Tuesday, October 14, 2008

My Nemesis

This is a journal entry from Tuesday 9/23/2008

Time has always been my nemesis, I've never felt like there's enough time since I was very young. Whenever I pick up a task, I feel like I need to finish it as fast as possible - or just do the minimal necessary so that I can do a more thorough job later. But there's never any time later that I can use. So if there's no time to complete anything, why start?

This way of seeing things has made life very difficult. I procrastinate to put things off since I won't be able to complete them. I get very anxious trying to work on thought provoking resume questions because the answers aren't there instantly. It takes time to answer them and I don't have any time.

Why am I choosing this? What alternatives are there? Here are the thoughts to unravel:
  • Don't do it now, do it later since there's no time for it right now.
  • Do it later since there's not enough time right now.
  • I've got other things I need to take care of.
  • If anything takes more than a few minutes to do, then wait until there's some more time to work on it.
  • If I don't have an instant solution, then it's hard to figure out.
  • I've got so m any things to do that I'll never catch up.

What function do these beliefs serve? To motivate me to get things done? TO help me manage my time? To get the overview so that I can prioritize?

Why is there not enough time? If I quit work and stayed home to clean my office with no other obligations - would I be able to get my office cleaned and organized? I don't see why not.

There's not enough time because I have to work to make a living. But that leave me no time for living unless I find a way to do less.

I don't want to lose something I may want, so I keep more than I need. I keep putting things on my time credit cad hoping to pay for it later. Now I'm in time debt. The way to reduce this debt is to accomplish a task or to give up on it and let it go. I can have a positive cash (time) flow right now if I give up on everything.

Keeping myself aware of how much I have to do is an attempt at motivating myself. But it has the opposite effect.

I can find other ways to motivate myself, or maybe I don't need any motivation.

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