Entries tagged with me

So last week (or the week before; whichever) I decided that I was going to REST in November. (Where "in November" is defined as "in the bits of November which are not Leon-days and when I do not already have commitments, i.e. only actually about 8 days in total.)

My observations so far:

I am not all that good at resting. I keep thinking "right, so what am I going to DO today? what is my GOAL? what do I want to ACHIEVE?" and then having to remind myself that what I am DOING today is nothing.

I am really not all that good at resting. My idea of 'doing nothing' is only spending an hour or so doing ticky-box useful things, and then the rest of the time knitting. And reading, which ought to count, except I keep finding myself reading things off the 'I really must read this' pile rather than just fun things. OK, sometimes the IRMRT pile contains unexpectedly fun things (if they were truly expectedly fun I would have read them already; they tend to be things that I might be pleased to have read but are not necessarily restful). But still. I mean, I do like knitting! But I find it curious that it is so difficult not to do something that I clock as 'vaguely useful'.

Having said all of that, I have had a couple of naps in the last fortnight, which were great! And I have done enjoyable reading and knitting rather than (mostly) hurtling around the place with the mile-long to-do list, so we will count this as a win.

When I have sat down for an hour with the to-do list, the enjoyment of crossing things off the list has been significantly higher than usual, which I found fascinating. Possibly partly because I was limiting the time I was going to spend doing it? Rather than having a whole day (and more...) of ticky-box tasks stretching ahead of me.

I do, overall, feel better than I did when I made the decision.

I do need to rethink what I'm trying to fit into my normal life at the moment. I have done some provisional thinking on this and will continue to contemplate it next week.

I have also done some writing just because I wanted to, which is an improvement on last month when it was all about ticking things off. This was pleasing. Long may it continue. (The interesting thing is finding the balance between the self-discipline of 'show up and write'; the feeling of 'I want to do this and am enjoying the process' (where 'enjoying' also covers 'this is hard work and exhausting but satisfying'); and the bit where you just need to keep on plugging.

Further updates at the end of the month, if I think of any.

Recently it feels a bit like I've lost my motivation to do things that I am usually intrinsically motivated to do (ie which I do for the fun of doing them). This is particularly true of "hard" things, but yesterday I sat in my room staring out of the window and occasionally checking Twitter for much of the day because I couldn't even see any likely enjoyment from even low-stress things like reading or watching something.

One possible reason for this is straightforward exhaustion, coupled with overwhelm (too much to do, too little time).

But I also found myself wondering if the process of getting better at extrinsic motivation and goal-setting has torpedoed my intrinsic motivation.

There's plenty of general evidence that extrinsic rewards can damage intrinsic motivation. But my own personal extrinsic rewards are of the "tick off an item on my to do list" variety (I get absurdly motivated by a tickybox, especially if it is a real box tickybox not just crossing an item off. I am ridiculous.). Is it reasonable that they might do the same thing as a tenner handed over by another person?

Tickybox motivation is of course just fine for things like doing chores or going to the post office or remembering to send invoices. But with things like writing or making something, the general productivity advice I read is always about setting long-term goals, then dividing them into short-term goals: write x hundred/thousand words a day, get this part of this project done by this deadline, that sort of thing. Sure, without some kind of goal or destination, you don't know where you're going at all. But I've done a lot of this sort of major/middle/micro goal-setting this year for important projects and I find myself feeling steadily less inspired. Which was not the aim.

I am not sure I have a solution. I'm not sure I'm even tackling the right problem. (See above re tiredness.)

My current thought is to come at it from another angle, by heavily limiting the number of genuinely ticky-box things I have on my list each week, according to my estimate of how long they'll take. So I only have x hrs of those things. Then all the rest of the time is for the important stuff, for which I have an overall goal but (in this new approach) no daily/weekly tickyboxes.

However, this is for next month. For this month I am ditching all the important projects (inc Nano, which I only started last week; oh well) in favour of a more important project of "not doing anything in an attempt to recuperate my brain a bit". See above re tiredness and lack of interest in things that previously engaged me. (Obviously this excludes child-care; and I have no paid-work deadlines this month due to doing them all last month.) Radical self-care. I find this a terrifying notion. I will report back.

Resting update

Motivation