All Good Things… I Have Done Nothing Productive All Week! · 5:39pm Jul 2nd, 2020
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1st July 2020
Hello, Chaps and Chapettes,
Phew, it’s been a busy week, yet I don’t feel like I’ve been productive at all! The problem has been that I’ve had a lot of small things to do that have taken up a lot of time. I thought that, by getting the small things out of the way, I’d have time to do the big things without worrying about them. However, that’s not exactly how small things work.
Put it like this; one grain of sand doesn’t make a big impact if you find it in a sandwich, it’s pretty insignificant, you probably don’t know it’s there, right? Yet, more grains become a problem, and if the sandwich is covered in sand, it’s a write-off. This is the way life works too - one thing can seem really simple to move on from and sort out, more than a few soon become a chore. If you spend your whole day sorting out these things, you’ll find yourself exhausted and struggling to resolve the bigger things, even if you believe you have the time for it now. As soon as your energy is back, you’ll be facing small things again and the cycle continues…
So that’s the doom and gloom of it, let’s get straight on with how we start resolving it!
1 - Don’t feel bad about saying no! Okay, so you were raised to say yes, be polite all the time, never make a person feel bad, right? And yet, by following those conditions you were given as a kid, you are now finding that there is so much coming into your life that you cannot handle it properly. The best place to resolve this is where it started - say no. If you cannot say no, or you are worried about how it will affect someone’s mood with you, then try a different tact. Find out when the person wants the thing or the event, and if it isn’t feasible for you then be honest about that. Suggest a date and time when it would be more convenient for you and would give you the time to do what you want and need to do things. This will make things easier for you and hopefully not leave a bad taste in a friend or co-worker’s mouth.
2 - Plan your time better - Planning is something I am terrible with. I try to plan but don’t realize how long something will take or I think I will have more energy after something than I actually do. For example, I get extremely stressed and anxious when meeting people, even my own friends, and family, so after those meetings, I’m usually unable to concentrate for a good while. My solutions to these things are to make plans that I know are realistic to me.
Rather than sit down bang on the o’clock and do the thing, I will give myself a rough estimate of what I will need to do and when I will be free, then I aim to be there, doing that thing around that time, rather than expecting myself to be doing it and beating myself up when I’m not. If I know there’s an interaction I want to be at or have to go to, then I will ensure that there are very few of them at that time, to allow me to feel comfortable afterward. This way, when I come back to the big things I need to do, I know I have the time, energy, and concentration to do them.
3 - Big things first. Big things are big for a reason. They have the biggest impact on your life, can make things good or bad depending on how you handle them. So, no matter how much you wanna get the small fry off your chest and not have to worry about it, it’s far better to get the big meaty chunks out of the broth first, then you can enjoy the gravy afterward… I don’t know where that came from. I’m not even hungry.
If you have several big things to resolve, then don’t try to do them one after the other. Do at least one first, then do a maximum of three small things and have a chance to relax too before you try to tackle another big thing. This way, you’ll have your mind clear ready for it and won’t be thinking about how you handled the last task or getting the dreaded brain fog. Staring at a task not knowing what you’re supposed to do with it never helped anyone!
And finally, 4 - I touched on it in the last one, but probably the most important thing you can do is give yourself a chance to rest and recuperate. We go away on holiday for a reason - to get away from environments that feel like hard work. Careers and chores take up a lot of our lives and while they need to be done, they shouldn’t make us feel devolved into just doing that, day in, day out. Give yourself that time to do the things you want to do, see the people you want to see and then come back refreshed. Yet, on the same token, don’t overdo it if you want to be productive. If you spend all your time chilling, watching rubbish on Netflix, and not trying to get a task out of the way, you cannot then moan that life is boring or that it’s hard to be productive. It isn’t, mate. You’re just not trying. Sorry, but thems the facts. (Google Docs does not like that either, it kept trying to change thems to themes).
So those are my top tips and I am going to take my own medicine now. Time to get back to some hard graft and see what I can make of a story or two. We’re getting somewhere with Luna Switched thanks to… err, for the sake of Tumblr, I’ll call her Lady T.S. I have a project planned out called EarthQuestria and a plan prepared for Scoundrels too. So, things are moving nicely and I’m looking forward to sharing more too.
Last question - Patreon rewards, what do you think? What would YOU like if you were sending me cash to keep me writing and sharing my creativity? Answers on a postcard to this address...
All good things,
Lots of hugs,
Scara x
Link to Luna Switched: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/17...../luna-switched
Link to Discord Server: https://discord.gg/9GEhvhf
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