In the past I have described myself as an all or nothing type of person. I either need to be busy, busy, busy or I just need to drop it all. When it comes to moderate schedules I tend to either get bored of them (adding on additional tasks and work until there is almost too much, or perhaps too much indeed) or I get irritated with them (deciding that the amount that I am doing hardly seems worth the bother of leaving to do it and that I'm better off doing nothing at all). It isn't that I am incapable of maintaining them per-say, I just don't like them and therefore tend to avoid them or weasel out of them.
What I did find, was that this was a particularly good thing in the college atmosphere. It gave me the stamina to take a full load of classes and still hold a job and my tolerance for the next to nothing made summers not only tolerable but welcome after such a burst of work. Though notably, my lazy summers usually got full with work and going out with friends as I seem to like doing thins all the time better than doing nothing all the time.
In my last post I had a very definite idea about how this summer was going to go, since last summer (with just one small job and otherwise busy or distanced friends) went away to the lazy side of things. This summer, I said, I wasn't going to waste.
I had lots of ideas of what I wanted to accomplish, but no definite plan. I am beginning to wonder if the lack of definite plan isn't hurting my goals. My days have definitely been busy, but I'm not really sure what it is that I am accomplishing.
In the day I found myself flopping about in a way, doing some of this and a little of that, but not really completing anything, and at night I couldn't sleep, my mind a rush of ideas and plans for the next day.
Then I went to New Orleans for a week and had vacation from all things quite literally. New Orleans was really fun and I really should have written about it and perhaps still will, but when I returned from New Orleans where everyday was full of something new and exciting, it was like a shock.
How could I return to my quite empty apartment and complete something?
There was something missing. I had known it before I left, but upon returning from the, though fun and kind of spontaneous, relatively scheduled or planned days that a vacation with a large group demands, it became painfully obvious that something wasn't right. So much so that I retreated into a ball of accomplishing next to nothing for the following few days.
I generally snapped out of it and returned to my busy body way of doing everything and nothing all at once, but I still felt unraveled. I just couldn't place my finger on it.
Then my husband suggested that we skip dance class this next month to save some money. Logically this makes sense, but I found myself disappointed at the suggestion. Why? It left our week completely open and unplanned. For better or worse I always knew where were would be on Tuesday at what time and what we would be eating. Kind of like when we have the TV shows to watch, my week is checked off by show more so than day of week. House, Glee, Breaking In, NetFlix, Fringe - Weekend!
(I know it is odd, but I've always done this, particularly when I am busy. It reminds me where I am in the week.)
It's summer. Besides Drop Dead Diva, which I watch online after it airs on my own time alone, there's no shows I'm watching. There's no schedule of work or classes. There's no consistency.
Now, I am hardly one to want to do the same thing all the time. I need a changing consistency. I need a schedule to keep me anchored while I'm busy, but eventually I desperately need that schedule to go away and be replaced with a different one.
Which brings me back to the way I function and the college schedule.
It is fair to say that the college type schedule has really effected me. I enjoyed it as a student, and then continued it in my career, and in fact kind of live my life though month phases (or semesters).
I like to get busy for a few months and then relax, I like to have consistency, but consistency in change. I suffice it to say that were I not connected to the college life still, that I would long to find a way to make that work regardless. Perhaps this isn't true. Perhaps I have just been immersed in it for so long now (10 years!) that I know no other way.
Except I know this. I didn't like going to school. I mean I liked school ok, but the actually having to get up and go everyday I didn't like. And then my High School experimented with alternating the schedule. So you'd have classes XYZ on MWF and classes AB on T,TH. Or rather, every other day. I still had to go at the same time and that sucked, but for me, school became so much more tolerable.
So really, I think it has more to do with me and just not doing exactly the same thing every day, but that without a schedule completely I am still a little lost.
Case in point- this unraveled feeling and the disappointment in losing dance class and all my restless nights followed by mediocrity days.
Then, last night, I got out of bed and decided to compartmentalize my life.
I took a piece of paper and a marker and split it into 6 sections: Phd, Personal, Work, Art Job, Apartment, Writing. Under each section I marked what I should or wanted to be working on.
I don't know why this has made me feel better about myself, but it has. It's only the early afternoon and I can't really say that I'm actually doing anything too differently. However, having it down on paper like that is for whatever reason soothing. I feel back in control.
I have this theory that it kind of works like a class schedule. In an odd way I feel like I just enrolled into 6 independent studies. They're all due at the end of the summer and I need to work on them, but it doesn't have a set weekly schedule.
It's almost like when I look at the list my mind reads it as:
Keeping My Apartment Clean 201
Daily Homework: Roomba and Dishes
Final Project: Organize the Office
It might seem strange and it is completely arbitrary, but feeling like I have schedule on paper, and enrollment of sorts, suddenly makes everything feel accomplish-able and definite. It is there. That is what I should be doing. I can see it.
Suddenly my approach to everything feels more structured and I have plans.
