence altogether, or at least prune my friends list to only include people I’ve actually spoken to since high school graduation. There is no damn reason for me to be visiting that site as much as I do, especially since it’s so flooded with updates from people I hardly even care about.
The point of it all, really, is that I don’t spend enough time doing things I actually like to do or hanging out with people who mean something to me. So at the end of the weekend I feel like I just sort of pissed away all that free time doing nothing. I’m not even satisified with the time I spend with my daughter because lately I don’t always feel like I’m actually mentally present. On a career front, I feel like our last major release just broke me down and dragged me to the level of knowledge I had when I first started this job. I’m really just trying to get back to a point where I’m mentally and emotionally engaged in things again, instead of floating along in this constant state of boredom.
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