Viewing Category: Habits
Today is Veteran's Day, November 11, which also happens to be the last "official" day of Groundhog Day Resolutions Reviews 2008. At this point, the American High Holidays--Thanksgiving through New Years Day--loom over me. so I rest my side ambitions until February 2nd. The original idea behind Ground Hog Day resolutions is that on January 1st, the traditional time of making resolutions, I'm so tired from the holidays that I'm still catching up with everything I didn't finish last year; I need some time to chill and reflect. Besides, Ground Hog Day is my favorite holiday, and it is under-celebrated.
Fractal Patterns of Perceived Failure and Recovery
2008 was the second year I launched GHDRs, and I maintained the follow up review days for March, April, May, June, and July. It was a mixed run, largely one of disappointment masked by the power of positive thinking ;-)
After July, I decided to go on blogging hiatus due to an increased project load (largely mental, in retrospect), and suspended my GHDR Review Days at the same time. When I review the wistfully-optimistic first months of 2008, I find the following themes appearing:
- March: The acute need to focus, to attain mobility, and to battle the forces of loneliness.
- April: The recognition that I needed to be more specific to achieve goals. Also, the decision to reduce my material needs (a necessary aspect of mobility), and to commit to writing as a vocation, whatever that means.
- May: Why oh why do I lack motivation? Theorizing on internal and external sources of said motivation. Gah!
- June: Acceptance that there are certain "go-getter" attributes I lack, a decision to find alternate routes other than the "just do it" approach.
- July: Ground down, I rediscover part of my core, and am surprised to find what's there.
If this sounds familiar, it's probably because last week's Productivity Reboot repeats the entire cycle of fevered commitment - perceived failure - diagnosis - acceptance - return to core - re-dedication. If I were to look back at the 1200+ blog posts I've written over the past three years, I am pretty sure that I'd see the same cycle repeated, fractal-like, in everything I do. This I find fascinating, and at the same time it's kind of alarming because at first glance it seems that I'm not going anywhere. Yikes! Have I discovered my predestined pattern of doom?
Sparky to the Rescue
I flew to California last Sunday for a week of on-site work with Inquirium, which I look forward to for the shared working environment. While waiting for a change of plane at Chicago Midway, I happened upon Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis. Although I had enjoyed Peanuts as a child, I had never known much about the cartoonist Schulz himself and had mentally categorized him as "too popular to be interesting, coasting on past success". However, seeing the book reminded me of my buddy Brad, who in the early days of our acquaintance had been working hard to get into a cartoon syndicate, and I decided to pick up the book to gain some insight. What I gleaned from my reading was profound insight into my own nature, by gaining a reference point of understanding about the nature of ambition and self-doubt.
Charles M. Schulz, for all his success in life, was a man who seemingly kept himself from feeling actual happiness. He was a shy boy raised by emotionally-distant parents who demonstrated their love through duty, hiding their own insecurities behind thick walls of silent denial. Highly intelligent, talented but surrounded by people who couldn't imagine--and therefore couldn't emotionally support--the notion of cartooning for a living, he nevertheless was lucky enough to find himself in employ of a company that allowed him to mature his drawing as an unwitting means to express his own pantheon of insecurities; the book is liberally illustrated with strips that echo the goings-on of his life. Throughout his life, he insisted on thinking of himself as a regular guy from Minnesota who had done OK with a modicum of talent, though underneath the surface he was highly ambitious and competitive to the point of meanness. He held grudges against the people who he perceived to have bullied, slighted, or belittled him. When he was a child, his own doubts and insecurities were fed by people who he later realized were limited in their life perspective and experience, and despite his rise to massive success he just could not accept that he'd made it and was adored by millions. Although a gracious and generous person in spirit, he had a constant need for affirmation; without his cartoon, he said, "he would be dead." He died in 2000, and one of his last interviews regarding how he viewed his life achievements produced a statement that struck me rather well. Paraphrased: "I took the talent I had and did not waste it." Producing his comic strip was an intensely personal affair; he did not seek help or advice on his work, because in his mind it was the one thing that he did himself that provided affirmation that he was doing something right.
