PP: Planning Prevents Procrastination (And Stress)

There have been many times where I have absolutely dreaded doing something I needed to do. Many years ago, it was homework. Now, it's some of my work. In the end, it's still the same: you wait too long to get started because you can't wrap your mind around how you are going to get it all done. Once you start doing it though, you realize it's not that big a deal and you should have started long ago so that you wouldn't be rushing.

It's not about laziness, and that's not just me being stubborn and denying I'm lazy. The real reason is planning. If I said you need to build a house and get it done within 2 years, you probably wouldn't get a hammer out today and get to it. 2 years, you'd say. I have *plenty* of time. Before you know it, a year has passed and all you've done is thought about working on the house a half dozen times. Now you're panicking (as you should be).

If instead I gave you a very long yet very thorough list of steps to take to make the house (including a list of everything to buy, whom to call and when, and each step took anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours) you probably *would* start right away and not feel so stressed out.

The difference, of course, is knowing what to do and breaking it down to bite-sized pieces.

The only reason I bring this up is to remind myself that nothing is too big to handle. No matter what it is, if I step back and really plan things through, it becomes much easier to accomplish. A great side-effect of this is that you discover things that you need to clarify and discuss much earlier on in the process.

The planning part is fairly self-explanatory, but there is one important thing to remember: don't expect to be able to plan every single item from the beginning. It's just not possible to think of everything little step months in advanced. Be as detailed as possible, but revisit every your plan every so often and add more details. There's nothing wrong with going back and adding so much detail that you end up doubling your initial list. That's not a step back. If anything, it makes moving forward even easier because things are now even more clear.

(I didn't even reread what I wrote, so not all of this is going to make sense)

And The Quest Continues...

For the past who-knows-how-long, I've been trying to make my life less stressful. I've finally admitted to myself that I am spreading myself too thin and trying to do too many things for too many people. Unfortunately, realization is not enough. Tying up the loose ends is oftentimes harder than the rest of the work.

Now, I am trying to wake up early (around 6:30am) and sleep early (around midnight) so that I can be more productive throughout my day. Unfortunately, burnout is a bitch. It sucks the life out of you. I know that if I was in solitary confinement for a week, I would have all the energy in the world. Life, as we all know, is not so flexible. First of all, I would have to commit a felony in a very sick and twisted way so that they would consider me insane. Who has time for all that? I guess my current strategy shall prevail.

The one thought that helps keep me going (except the thought of my beautiful and wonderful lady) is that, in theory, the more time I spend working, the more I should be able to finish. This has not held true yet. I have been turning down projects left and right (a rather counterintuitive way to conduct business) since January and still have a lot of work to catch up on. One project in particular is taking almost 200 hours more than I planned for. That's not so easy to schedule into an already tight calendar. But I shall continue on my honorable quest for a calm life.


Oh how I miss the comforting feeling of writing down my thoughts...