Juvenile Cephalopods, Productivity, and the Tricking Myself into the Latter Thereof Via Exploiting the Former · 6:36pm Aug 6th, 2015
So while every single one of my friends are heading to Baltimore this weekend to horse around, I finally went and bought myself a Wii U and Splatoon. If at any given moment you also have Schrodinger quandaries concerning your status as kid or squid, add my Nintendo Network ID: couchcrusader, and we can stomp some pubs together.
No, but you're not really here to read. If you're at Bronycon right now, close this blog and have fun with actual people -- this is moralistic self-indulgence brought on by a lunch break.
Writing is hard because it's work. I mean, I can certainly enjoy myself at my desk sometimes, and reading the comments on what I post always balloons my spirits. But writing is still work, in the sense that it's as temporally and mentally taxing as my 9-to-5 (which is becoming more of a 7-5 as the company work queues continue exploding). The biggest reason I hesitate to type a few words or doodle my OC tasting Cereal Velocity's tongue is because they take genuine effort to muster.
It only hit me the other day that I was missing some kind of end to work for. I mean, finishing a Children of Everfree update is a huge psyche boost, but that never comes but for some long, indeterminate time in the future. For instant gratification, I didn't have anything.
Splatoon changed that. Rounds are 3 minutes long, and the matchmaking system turns over enough players that you're never stuck with the same team of useless trash game-to-game. And 99% of the time, win or lose, the end of a round brings its own sense of closure. If I had the chance to play it at work (I won't), I could fit three games into a 15-minute break.
I decided I needed to earn those rounds. I've made a checklist of things ranging from work performance to household chores, self-improvement to artistic output, such that every little box I check off earns me a couple rounds of shooting colorful fluids at avatar children. 50 pushups gets me one round. Taking public transit to work gets me another. If I write a thousand words in a day, I get two. Make fun of Twilight all you want, checklists are the shit.
So far, the system is working. I don't have my underwear sitting on my bed unfolded anymore -- it's all stuffed into a drawer (fresh from the washer/dryer, even!). And maybe, just maybe, I can keep tricking myself into keeping this up until I finish "Sunset Shimmer Has a Problem", or "Button Cash", or even "Ponyville Rim".
There you have it. Stuck on getting stuff done yourself? Are you rewarding yourself often enough? Change it up. That's what I'm trying.
I need your work ethic.
This would be an effort worth mustering.
w-what?