I can see a lot of parallels between myself and Schulz's conflicts about his desire for understanding, for affirmation, and being the best while being in conflict with his Midwestern values of being humble and unassuming. Instead of rationalizing them away, as I've been trying to do, Schulz actively appeared to embrace them, using his unhappiness to drive his muse. What's interesting too is that the biography makes a point of distinguishing unhappiness from depression. I still can't quite wrap my head around the distinction, but to be depressed I gather is to not be able to muster the energy to do anything, while unhappiness is something less debilitating. In my own case, I am feeling similar doubts about my direction, and I am also beset by desires to be the best at what I do for recognition by the world. I want a calling, and I don't want to fail. At the same time, I wonder if I am being immodest and prideful in a way that will damage my soul or, at the very least, bite me in my hypocritical ass: I want to be a good person, but I also want to be the best. And like Schulz, I want to the be the sole author of my creations, because this provides me with affirmation that I am capable of doing something right as well.
After reading the biography, I was struck by a few thoughts:
Schulz, for all his insecurities, persevered through his unhappiness and consistently produced work day-in, and day-out. What drove him was an ideal of customer service he had absorbed from his father, a barber who meticulously found comfort in the daily routine of giving his customers individual attention. In time, Schulz worked it out and found success. My own belief that producing tangible things as a means to create opportunities and connections with people is similar; consistent production of items of value, as appraised by other people, is very important to me. Otherwise, how do people know what you're capable of?
Schulz belated matured, growing out of his boyish ways as he took on responsibilities in WWII. He became a well-liked squad leader because of his intelligence, competence with weapons, and ability to listen to people who learned they could come to him. This is a model of leadership that I like, and it mirrors the sentiments I've been reading about in Seth Godin's Tribes (I have 3 copies of that book now, one for me, and two for loaning to people).
If someone as massively successful as Charles Schulz could be deeply unhappy and beset by numerous demons, at least I was in good company. I lack the ability to hold a grudge for very long, and I'm not really that unhappy or depressed at all. But I am at times lonely and isolated, and seek affirmation and understanding. It would be great if I could find that affirmation in myself and be done with it, but there's something else missing. However, I don't want to be soooo dependent on external affirmation that I am a slave to it; reading Schulz's biography has put that scenario into perspective, and I want nothing to do with it. That is itself a self-strengthening realization.
There is a commitment to excellence in Schulz's work, both artistically and in the pursuit of deeper truths. When he first started attempting syndication in the early 1950s, people tried to get him to steer his creations in more "popular" directions; his own mother suggested that he needed to draw sexier girls. But Sparky stuck to his guns, and when Peanuts (nee "Li'l Folks") debuted in the 1950s, his work was regarded as a kind of anomaly in comics of the time. His audience grew steadily, then explosively, over the next 25 years, and it is (I imagine) because his work wasn't made to appease the surface desires of a large audience, but because he constantly pursued personal truths in himself and in his observations of the times. His art was the means through which he strove to portray these truths as clearly as possible. For myself as a blogger and writer, I've struggled with the ideas of writing shorter, easier-to-digest, more digg-able, top-ten list style posts for the purpose of growing audience, but I don't. I'm well aware that I could write shorter and more concise articles, but there is something about the way that I write now that is truthful to myself; creating shorter articles that jump right to the point is a different product entirely, one that will come later. I am still very much in my formative years as a writer, deciding what truths matter to me, and learning to express them to unknown people far away. My best days are yet to come; this is the lesson I've learned from Schulz's biography. Artistically, I now have the sense of purpose that I need to keep doing what I'm doing.
What does this have to do with Ground Hog Resolutions? I think they've evolved into something else. I mentioned that Ground Hog's Day is one of my favorite holidays, and this is partly because of the movie Groundhog Day, which is a fantastical movie about self-realization and improvement. In the movie, Bill Murray's self-centered character moves from surface cynicism to something deeply truthful about himself and his needs. It's the continual pursuit of these personal truths that, I suspect, drive me. I am compelled to follow them. I have no idea what kind of "business case" I can make for this, but I am making a bet that if I continue to express these truths through my writing, design, and personal interactions, I'll be OK. And so, I can distill all my future Ground Hog Day Resolutions into a single Master Resolution that goes something like this:
Seek the truthful essence, and make it artfully visible so others can see it too.
So long as I do that every day, in some form, I'll be doing what I'm supposed to be doing, the equivalent of Sparky Schulz getting up every morning and producing his strip for 50 years.