I'll let you know if it lasts.
Perhaps if I take it further and actually create a schedule it will work out even better, but for right now I'm good with this.
But perhaps you should try it to. Write down your goals on paper. There is definitely something more real about it then. It's committed. It's out there. And now it must be done.
What I did find, was that this was a particularly good thing in the college atmosphere. It gave me the stamina to take a full load of classes and still hold a job and my tolerance for the next to nothing made summers not only tolerable but welcome after such a burst of work. Though notably, my lazy summers usually got full with work and going out with friends as I seem to like doing thins all the time better than doing nothing all the time.
In my last post I had a very definite idea about how this summer was going to go, since last summer (with just one small job and otherwise busy or distanced friends) went away to the lazy side of things. This summer, I said, I wasn't going to waste.
I had lots of ideas of what I wanted to accomplish, but no definite plan. I am beginning to wonder if the lack of definite plan isn't hurting my goals. My days have definitely been busy, but I'm not really sure what it is that I am accomplishing.
In the day I found myself flopping about in a way, doing some of this and a little of that, but not really completing anything, and at night I couldn't sleep, my mind a rush of ideas and plans for the next day.
Then I went to New Orleans for a week and had vacation from all things quite literally. New Orleans was really fun and I really should have written about it and perhaps still will, but when I returned from New Orleans where everyday was full of something new and exciting, it was like a shock.
How could I return to my quite empty apartment and complete something?
There was something missing. I had known it before I left, but upon returning from the, though fun and kind of spontaneous, relatively scheduled or planned days that a vacation with a large group demands, it became painfully obvious that something wasn't right. So much so that I retreated into a ball of accomplishing next to nothing for the following few days.
I generally snapped out of it and returned to my busy body way of doing everything and nothing all at once, but I still felt unraveled. I just couldn't place my finger on it.
Then my husband suggested that we skip dance class this next month to save some money. Logically this makes sense, but I found myself disappointed at the suggestion. Why? It left our week completely open and unplanned. For better or worse I always knew where were would be on Tuesday at what time and what we would be eating. Kind of like when we have the TV shows to watch, my week is checked off by show more so than day of week. House, Glee, Breaking In, NetFlix, Fringe - Weekend!
(I know it is odd, but I've always done this, particularly when I am busy. It reminds me where I am in the week.)
It's summer. Besides Drop Dead Diva, which I watch online after it airs on my own time alone, there's no shows I'm watching. There's no schedule of work or classes. There's no consistency.
Now, I am hardly one to want to do the same thing all the time. I need a changing consistency. I need a schedule to keep me anchored while I'm busy, but eventually I desperately need that schedule to go away and be replaced with a different one.
Which brings me back to the way I function and the college schedule.
It is fair to say that the college type schedule has really effected me. I enjoyed it as a student, and then continued it in my career, and in fact kind of live my life though month phases (or semesters).
I like to get busy for a few months and then relax, I like to have consistency, but consistency in change. I suffice it to say that were I not connected to the college life still, that I would long to find a way to make that work regardless. Perhaps this isn't true. Perhaps I have just been immersed in it for so long now (10 years!) that I know no other way.
Except I know this. I didn't like going to school. I mean I liked school ok, but the actually having to get up and go everyday I didn't like. And then my High School experimented with alternating the schedule. So you'd have classes XYZ on MWF and classes AB on T,TH. Or rather, every other day. I still had to go at the same time and that sucked, but for me, school became so much more tolerable.
So really, I think it has more to do with me and just not doing exactly the same thing every day, but that without a schedule completely I am still a little lost.
Case in point- this unraveled feeling and the disappointment in losing dance class and all my restless nights followed by mediocrity days.
Then, last night, I got out of bed and decided to compartmentalize my life.
I took a piece of paper and a marker and split it into 6 sections: Phd, Personal, Work, Art Job, Apartment, Writing. Under each section I marked what I should or wanted to be working on.
I don't know why this has made me feel better about myself, but it has. It's only the early afternoon and I can't really say that I'm actually doing anything too differently. However, having it down on paper like that is for whatever reason soothing. I feel back in control.
I have this theory that it kind of works like a class schedule. In an odd way I feel like I just enrolled into 6 independent studies. They're all due at the end of the summer and I need to work on them, but it doesn't have a set weekly schedule.
It's almost like when I look at the list my mind reads it as:
Keeping My Apartment Clean 201
Daily Homework: Roomba and Dishes
Final Project: Organize the Office
It might seem strange and it is completely arbitrary, but feeling like I have schedule on paper, and enrollment of sorts, suddenly makes everything feel accomplish-able and definite. It is there. That is what I should be doing. I can see it.
Suddenly my approach to everything feels more structured and I have plans.
I'll let you know if it lasts.
Perhaps if I take it further and actually create a schedule it will work out even better, but for right now I'm good with this.
But perhaps you should try it to. Write down your goals on paper. There is definitely something more real about it then. It's committed. It's out there. And now it must be done.
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