Focus and Loneliness
Quick update on my attempt to balance intense focus with 1-hour of GTD: hasn't been really working so far. I've been sick though... stay tuned.
Lately, instead of my usual running-around-like-crazy GTD, I've been trying to focus all of my frantic energy into one big, massive, scary project. The goal here is to accomplish something major and hopefully achieve a breakthrough/level up in skill level.
One major side effect of the focus is loneliness. In order to to make progress on this project, I've noticed that I need to sequester myself every day for significant periods of time. Unlike other forms of GTD, it doesn't lend itself well to being done "in between" other tasks - in between social outings with friends for example. Focusing like this is like meditation or REM sleep: it's something I have to sink into and concentrate on for hours, it's not something I can tackle in 15-minute increments.
It also doesn't lend itself well to regular reporting. Not only is the project somewhat "secret" (because I may never finish/follow through and it may be years before I have anything substantial to 'announce'), but I have nothing to say, nothing to share. The project has consumed my life and displaced any interesting activities/ mini-projects I may have otherwise done.
This is very different from my usual way of doing things. I've cut back on comic-shows significantly. The energy I've diverted into this project has prevented me from releasing other new products. I quite literally have nothing significant to talk about on twitter, facebook or my comic blog.
I wonder whether my readership has even noticed this, as I believe that in the culture of media-bombardment that the internet has become it is quite difficult to notice a 'missing' or reduced voice. I think that even if they have noticed, my readership would probably forgive the temporary reprieve. I have one of the most wonderful, understanding and forgiving readerships in webcomic-dom and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise 
This project is worth it and if I ever emerge with something worth sharing on the other side it will be interesting to say the least. That isn't what worries me.
What worries me is how much I miss the back-chatter. It's lonely!
Being the fiercely-introverted weirdo that I am, I'm actually quite surprised by this turn of events. My 'dream vacation' is a quiet cabin on a lake where there is nobody for miles and I can do whatever I want... reading, writing, drawing, painting... so to discover that I'm actually LONELY when focusing on writing is shocking to me.
I'm not really sure what to do about it yet. It could be something that I just need to power through - the project is finite, after all. Long, but finite. Perhaps it's just a different temperature of water and I'm still trying to acclimate.
Or perhaps I could just start tweeting about things that are completely inane and random... 
#unfollow
At the end of the day, I'll be fine. I still have my husband and my coworkers. I live in a huge bustling city and my friends are a text-message away. It's the emotional journey - the battle being fought between my brain and my pen - that I must face alone. It's the only way to do it, and I MUST do it.
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.
What are you so afraid of?
Lately I've been working on a Thing. A Big Thing. I don't want to say too much about it (especially since it will be so l...o...n...g before I'm able to deliver-- if I'm able to deliver at all), but I feel it's okay to say something about it here because this is the type of Work that this blog is about. I'm pushing myself, trying to improve, and it is affecting me.
It's a MASSIVE writing project that I've been working at on-and-off-again for a long time. Such a long time that I refuse to count the years anymore (yes, years) because it is embarrassing and makes me a little bit ill. But slowly, obstacles between me and the Big Thing have been getting knocked down and I've been attacking it quite seriously of late.
I'm despondent when I can't work at it, or when it isn't working, or when I can't get something quite right.
But when it's going, when I'm flowing at it, I'm happier and more creatively fulfilled than I've felt in a very long time. It's been too long since I've been away from this type of Work. Truly, all of the effort I've expended into learning how to get things done and manage my mind has all been for this. That was the whole point when I started this journey. Now I just have to stare down the silence and make it work. And it will work. I will make it work.
A lot of fears have come up from the depths. The Resistance is screaming at me and it takes a lot of energy to just sit and work through it.
Hackneyed is a horrible word. Derivative. These are words that people invented to scare you and to keep you from trying anything creative.
But I am afraid. I'm afraid that this piece will be simply the worst thing I've ever written. It will take so long to even write the drafts, never mind the actual piece. Could it ever be worth it?
Banal. Trite. Cliché.
But if I quit wholesale, it will have defeated me. I will have stared down the barrel of something that terrifies me at a fundamental creative level and lost. I don't want to lose. Even if the story is horrible, even if nobody relates to any of the characters and hours and hours and hours of my life have been 'wasted', it will have been worth it simply for having defeated a profound fear from within. You need to chase down and defeat the thing that scares you the most.
Flat. Superficial. Bland.
Working in isolation has been so very difficult. I'm used to putting my work out there immediately (and I very much recommend it) but this Big Thing is a different beast. It's an interpolative process. I'm testing theories and refining the plot from beginning to end, tightening it like a vice, and it cannot be born to the internet until it's settled. So I must work at it, slowly chipping away the waste, without validation or even the verification of failure that an apathetic response brings. Now it's just me and my lizard brain.
Boring. Ridiculous. Over-Acted. Entirely devoid of motivation.