After the mixed success of day 1, the second day of my productivity reboot fared only slightly better in terms of raw hours worked. I got up early as I had the day before, and hit the polls at 6:15AM to cast my vote. Unfortunately, my late-night epiphany about the need for more mirth had tired me out, which led to an unplanned 2-hour nap in the middle of the day. The day, then, was lost to random socializing and following election result coverage late into the night. On Wednesday, I helped accomplish something critically important for my project that I hadn't planned. This was good, but it was irking that the rest of the day was not directed.
Disentangling what I want from what I must do
A big part of this productivity reboot is about finding my work groove so I can reliably jack into it. On the surface the "solution" is simple: hunker down and do the work. That's what my Dad would do! However, there is this nagging feeling that my "work" should be "my life's work". In other words, being productive isn't just about self-discipline, it's also about finding meaning in what I do. My assumption is that once I find the meaning, I can design my future so I can have the freedom to do that. So far, my best guess is that I want to create sustaining connections with people that I care about, and have this somehow be what I do for a living.
Thus far, my productivity reboot has failed to power up, and this is due to procrastination. Looking a little closer, however, I realize that what I'm doing to procrastinate mirrors my long-term goals:
GOAL: I say that I want to create sustaining connections with people I care about. By sustaining, I mean that I get something out of the relationship that gives me energy. By connection, I mean the means through which we interact: common interest, desire to share knowledge, and the other benefits of good friendship. I think this will be the foundation for productive happiness.
PROCRASTINATING MIRROR FORM: When someone that is already a good friend contacts me, talking to that person feels like the goal is already achieved. The connection immediate and visceral. Even when I'm surfing the web, I'm looking for tidbits and inspiration that I can apply to the next conversation I have with someone; in all likelihood, I'm surfing the web based on something someone said to me earlier.
This desire to immediately cash-in on existing personal relationship does NOT help me in my short term responsibilities. It's a short-circuit to immediate pleasure, just as addictive as indulging in ice cream to keep your mind from sinking into a funk. I tell myself that talking to friends and acquaintances on the Internet is actually a good thing, because it helps me see exciting new ideas and opportunities. In this case, however, it's a distraction; there is important work that must be done first, and there's no making it go away.
I think most "normal" people happily split their work and personal lives in two separate halves, but for some reason I've never been able to do it. Possibly, this is because I've never had a "normal" 9-5 job. I've worked primarily at startups and game companies, and now I freelance. My parents were also missionaries, and their work was their life. As a freelancer I am the single room in which all decisions ultimately get made, and I think it will be necessary to compartmentalize further. In other words: create unbending structure and forcing myself to adapt within its confines. The trick will be to create the right structure and maintaining my physical well-being so I can follow through with it.
Overcoming the mind's desires
The first takeaway is that I actually have to live in isolation for a while, or figure out some practical way to balance work with life. My ideal of balance is that it would be X hours of solid, uninterrupted work followed by Y hours of quality social time, something like an idealized 9-5 schedule. However, my personality tends to goes against this schedule. My mind likes to run and jump around from thought to thought, exulting in the interplay between incompatible ideas, crashing them together and challenging their underlying assumptions. I could attempt to squash that impulse, but am I fighting a losing battle against my nature? It would be far better to create a productive system that uses my "weaknesses" as strengths...but this is for the future. For right now, I do need to put aside my desire to have conversations and focus on doing some hardcore programming and website redevelopment.
The second takeaway is that I probably should remind myself constantly that I do have good friends. I know I say it a lot, but when I'm in my basement by myself it's hard to remember. While I was talking to my friend Jenn online about my depressed state, she mentioned it was difficult to imagine because my buddy icon is so positive looking. I joked I should probably print it out so it would remind me that I am happy. Hm. The buddy icon photo was taken at Barcamp Boston 3 and is probably the best photo I have of myself. I went and bought a whole bunch of frames and filled them with pictures of friends and family, everyone smiling, and hung them behind my monitor (see photo below). My house has nothing on the walls at all, so this was a good thing to do. I immediately felt a little less isolated.
Overcoming the body's desires
Two other problems are sleeping schedule and diet. I have a tendency to stay up late because my brain keeps racing until it is tired. My natural day seems to be about 27 hours long, so if I indulge my desire to stay up I quickly go out of sync with the rest of the world. With no morning commute, I can also sleep in. It's pretty draining, now that I think about it, to constantly be in and out of sync, so committing to the schedule means ignoring my impulse to stay up AND having a reason to get up at the same time. It might have to be some kind of early morning class at the gym or something.
