Laughable

Ironic that I decide to start posting daily and then immediately post nothing for a week isn't it?

I guess I knew at the time that I didn't mean to post anything during Lan Party Week. I just forgot to mention it. We have the Lan Party every year around the holidays, and it's just like a vacation from reality. My days are consumed by building characters or trying new strategies rather than accomplishing anything useful. Wake up at 2pm, go to sleep at 7am, repeat. But it is always worth it, if for no other reason than the hilarious moments we have. (Thinking of the five on two gankfest of a DotA game we lost. Or a full frontal assault in the Party Wagon.)

Anyway, the gaming is over now. In fact, with Spain fast approaching and the impending time difference, I doubt I will be playing much of anything in the next six months. It just doesn't work when the prime US playing hours are 2am-7am Spain time. From a professional standpoint, this is probably for the better.

Working a short four hours in Topeka today, mainly to get my timesheet signed and prove I still exist. Then we are off to Indiana for about a week to visit Kathy's Grandma and Dad. It's nice to be able to travel and still work during the day. Switching back to a normal wake up time (6am is terribly early, but more normal than 2pm) has left me mildly confused so far today, but I hope to sleep it off in the car on the way. I need to dial my rising hour back to 1am in order to get on Spain time... but not too confident I will succede in that endeavor. Going to sleep at 5pm is just not compatible with a social life. Think I might just set my clock to Spain time and try anyway.

Hit up StevePavlina.com again today and read about entering the zone, increasing productivity, and living congruently. Two of these concepts I had at least hazily arrived at on my own, which gives me some confidence that I can at least correctly identify my problems. Being able to recognize problems is the first step to recovery... for alcoholics at least. Hopefully it applies to unmotivated programmers as well.

The get-in-the-zone (my term for highly creative state, not his) article essentially comes down to giving yourself large blocks of uninterrupted time and a small definite goal to accomplish. These are two things I have definitely recognized as much needed in my case.

First, I tend to think about the big picture two much, and the Magic site seems like such a monumental goal as to be too big. I need to scale things back to something I can accomplish in a day, or even an hour, with a clear path to getting started on it already laid out.

Second, my life seems to be constantly interrupted. Most of these interruptions are self-inflicted, as I check email, read online news, IM someone, or do random chores like getting the (snail) mail or organizing my desk. Other interruptions are environmental, like visitors, phone calls, or my day job. Obviously I can't blame anything on these people/things. It's not like they are trying to derail me. And it's not like I don't want to spend time on them. The issue is more that I need to carve out a block of uninterrupted time and stick with it, only permitting myself to deal with other items outside this block of time.

The article on increasing productivity basically says I should log my time and see where it goes. An interesting statistic from the article:

Studies have shown that the average office worker does only 1.5 hours of actual work per day. The rest of the time is spent socializing, taking coffee breaks, eating, engaging in non-business communication, shuffling papers, and doing lots of other non-work tasks. The average full-time office worker doesn't even start doing real work until 11:00am and begins to wind down around 3:30pm.

His assertion is that we usually designate (or someone designates for us) a block of time in which we are at work, regardless of whether we are actually working. This time is usally 40 hours, with regular start and stop times to make it easy to keep track of. The problem is actually that this is too much time. Our brain thinks: I have eight whole hours to work, what is the hurry to get started now? He suggests instead of trying to work an entire eight hours straight, just block off eight hours of potential work time, and work until you feel done for the day. It may only be a few hours, it may be longer. The point is that you aren't watching the clock, and hence are less focused on how much time you work and more on the work itself. An interesting thing to try.

As an aside, I find it ironic to even have these issues. Many professions have daily routines that easily fill an eight (or more) hour day and none of this is an issue. When I worked at the library, I never considered my motivation to work. There was an unending stream of books to shelve and a daily book-drop route to run, and it was a clear cut goal to get both tasks done each day. While this was monotonous because it was repetitive (the first time you shelve the same book you shelved a week before makes you feel like a hamster on a wheel), it was easy to keep busy, and time generally passed quickly. Now my problem is reversed. I have no clear cut goals and my time seems to drag on because I am constantly switching gears or searching out ways to pass the time, instead of just running on my wheel.

Anyway, this dovetails nicely into the third article I read, about living congruently. This was another thing I have kind of come to on my own, but Mr. Pavlina has articulated on his blog, making it clearer to me. To truly love your work, it must not feel like a job. A job is something you do from 8 to 4:30 on weekdays, and has nothing to do with your real life. A job is something that pays the bills. Doing work you love should be part of the whole of your life. You should want to talk shop with family and friends. You should want to invite both friends and coworkers to the same gatherings. In fact, your friends and coworkers should be the same people. You should work whenever you feel like it.

You gain positive synergies. If you keep yourself healthy, it gives you more conifidence in work and relationships. If you enjoy your work, it makes you seem interesting and passionate to your friends. If you maintain healthy relationships, you experience less distractions in the form of drama and this helps reinforce your goals.

He calls the phenomenon most people experience compartmentalization, and declares it doomed to failure. If you see the aspects of your life as seperate parts, all competing for time and attention, then one or several parts will suffer at the altar of the one you focus on. Work too much and you ruin your social life. Socialize too much and forget to take care of your body. Don't take care of your body and you become less energetic, and hence less able to work and maintain healthy relationships. Compartmentalizing creates a constant juggling act where you always focus on one thing at the expense of the others. If, instead, your friends are your coworkers and your health is a daily routine and you are excited about what you do, suddenly none of it feels like a chore. Remove the boundries and it's like these things are just part of your life, and not chunks of your day.

Anyway, tonight's goal is rather modest. Just want to get to Indiana and make several phone calls along the way (utilities, banks, insurance, etc). None of these are more than chores that need to be accomplished before leaving the country, but I doubt I'll get anything creative done in a car on two and a half hours of sleep, so I'm aiming low.

Hasta pronto.