Week Forty-five! This has been a totally lackluster week for me, probably the laziest I’ve been since I’ve started this–but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I’ve noticed for awhile now that I’ve been having this tug-of-war on a daily basis between between my akrasia and my daily routine.
Of course, that isn’t anything new, but over time I’ve sort of subconsciously entrenched myself into this structure where I try to be productive in the morning and afternoon, but don’t find it’s necessary because I can finish my work at night, where I’m actually productive.
And this inertia that I’ve been trying to fight uphill has made me form a narrative for myself surrounding it. Particularly because right now, I don’t really have anybody except myself dictating how I operate or why.
This luxury of freedom also means I’m solely responsible for my own morale, and that’s sort of depleted after becoming so often disappointed in myself each day for procrastinating in spite of myself. If that makes any sense.
All of this to say that I think it’s a good thing that I’ve just let myself take a step back and not worry about all of that for a couple of days. Tangentially related, I’ve begun a “Memory Log” as a centralized document to keep note of the most important things for myself that I haven’t entrenched into a habit yet.
In spite of all the work I’ve been trying to put in, it’s still very easy for me to become extremely forgetful, dip from Maslow’s hierarchy peak of self-actualization, and mindlessly get involved in whatever unproductive or unhelpful behavior or task. Such is life with executive dysfunction.
Also tangentially related, I’ve been contemplating the cargo cult of productivity and premature optimization. I’m finding the tools I’m using to work, but without a useful coherency.
Eg. In order to track my word count via Beeminder, I have to do all my writing in Draft or Google Docs first, and then migrate or synthesize it elsewhere for it to be useful in a knowledge base/repository. That isn’t to say that I don’t really love the minimal, distraction free writing process Draft provides, rather it’s just a workflow that I haven’t been able to stick yet.
On the complete flip side, I also wanted to share this graph from Mark Suster’s article: How I Lost 65 Pounds In 18 Months Without Any Fad Diets or Gimmicks.
Mark really demonstrates how to actually use a wide variety of different methods and apps to obtain success. I don’t think I’ve seen a better example on how to use the Swiss Cheese Model to modify your own behavior!