As for diet, I have not been drinking enough water, which makes my head a little cloudy. Sugars, breads and starches also make me very sleepy, as does quantity, so I have to eat much more mindfully. I have a tendency to turn off my brain when I'm eating, and therefore the portions and type of food tend to be unregulated by common sense. Maybe I need to sacrifice yummy food for those meals in a can; if I know meals are going to be yucky, I'll just get them over with as soon as possible. Am I willing to trade off a few moments of foodie pleasure for 90 minutes of clear thinking, so I can get my productivity groove going? Probably.
Keeping the pace
Having a schedule might help. Maybe I need some version of Adult Kindergarten...THAT might be a fun Coworking experiment. My schedule is completely arbitrary and flexible, which is what I thought I wanted but it is starting to drive me crazy. It's very tiring to have to be responsible for all the decisions all the time, especially when you are completely by yourself.
The problem with keeping the schedule is that I have tasks that are difficult to predict. I tend to want closure and completion on my work, so I work until things are done. Invariably things take longer, and when they do other things fall off the to-do list. It may be necessary to apply a time limit to how long I am "allowed" to work on any single area, mercilessly switching to the next scheduled task. If they don't get done, so be it; I'll pick it up again tomorrow. It would be possible to schedule more precisely if the exact nature of the task is blueprinted, but that requires more up-front planning. The Task Progress Tracker is designed somewhat around this, but I don't believe I actually have a form that is designed to enforce time without the requirement of completion. It's an intriguing idea, with a different set of context and continuity management challenges.
A corollary to the "work strictly with the allocated time" approach is committing to feeling tired. I tend to sleep if I feel sleepy, reasoning to myself that if I'm tired I'm not going to be able to do the work anyway. Perhaps I should really just drink a Red Bull and keep moving instead of sleeping. That will tend to put me back into the schedule, maybe, though I don't like the idea of chemically sustaining my mental processes.
Re-re-re-rebooting
Thursday is another day, and I've already blown my "go to sleep" window, but I will apply the "just stay up" approach. That means waking up at 6AM and pushing through. Unfortunately my experiment will be interrupted by a trip out to San Jose this Sunday, where I'll be holed up for my project with the rest of the team.
There are decisions to be made at every step of the way, and I am feeling the desire to design some kind of tracking / process form that handles all these problems. It would be something like the ETT, except what it would track decisions made in the face of dizziness, tiredness, lack of motivation, etc. However, if you choose to use a "cheat" to get by, or you decide to bail, the form would be able to tell you what you need to do to get back into synchronization and suggest appropriate recovery techniques over the next 24 hours.
Anyway, that's how the reboot is going right now. I wasn't expecting this much angst when I started it, but it feels like I'm addressing some previously hidden resistances to my productivity.
I wasn't even going to write this, because I went to bed at 9PM so I could be at the polls by 6AM. By my official schedule, I should be sound asleep to establish an inspiring personal track record of productive discipline. What I didn't count on was a sudden blast of insight that jolted me wide awake about two hours ago. After I heard my Timex beep the hour twice, I gave up and decided to do some writing. The day started strong and ended haphazardly. However, failure has led to a series of epiphanies regarding productivity and mirthfulness.
Starting strong
The first day of any habit usually goes pretty well, because I'm motivated and ready to go. And indeed, my morning started out great. I woke up at 530AM, dressed in real clothes, and got over to Starbucks by 6:40AM to start planning on an Emergent Task Planner sheet (see photo). This being the first ETP sheet in some time, it's fairly choked with things to do. I had no illusion about getting them all done, however, so I just kept adding to it to rollover to tomorrow's sheet. By 700AM, I pretty confident about what I needed to do overall for the day, and wrote down first steps for the day's programming tasks in a separate notebook. By 715AM, I was ready to head to the gym for an hour, planning to follow-up with a quick trip to pick up a room divider screen plus adequate protein for the day.
