My friends and I do a quarterly accountability group. We come up with our own individual goals and pair them with punishments and rewards. For this quarter, I have a list of ten things to do on CruiseSheet. It’s halfway through the quarter, and although I’ve made progress on a few, I haven’t completed any of them.
This is alarming for me, because I pride myself on not procrastinating and on getting things done. But recently I haven’t lived up to that standard.
When I’m at my most productive, I have a strict routine which I follow. I set times for things like meals and tea, and the rest of the time I spend working. Besides giving me structure, my routines are organized to give me an optimal environment in which to work. Over the past few weeks, my schedule has not been optimal. I’ve flown to Japan and back twice, and I spent a week on the island.
I’ve noticed a troubling pattern. I sit down to work, take a few of the first couple steps, and then decide to finish later, when things are more conducive to work. Excuses I’ve come up with that I can remember on the top of my head are:
— I’m too tired
— I will run out of power on this flight before I finish
— It would be easier to do this if I had internet
— I don’t have enough time to finish this
— I should spend time with people instead of working
None of these are terrible excuses, but combined they have prevented me from doing much work over the past few weeks. Now I’m behind schedule and am in the uncomfortable position of having to really sprint to get things done.
This all came to a head last night when I finally got back to Vegas after a month of traveling. I have this place fully set up to be the most productive place possible, and yet I didn’t do any work all day. I was too tired or too hungry, or just didn’t feel like it. And it made me realize that this perfect time to work that I had been fantasizing about while traveling wasn’t going to happen. The right time to work is now, whether outside factors are working for or against you.
It’s eight in the evening now. I’m a little bit sleepy, and some part of my brain is telling me to just push work off until tomorrow, when I have a longer day ahead of me. But I know that’s not the best thing to do. The right time to work is now, while I’m able to, not in some imaginary future where working is easier.
I think the general lesson here is to be extremely skeptical of excuses you give yourself. Always test them. I feel tired, but am I really too tired to work? If I test that and start working, I’m going to find that most of the time I’m sufficiently awake.
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Photo is a cool sculpture at the Honolulu museum of art
I wrote this around a week ago. Now three of my ten things are done.
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