Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I’m taking some time to get myself organized. I might as well write about THAT :-)

Zero Motivation

After the Labor Day holiday here in the U.S., I experienced some kind of gastonomic distress which wiped me out for almost two days. I would wake up, attempt to will myself out of bed, and after having done so I would attempt to do something productive. No dice…I ended up sleeping most of the day. It was all I could do to just drink water to stay hydrated.

A couple of observations:

1. You can’t be productive if your physical health prevents you from maintaining mental clarity and focus.

2. It’s not worth beating yourself up over it. Take the sick day. Before I came to this conclusion, I was in the foulest of moods, depressed that I couldn’t overcome something as simple as sitting at my computer and working without getting sleepy or distracted.

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p>A followup thought: for me to become more productive, I really do need to pay more attention to my physical health, and I am increasingly thinking that it starts from regular sleep at regular times.

Zero Motivation Part II

Today I felt much better, having slept off whatever bug was afflicting me. But now, looking at the MOUNTAIN OF STUFF that I have to do, and should be doing, I’m again struck by the need to prioritize.

There’s a new wrinkle, too: I need to track future work, which is something I hadn’t had to worry about before. I’m in a kind of weird limbo right now, finishing some small but never-ending projects before launching (hopefully) into some interesting larger ones. Whereas I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do / could do, I don’t have a good sense of what I can commit to in the future. I’ve been playing around with some resource allocation tracking forms for myself, based around the ideas of A, B, C, D, and E tickets (each level representing a certain kind of task in terms of mental burden), but haven’t yet gotten too far. The general idea, though, is that every day, one can only do a few tasks of a certain kind, and that every project can probably be broken into a certain number of these task types. While it sounds overly-complicated, the simplicity in the system comes from the resource allocation: instead of pre-allocating tickets (which would suck) you take whatever ticket you need. Think of it like eating at a Dim Sum restaurant, where you pay based on the number of dishes you’ve accumulated afterwards.

Zero Motivation III

When there are this many projects I could be working on, it’s hard to just pick one and start, especially because the rewards aren’t readily apparent. This is probably a good time to kick in another cycle of Printable CEO CGT, but I’m feeling the need for some external motivation as well. This is the hardest part for me about being a freelancer, next to getting the work: the lack of the truly-collaborative human element, when you’re working WITH someone at your side.

Remotivation

On the plus side, tomorrow I get to go bowling! That is somewhat motivating. There have also been an increase in registrations on the freelance / empowerment forum, which is fantastic. The discussions sort of ebb and flow infrequently, but it’s great that we’re still finding some people who are bold enough to post their background and open themselves up to other members. Pretty cool.

So that’s what’s going on right now. The system I’m working on right now is a task tracking / resource allocation system so I can know what my availability for project work is at any given time.