I also decided on a day's personal challenge of sharing positive energy with strangers on the street. I found that I was unable to really muster the ability to power through other people's default mood, which was that of casual preoccupation and indifference. I had never noticed this before, probably because I'm in the same place. The best I could do was mirror people's mood in a reactive way. When people smiled, I could smile back. If they didn't smile, I just moved my gaze onward. This was a disturbing realization, as this indicated a lack of positive energy on my part. And that's a problem; if you want to be around positive people, you had better be positive yourself. Like attracts like, ya know.
Getting back to the gym in the morning was nice. It had been quite some time (3 months) since I'd done an early-morning gym routine, and it felt good to just work through the muscle groups and sweat. I didn't push myself too hard, as I wanted to be "clear headed" without the tiredness. Mission accomplished, I zooped back home to read my email. Several readers provided some very helpful comments regarding the productivity reboot, offering empathetic advice. "Clyde" noted that although cleaning up my space was one way to improve motivation, the real change has to happen in the mind. He suggested a particularly vivid mental trick, imagining that one is sucked into the task to create joy and openness. This would prove to be an important observation for later in the day...thanks Clyde! As much as I like to think myself the master of mind trickery, it's good to be reminded that others have their own master collection of insights.
Blowing my momentum
The day started to go awry when I made some poor choices about the use of my time. First, I decided to go buy the room divider screen I'd seen at a store last week. It was no where to be seen, so I went to another store, then another, then another. I spent the next couple hours going to six stores where I thought I'd seen screens like this, only to find that they seem to have been completely erased from the face of the Earth. I knew the entire time that I was being obsessive about it, and decided to end my trip by at least buying some low sodium soy sauce from Trader Joe's (my favorite for taste and cooking) to salvage the rest of the day. It being close to lunch time, I made my second mistake: I went to KFC and got a chicken breast meal with potato wedges. The combination of KFC plus the tiredness that had accumulated over the extended shopping after working out at the gym completely knocked me out. I would have slept longer if it wasn't for the incessant calling and doorbell ringing from Obama supporters throughout the day.
It being 2PM, the day wasn't completely screwed, but I knew that by 5PM I would not be able to maintain any work momentum. That is when I made several more erroneous judgment calls. Three good friends of mine happened to contact me one after the other, and I chose to spend time visiting with them rather than telling them that I wanted to work. The first friend, A, is going through a similar bout of motivational reconfiguring, so I rationalized that this might pay off in the long run. We talked for two hours, outlining possible issues and strategies regarding motivation, all the while acknowledging the irony that we were also procrastinating. At 5PM, I went to meet my best friend E at Starbucks to restock on general cheerfulness, which is important to have stocked in New England during the cold months. Finally, at 615PM I met friend number three at Lowe's to pick up some stuff, and offered to help him unload a new snowblower at home because it was a two-man job. And then, the day was gone. Poof!
Reflecting upon this massive failure to stick to the plan, I recognized two mechanisms in action:
Succumbing to the Easy Fix: I'd somehow had it in my mind that getting this room divider was really important to establish the right atmosphere to work. I really just wanted one. I think it will actually help the office for other reasons, but in terms of functional productivity it provided false positive feedback. Buying stuff feels like change. If you like what you got, and can rationalize the utility of your purchase, you feel like you've done something. It feels like you've added more potential to the system. Well, that's not true. When my attempt to purchase to screen failed, I went into a backup reward recovery mode and indulged in a greasy treat from KFC. I knew all the time that I probably shouldn't spend so much time looking for the screen, but there is always just one more store, and it's just a few minutes away. And I knew that the KFC would probably make me sleepy, but I convinced myself that maybe this time it wouldn't. But it did...my desire for immediate reward overrode the modicum of discipline I had mustered up for the day. Bah.
Shortcutting to the False End Goal: If it wasn't clear yesterday, I'm feeling the need to break out of my rut of isolation. However, I have to get my projects completed and out the door, and I need to build a support enterprise that gives me the freedom to operate the way I want. This freedom will allow me, theoretically, to travel more and work on interesting projects that are based around human interaction. I crave this. And because I crave it so much, it was easy to succumb to my desire to be around more people. I gained a lot of insight about myself and my current process, mind you, and I feel good for having spent the time with my friends...but I didn't get what I wanted done. It will take discipline to limit my social activities during normal working hours (and this includes shopping trips). This is one of the perks of freelancing in the first place, but for this productivity push I will need to maintain a firmer hand on my time.
Discovering mirth
Despite the drawbacks of the day, they did lead me to an important personal observation:
I'm silly and unrealistic.
