Increasingly I am finding the value and benefit in ‘action trigger cues’ that can direct me towards where I need to go.
Personally, I have (and potentially always will be to a degree) been juggling multiple balls at the same time, while simultaneously “engineering” my life in a way that optionally gives me the alcoves of no responsibility at all – during these periods I am always considering how I might arrange things so that my next most immediate aims are clear and obvious – and yet, at the high level, I am hoping to maintain other entire categories of endeavour that have gripped me in some way. I cannot let them go.
What is the quantum unit of effort? If it is the day, then in isn’t possible – ants don’t do task switching and it’s a behaviour that’s even been shown to be coded for within their DNA. I have the idea that at the human size ~1m we are a competition of emergent behavours that ‘learn’ what we believe we should do (values, habits) based purely on those previously evidenced feelings and responses – in response to the environments that we have navigated and transistioned between. And our ideas, our will, can influence those environments for others to then shape and intereact with.
My trouble has usually been honeing in on one and committing to it, but that hasn’t any longer been the case (admittedly since curiously going through a series of many changes, of which I should attribute to anti biotics, mushrooms, roots, and learning about neuroscience for instance how timing light exposure prevents jet lag or insomnia — i was completely ignorant to all this prior to 5 years ago).
So what should my unit be? How to document these other background ideas and hopes so that I swiftly pick them up to place them in the foreground when it is managable or appropiate?
I guess my mentality has been ‘do it until it’s done, however long it takes’, but I know that real external deadlines or simply working with others who are engaged with the project, all those things really focus me. And sure at the time it feels like a rush or perhaps tips me into a phase of paralysing stress, but once I emerge from that and solve or finish something – then the consequential of satisfaction becomes greater, as if it were some hormesis self-balancing effect.
And yet just like a summer holiday or a “weekend”, that’s when I enter into these phases of ‘no responsibilty’ – but in the back of my mind I guess it’s a form of guilt when you know other’s have it harder than you and you are doing this bizzare practise of escape.. any time you goddamn please.
Looking at the situation objectively now, it all boils down to the question I have been compelled to wonder for most of my life now (though I also now feel an answer emerging) – how hard to work? Work to the expectations of the boss/school/university/society. What if it is too difficult – just struggle through it, what if it is too easy – say nothing.
The answer is a ratio. And the other answer is a mindset.
The mindset should be not to overexert yourself, because when you are lavish and carefree, to the point of appearing lazy – that’s when you set yourself up to be more consistent. And thus volume over medium to longer periods of time will be achieved.
And for me at school there was time of continual ‘micro exersion’, every night. While at university I continued that, I can recall the moment that it all changed. I had returned from a summer job – daytime working and no night time ‘micro exersion’, so had got used to that. Looking back I really had a great attitude, and thus enjoyable summer. While starting back the final year – i had all the time to sit and take a minute to slow down and stop on these 100s of ideas running through my head all the time – and I tried for 6 hours on a Quantum homework, before finally deciding that there were limits to my effort and nightly ‘micro exersion’. But I often wonder if I had kept it going, or just picked it back up again. At a later point I realised it was largely rooted in my design of avoidance of the social pressures/repercussions — it was easier to do the work than to get berated for not doing it.
But in adult life I discovered the prediction-error of not getting berated (although during my leaky gut / malnutrition – energy levels were perhaps low), that was a license to languish.
Think about it, all you have experienced led to this moment – and healthy you is going to bask in undirected confusion? I don’t think so. How about this:
Formally acknowledge the bodily need to ‘mope’ or wrestle with picking up and putting down certain things at certain times,
Instead of doing that in an unstructured way, how about setting a reminder (that you stick to). The ‘action’ is to visualise the items on that background shelf and consider bringing them to the fore. It’s called a retrospective if you also look back over what you did in the week/month and perhaps grade it.
And try measuring the ratio of prescribed effort to ‘prescribed fun’ (!), 5:2 is the standard.
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