Here is how I'm getting through it:
- I'm having fun.
- I'm learning.
- I can't possibly get worse at something that I'm working so hard at.
If you're facing a creative fear, know that the simple fact that you care so much will make a difference. It's your taste that pushes you to create something, and your taste tells you when something isn't quite up to standard. It will motivate you to learn, and research, and try new things, and keep pushing at the Work to make it better. Tighter. More unique.
Being able to see the flaws is more than half the battle. The other half is DOING THE WORK. Simply putting in the time and doing YOUR part to make it happen. You have to put lousy, mediocre things out there before you can put great things. It's a sacrifice, but nothing good comes without some sort of sacrifice.
You can't re-write something until you've written it down the first time. Only when it exists in a conveyable format are you able to truly assess whether it meets your vision. Until then it's only an amorphous idea. Untested. No good to anyone. True, if it never comes into existence, you won't have to face the cold reality of it being bad. But you'll also never know how great it might have been.
Get back to Work.
How To Optimize your Home
If a quick look at the homewares store is any indication, it would seem that "decluttering" is a New Year's resolution for a LOT of people. Even though I quit resolutions, I've definitely got decluttering on the brain!
WHY BOTHER?
Feng Shui is the Chinese art of organizing the objects and furniture in your physical surroundings to optimize the flow of chi. It seems like superstition, or hocus pocus, but if you study it you'll see it's really mostly psychology. (It's "bad fung shui" to have broken mirros, dead flowers, piles of clutter and furniture in your way!)
Think about this:
When you walk in the door, it makes an annoying screeching noise because it's not oiled properly. You trip over the scrunched-up carpet and then bang your knee on the table, because it's at an odd angle. Because your couch is the first thing in your path as you enter the space, you inevitably flop down on it after work and get sucked into a few hours of television. You can never find what you're looking for, which leads you to give up on whatever it is you were doing. Then, after a long and trying night, that leaky faucet can make you really go ballistic.
The point is: clutter, disrepair, and a poorly laid out living or working space DOES affect our mental state. It affects our motivation and our speed of productivity... and isn't that what mind management is all about?
I don't hold delusions of a minimalist existence, but I came back from Thailand with the very sober realization that I. have. too. much. God. Damned. Stuff!!! Since I've moved so many times, it's not a complete disaster, but things aren't as organized as they could be.
The PROJECT
I'm tackling rooms one at a time, start to finish. I'm focusing ALL my effort on one room until it's done, and then the lovely rooms will motivate me to keep going fixing the ugly ones. (Like a visible progress bar!) For this project, I'm starting with the EASIEST rooms first - in my case these are the bathrooms, because they're teeny tiny and almost done anyway. (Quick wins!)
Each room will go through the following actions:
FIX - If it's broken... FIX IT or REPLACE IT! Fixed objects don't make us happy, necessarily, but broken ones make us SO ANNOYED! Replace burnt out lightbulbs, repair busted appliances, or improve a layout that's always pissed you off.
DECLUTTER - my "stretch goal" in this regard is to downsize by 50%. Tackle each cupboard, each shelf, each little collection of stuff one group at a time. Just one drawer per night if that's what it takes. Take everything out of that small section, and try to get rid of HALF of it.
Pick up items one by one and ask yourself: "When is the last time I used this? Do I really need this? Does this even work (or has it expired, in the case of medication or makeup)?" Then decide: Keep it, trash it, donate it.
ORGANIZE
If you have lots of useful small things - like hair elastics - that are constantly being found all over the house - build a PLACE for them and collect them all together. You know you'll use it if only you could FIND it when you need it!
Buy storage boxes and group things together by purpose - for example I used to keep my swim suit in with my socks, but instead I made a box that collects everything for "swimming" together - my different swimsuits, my goggles and other specialty "beach" things like snorkels. Same for camping and other specialty gear for sports! That way when I decide to "go swimming" everything's already collected.
UPGRADE
Last on the list is figuring out which things are overdue for an upgrade. I just upgraded the hideous shower curtain we inherited in the move and bought a few towels that match the decor. Be careful - nice homewares are ridiculously exensive and it's easy to go overboard. It's a total drag spending your pocket money on something lame like a shower curtain (seriously, I spent all my pocket money for THE MONTH on these few bathroom things!!) but if you HAVE the money right now it's better spent on nice things you will use every day, rather than MORE CLUTTER STUFF!!
I'm compiling a list of things I want to upgrade (sorted by the type of store I would buy it at) and going after them only when I have the pockey money to do so. If what you have now works, there's no rush to fix it. The upgrading process will probably take the longest of everything - hopefully long after everything is organized and decluttered! - but if I get it all over with I won't have to worry anymore. (For awhile, at least)
At the end of everything I'm going to have a place where everything is fixed! The drawers aren't overflowing with stuff! And I can actually use some of the wonderful things that I shelled out to own! Here's hoping!
I hope you'll excuse this horribly domestic post