Ok, I already knew this, but instead of depressing me, this made me laugh at myself. My propensity toward silliness was evident while talking to my motivationally-challenged perfectionist friend. I worked myself up to a comedic fervor, vividly guessing an over-the-top version of his probably dreams. My friend pointed out that this was a kind of vision, and this struck me. The truth is this: I like being silly, and I like making up stuff that is improbable but awesome. This is one of my passions.
For someone who likes silly things, I have nevertheless tended to chose to be serious about life. I've known that I needed to lighten up about life for a long time, and recently I've felt I need to project positive energy to have any hope of being productively happy in a self-sustaining manner.
In retrospect, the approach I took to address my squareness was to address these three areas of discomfort:
- To try not to care about details I can't influence or control, because that accomplishes nothing.
- To look on the bright side of everything, because life lessons are learned through hard knocks.
- To not feel judged by other people, because they are not experts about me and my world.
These are all good mental stances to have, but here's the drawback: they are all reactionary methodologies! After all:
- I do care about the details and get stressed out, and then I calm myself down.
- I acknowledge the dark sides before I extract the positive lesson.
- I do feel judged by people and feel uncomfortable, then I shrug it off.
These are coping mechanisms. And because they are reactionary methods, I am reactionary. My experiment earlier in the day to spread positive energy fizzled because I didn't have the energy to begin with; I only had the ability to reactively shape what is already was in the world. It would be far better to be able to create such energy from scratch.
Cultivating silliness and mirth may change the equation, because it unlocks my sense of joy, which I think is inherently creative. My particular brand of mirth recognizes that there are a lot of crazy, obsessive, unique, and off-kilter people in the world who are completely inspiring. Their uniqueness is a source of excitement and change, and I like to amplify and share it wherever I find it. I also believe the the world is inherently sorta improbable to being with, and we exist AT ALL is a cosmic wonder. In my search for greater meaning, I've forgotten this. Maybe finding my bliss is as easy as finding something to laugh with to see where that goes. Is there anything more positive and joyful to share than a good laugh? If I can cultivate my natural silliness as a source of demonstrable mirthfulness, that might give me what I need to make more changes in myself and the world around me.
Tomorrow's plan
Day 2 is usually harder, but armed with today's insights I am hopeful of maintaining discipline. The challenge is likely to be more physical: I'm going to be tired. I need to make sure I don't eat anything that makes me sleepy, which means avoiding sugar and carbohydrates. It is also Election Day here in the US, so it will be awfully tempting to spend the day watching the progress of the vote. We'll see how it goes. I need more data to see where my patterns are breaking down.
As I wind down to sleep, I'm struck by the Christian phrase, "God is Love". Perhaps God is Laughter too?
Over the past few months I've been playing hooky from personal productivity, for no other reason than I didn't feel like doing it. On the surface I figured that with my current work project, I actually didn't need to manage multiple tasks because it was a single all-consuming focus. I also suspended my blogging, using the extra time to participate more in local events.
As the weeks have gone by, however, I've felt increasingly uneasy. I'm not doing more to advance my own dreams and desires, and this has long-term disadvantages. More telling is my new awareness of that there is something missing from my life. Call it faith, mission, or love; I don't know exactly what it is, but I can taste it in the back of my mouth. Friday's post about love and the gut was my latest attempt to articulate it. As much as I hate to admit it, I am pretty bummed out about this. This makes me feel weak, lacking in self-sufficiency and independence, but I also know that people can't live without human connections and intimacy. There isn't anything I can immediately do about that, but I can at least acknowledge and accept it. Grumble.
I've said before that "personal productivity" is a state of mind; when we feel productive, we are productive. A lot of my productivity-related tools and insights were designed to help create that feeling by providing feedback over time. I also believe that real, useful artifacts should be created as part of the process, because this gives you tangible proof that you actually are being productive. My summer of free-wheeling workplay has left me feeling empty and unsettled because I violated these very rules, so, it's time to get back to work. I am rebooting my productivity habits this month. Also, I am admitting that I don't know where I am going, and it's time to stop being reactive. It's time for me to get serious about dreaming with purpose.
