The Danger of Focus
Over the past few years, I've been putting a heavy emphasis on GTD. (For the purposes of this article, GTD ('Getting Things Done' means attacking large lists of tasks and completing them as efficiently as possible). This year, however, I'm trying to learn how to instead direct all of my energy into ONE project at a time and really pushing to expand my boundaries and abilities. I'm trying to knock myself out of a comfort zone and achieve a higher level of ability with my Work.
It's been going okay. I mean, it's been very hard, and draining, and I don't think I've progressed much, but I have been successfully putting a sincere effort into it. I do feel as if I'm actively climbing the right road, even if the road is super steep and I'm tripping a lot.
One thing I've been noticing, however, is that when I channel all of my energy into fighting the Resistance, my GTD efforts suffer. (In other words... I'm behind on a lot of mundane chores).
Motivation is an exhaustible resource.
When I put my all into a challenging creative project, I'm exhausted and unable to GTD. When I switch and put a ton of energy into GTD, I'm too exhausted to push myself creatively.
Making a standard webcomic update no longer scares me creatively, and so I'm not usually exhausting my scarce motivation resource. Now that I'm actively attacking the Resistance, I no longer have the energy to maintain my lists, keep my inbox clean, and stay on top of my chores.
This is a new level that I'm seeking and it's not something that's going to come instantaneously. I'll need to work to find balance because this is a looooooong big project and important aspects of my life will suffer if I continue to fail at keeping up with the mundane tasks that fill our days.
Tactics to Try:
1) GTD for one hour per day. In the past I've been trying to use the 'one hour' rule to chip away at creative efforts, and used the rest of my time to GTD. Now I've swapped: I spend about 4 hours in my evenings at this creative project, and almost no time at GTD. I need to make sure to spend at least one hour on my lists, maybe that will be enough. I worry that even an hour of GTD will exhaust me creatively, but hopefully it will work out. It's all about habits.
2) Alternate days: If the daily GTD hour doesn't afford me enough time/energy to keep up, I might try an alternate-days tactic. Mondays work on Big Thing. Tuesdays work on GTD. Wednesdays work on Big Thing. I have a few worries about this tactic: for one, I feel that the only way I've started to make progress on The Big Thing is by attacking it every single day. You can't schedule your muse: "Ok I'll see you Tuesday at 6pm." The muse shows up when it wants to, you just have to give it enough time. I worry that if I try this, I'll either lose my momentum on the Big Thing, or get so wrapped up in momentum that I'll fail to GTD on the days I'm supposed to!
3) Early riser GTD: I still think this is a good tactic but, brother, every time I even THINK about waking up earlier I fail SO HARD because of my sleep problems. Originally I was thinking of waking up earlier and working on The Big Thing but it TOTALLY wasn't working out. To make matters worse, I find that I've been putting out my best creative work between 10-1am. YEESH. Still, it might come down to 'do or die'.
I'll let you know how it goes.