7.2.08

time for a real strategy

OK well Jessica reminded me of a tactic I used to use during the conference when I couldn't get myself to do anything. I took a kitchen timer in to the office and would set it for 20 minutes or so and tell myself I'd just do conference stuff for that amount of time. It was good since the whole reason I procrastinate on stuff is that due to my (extreme) perfectionism I envision pretty much any task as requiring 3 zillion hours to complete (if it's going to live up to my usual standards of excellence), and of course who wants to jump in on a 3-zillion-hour task? When I would set the timer, it would get me started (A) and would show me (by virtue of finally getting started) that the task really wasn't as monumental as all that (B) and would generally result in much more than 20 minutes' worth getting done since (C) that little start would get the momentum going.

After a while I used the timer as more of a control when I felt a task would potentially end up being something I'd start obsessing over (letters to speakers were a prime example) and let the Perfection Goblins get too big a bite of. If I set the timer for a reasonable amount of time by the end of which the task should actually be completed, it helped me just get it done. I slowly got used to things not being the product of hours and hours of editing and reworking; it must be said that the largest percentage of the time on most things, my standard workmanship (i.e. without involving the Perfection Goblins) is fairly high quality anyway so really the additional 2.9∞ hours can and should be used for other more pleasurable things in life.

Anyway this is the hope for the job thing, towards which I have yet to get much done even now... here's a decent online timer I found in case anyone wants to use it, for similar situations or otherwise. I'm sure there are loads of others so if anyone knows a really fun one please share. I bookmarked the first fairly good one I found; I liked being able to change the alarm sound, even if they don't give a huge selection.

Happy Thursday.

1 commentaire:

Jessica a dit…

hee hee! A free timer, cool beaners!
I'll have to look for others too next time I have time to surf away on the web. Maybe I'll even set this timer to time my search for new timers.

Ever since watching Factory girl and reading that onion website, I have become more post-modern.

sigh back to cleaning!