Identifying the unease
I am basically feeling lost and uninspired despite having dozens of potential opportunities and projects I could pursue. I also am not feeling that my day-to-day project work is as efficient as it could be, because I spend a lot of time "getting back into the groove". I attribute this to a lack of effective continuity and context management. And underlying it all is a sense that I am off-center, due to my house being a mess, friends leaving, and the resulting realization that I have to rebuild my sense of well-being by myself. It's a daunting, depressing mountain of tasks.
I'm going to follow some mantras I wrote down in 2005 that were important. I've amended them slightly for 2008:
- Focus on doing one thing at a time and do it
- Start anywhere
- Take small steps
- Maintain momentum
- Talk it out
- Just ask
My first step is to define what's bothering me. By putting a shape to my discontent, I'll be able to face it with an appropriate mental stance. It is tempting to make a comprehensive battle plan, as I like doing that kind of thing. However, this time I'm going to take this one day at a time. Otherwise, I will make my discontent appear disproportionately large to its actual challenge. You don't attack something like this all at once, after all. It makes more sense to divide and conquer.
The shape of discontent
My favorite "let's start thinking" tool is a portable whiteboard. I have two 8.5x14 inch whiteboards that I can scribble on as I think. There's something about the ease of erasing that Iike, and the fluid feel of the markers seems to help the words come out. When I need to keep a hardcopy, I just take a digital photo or use my scanner.
Anyway, it just took a few seconds to outline what was topmost on my mind: feeling more centered. When I am feeling off-balance, my energy is all messed up and I can't focus on anything. I need to get my footing again so I can think. Here's how it breaks down:
- I have no sense of "sanctuary in the home", because of the clutter and disorganization.
- I have no controlled planning space for maintaining continuity and momentum from day to day, which makes context switches expensive.
- I am without faith in anything, and I lack a sense of mission. I'm depressed about this.
- The amount of work and effort that fixing the above will take is unpredictably large, and therefore demotivating.
As I said, I'm aware that there are lot of things I could do. I have no lack for ideas. None of them, however, fill the void in my creative soul. Nothing I can think of seems like it will be lasting. For example, while I could be making very cool software applications, designing new forms, meeting new people, and through these activities I can be happy in the moment. However, I know the happiness will be fleeting without a larger mission, and I'll need another hit. I don't know where it is all going, and I wish I knew. This is what is bothering me, trying to know the unknowable.
So how do I address this?
I suspect I need to rediscover and/or realign my sense of values, and find enough energy and motivation to keep moving until I get out of the doldrums. I know from experience that when I'm feeling low, it's just temporary so long as I keep making things. One of my basic beliefs is that making things show them to people creates new synergies and possibilities. However, when you've been surfing life like this for so long, you start to wonder if you are just deluding yourself because you've done it so many times before. Where does it go? It hasn't gone anywhere yet.
Making the space to think
Rather than try to solve this conundrum all at once, I'm going to work on creating sanctuary at home. That will give me the space to think and reflect.
First, I just spent a few hours reorganizing my workspace so there are ONLY work-related things within my line of sight. I am making sure I have a place to store my essential planning notebooks right next to my desk, so I get in the habit of using them consistently. I am establishing a place to keep my laptop and camera bags, so I don't have to hunt around for them. I'm going to buy one of those cheap white room-dividing screens from Christmas Tree Shops or Target to make my office area feel smaller and less cluttered. Ironically, I appear to be creating my own home cubicle to help contain all my work in a small area. I guess this reflects my desire to hole-up for a while and marshal my forces.
Next, I want to make is a meditation area. My living room and bedrooms are very cluttered, and the number of distractions (TV, books) makes these areas unsuitable for quiet reflection. I think I just need a corner of a room somewhere that is absolutely pristine and quiet, devoid of stuff of any kind, with a comfortable chair to reflect. I'm making an adult version of standing in the corner to reflect upon my years of non-productivity. Enlightenment, perhaps, will follow.
Creating momentum again
I've not been doing my morning coffee/gym routine for since June, and it's time to get back to it. The critical part of the routine was taking the 15 minutes to ease into the day, and scripting out the major tasks for the day gives me focus. When I do this early in the morning, I have the time to get things done. For a while I was coding late at night, but because of my expanded social commitments the evening has become unavailable. I don't want to give these up, because it is through making human connections that I believe I will find my sense of mission again.
