Jude
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Posts: 111
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Post by Jude on Dec 13, 2016 22:21:38 GMT 1
I have a wide range of interest, which I feel like is a good thing, but it seems to come at the cost of loss of focus. There are lots of things I'd like to accomplish and I have a tendency to have several projects all half finished.
I realize that this isn't that uncommon, but I really want to work on trying to finish something before I move on to too many other things. I'm jealous of people who are very into a single thing. I know that I could be more focused by letting something go, I just don't have the heart to do it.
Just wondering if y'all had tips dealing with this. I'll post some more specifics later but I need to start cooking now.
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Post by Kraetyz on Dec 14, 2016 10:33:36 GMT 1
I would also like tips on this. And motivation in general lol.
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Post by fodazd on Dec 14, 2016 12:30:47 GMT 1
My personal opinion: Nothing matters much.
Remembering this helps me stay relaxed when I don't make any progress on my personal projects for months because I have more important things to do. I know that I can't help but come back to them eventually... And if I don't, then they probably weren't that important to me in the first place.
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Post by mysticjuicer on Jan 4, 2017 16:49:06 GMT 1
I'm going to assume this is in the context of hobbies, which you're doing because you enjoy them, as opposed to something like work, where you're not only being paid, but the pay is presumably the means by which you support yourself and your lifestyle.
I have a friend who desperately wishes she read more. She used to read a lot in high-school, and now she doesn't find herself picking up a book very often, and she feels terrible about it, makes new years resolutions to read X books over the year, and keeps lists of what she's read, etc. At a certain point, I have to hold myself back from saying "why do you care so much that you read less than you did?" So my base level perspective is: your hobbies are there for you, not vice versa. There's no sense in punishing yourself for not engaging "correctly" with your hobbies. If you're having fun, if you're getting something out of it that improves your life, isn't that enough?
I used to dream of being an author. I never actually enjoyed writing all that much, and I consistently prioritized other things over writing. What I really enjoyed about my fantasy author life was the imagined fame, riches, and satisfaction of having written. I also felt very badly about how little I wrote and how I didn't prioritize writing highly enough. After a few years of this I said, you know what, fuck writing, let's think of something else to do. I felt maybe a little guilty for the first couple of weeks after that, but I felt immense relief, and the relief significantly outlived any guilt.
By contrast, I never dreamt of being "a YouTuber." I don't think of myself as being very good at making videos, or at editing, or promotion, or any of the other skills that I think of as important for making video content. But I like making the videos themselves! I like "recording myself learning about a game" and that means that I make time to do it, and I try to improve at it. And because I don't have any aspirations to BE something, only aspirations to DO something, more often than not it gets done.
So I would say, step one is to focus on the hobbies you like to do, and that require the least effort. The easier a thing is to do, and the more you enjoy it, the more you'll find yourself just doing it. I never have to "find motivation" to play videogames or board games. Recording myself doing those things adds a slight amount of additional effort, but it's a small enough deterrent that I still manage to do it now and again.
Step two is to not feel guilty for not doing the thing. The more I yelled at myself and guilted myself for not writing anything, the less I actually wanted to sit down and do it. Eventually I spent absurdly more time feeling bad about not writing than I spent writing at all, which is an incredibly dumb way to spend my time. What this means for me is that I don't make videos every week, and I don't make them regularly on any kind of schedule, and as a result my subscribers grow more slowly than they probably could. But who cares? If it bothered me a lot, I'd make efforts to change my behavior, but my priorities are my job that pays me actual money so that I can continue to have a home, clothes, food, and videogames. No sense stealing joy from myself because I'm not taking my hobby as seriously as "I should."
Step three is to actually find out what will make it more likely for you to do the thing you want to. Do you like making to-do lists and checking stuff off? Then do that. Do you like regularly setting aside time explicitly for X? Then do that. Minimize distractions and set up tiny controls when you need to do something you find unpleasant or tedious: if you need to focus on a problem that you don't want to, something as minimal as turning your laptop to airplane mode so that you're one more step away from browsing reddit or checking YouTube can be surprisingly helpful at keeping you focused on the task at hand. I have the ability to work from home when I want to, but I suck at working from home - it usually means I end up dicking around unproductively and having to work on the weekend. As a result, I commute to work regularly because it means when I'm at home I'm not working.
Hope some of this helps!
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Post by mysticjuicer on Jan 4, 2017 16:54:29 GMT 1
Jude I would also, to piggyback off a specific example you gave in your post, dismiss this idea that letting something go 'for now' means that you are letting it go 'forever.' There's nothing and nobody looking over your shoulder and preventing you from picking up a project you've set aside weeks, months, or years ago. So if it's extremely important to you that you finish something you started, then let go of every project except the one you're the most interested in finishing ...until you feel like picking it up again. And that means, maybe you work on one thing for a week, and then switch to another thing for a week, and then come back. Or maybe you really would make the most progress in the most satisfying way if you laser focused on only a single thing at a time until it's done. I dunno. Try a bunch of stuff and see what habits stick around.
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Post by Kraetyz on Jan 4, 2017 22:58:18 GMT 1
mysticjuicer is such a god damn delight of a human being. I am honored to have him on this forum.
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Post by mysticjuicer on Jan 5, 2017 2:11:11 GMT 1
awwww! <3
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