I am a little concerned that I will not be able to maintain the momentum over time, as I am drawing on reserve energy, so I am calling on some personal beliefs to help keep me in (or rather, self-guilt myself into) the right state of mind:
- I have to keep the faith that there is a mission for me to find. I just need to keep moving.
- To believe that there isn't a mission is to admit defeat, and that it not the way I want my story to end.
So that's where I am at the moment. More news as events warrant!
I started going to the gym on July 1st, 2007, so it's been a year of time and expense. Was it worth it?
In terms of weight, I am about 10-15 pounds lighter than I was before, which is still a rather hefty 210 pounds. I have also gained an inch in height, measuring 5' 8" tall. This was an unexpected development, and is perhaps due to stronger back muscles and improved posture. I attribute the lack of weight loss to a lack of control of my diet. I've shed about 3" from my waist, however, and I think some of the fat has been replaced with muscle. I have to take one of those body mass index readings on my friend Duncan's scale to find out.
In terms of cardiovascular endurance, I am vastly improved and can go almost all day moving people's houses or running around outside. It took about three months to get to the point where I can maintain regular 160-170bpm heart rate on a machine without feeling winded. This came in handy last winter when I was in downtown Boston and my friend had left their luggage in the taxi we'd just vacated. We ran as fast as we could down Newbury Street, suit coats flapping behind us as we booked down the brick-paved sidewalk on a beautiful autumn day as passers-by watched on in curiosity. I'd always wondered how FBI agents chased anyone down in their dress shoes, and apparently the secret is that they are in good shape; I was just a touch winded, and felt pretty darn good.
I haven't really focused on muscle development, but I am a little stronger. I haven't really pursued a regimen of exercise other than to work the core muscle groups, alternating between lower and upper body. I also do some abdominal things on some machines along with some isolation of the arm muscles.
Other areas such as posture, balance, and mental clarity have also improved to some degree. My biggest challenge currently is keeping the daily workout to a reasonable amount of time. If I had time to burn, I could spend about 90 minutes total. However, I tend to get sleepy afterwards, and that kills the rest of my momentum. I'm experimenting with a lighter regimen that's designed more to wake me up and get some sweat out of me, but this isn't very satisfying.
Ok, ok, enough stalling! Here are two pictures to compare "pre-gym Dave" to the current state-of-the-art.
At the left I'm at a "Chainsaw Garden Party" event I attended in 2007, a few months before I started going to the gym. I'm looking pretty hale and hearty after layin' down some manure. Definitely chubby, but I'd like to think I'm lovably so ;-)
On the right is a picture I took for an online dating profile in late June 2008. Since no one was around to take my own photo, I had to use a mirror (hopefully distortion free). I think I can detect shifts in the subcutaneous fat of my face with some improved definition, and there is an increased leanness in my torso, and my posture seems more balanced.
Long Term Lessons from the Gym
Hey, it's cheaper than having Starbucks every day, especially if you factor in your health insurance provider's willingness to reimburse you for part of the cost of joining. I paid $249 the first year to join the club, a one-time fee, plus $19/month. My health insurance required that I go 3 times a week for at least 3 months to kick in $200. The subsequent year, I am just paying the $19/month because I've already paid the joining fee. Theoretically, that works out to $240 for 12 months, minus the $200 that my health insurance provider kicks in once you show them the proof that you've been going. Grand total: $40/year. It's better than cable, and it's infinitely better for you.
If you get to like the feeling of physical exertion, sweat, and exhaustion, then the gym gives you an automatic hobby when you're too bored to go to the mall. I've done this a few times; there's always a muscle group, sport-like activity, or exercise that you can work on for a few minutes.
My gym is fairly quiet, so it's become a place of solitude for me. There are a lot of books and podcasts that you can consume while you're doing that 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill. I sometimes just meditate or zone out. Some days I try to work through programming problems. It's a great time to be with yourself.
If you go to the gym every day, you will eventually run into people and make their acquaintance. This has happened to me three times, and in two of those cases I made some new friends.
Next Challenges
To lose another 10 pounds would be fantastic, and this will take concerted effort on my part to count calories and increase the intensity of my workouts, which are not as rigorous as some of the ones I've seen people follow. I also have become a little lazy in going to the gym every day because work is pulling me away through guilt. It might be time to put together my own targeted regimen to emphasize the areas I'd like to most improve: upper body strength and core abdominal and back muscles.
You can read about the first few weeks of going to the gym here:
