Pulling into my driveway I am reminded of the mountain of tasks I need to do. It is the fatal flaw in my personality. When the list gets too long I lose all interest in trying to accomplish any of it. None of it is interesting or enjoyable, just a slog of maintaining an adult life as the decay slowly stalks my existence.
This is a familiar space. There have been several times in my life where I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer cliff I have no choice but to climb. Over the years I have implemented a slew of strategies to manage, so it isn’t a matter of not knowing how to succeed. It merely comes down to finding the motivation and letting go of the idea that the long term goal needs to be set in stone.
It has been 26 months since my previous plan was blown to pieces. 800 some odd days of treading water while I allowed opportunities to present themselves. 20,000 or so hours of trying not to stress out over the future as it gradually became the present. Over a million minutes I could have chosen to do something about it and decided to sit idle and watch the situation develop around me.
I look back and know that I could be happier now if I would have made a different choice. Instead of waiting for an opportunity I could have taken it. I could have decided to do some pushups or eaten more salad. I could have tried to network more or gain some kind of new marketable skill.
I could have been proactive.
Instead I decided to wallow, sitting like a lump and letting life live me. I gained nothing but a couple of birthdays and a few more tasks on the list. I gave myself over to a fate that doesn’t seem to want to bestow me with material excess. Granted I had some small wins along the way, but in terms of a long term strategy I am still slathered in uncertainty and darkness.
Most days it feels like I am waist deep in a lake of mud, equidistant from any shore. I am exhausted from trying to move and disenchanted with trying to choose which direction to go. I have no idea which path to take as they all seem daunting, and I can’t envision any of them ending in a place where I can be happy. All I know is I don’t want to give up and succumb to the muck.
I also know that in this minute I really should be making a better choice. I need to stop waiting for the timing to be right. I need to stop making excuses about how this moment isn’t the right one. I need to stop telling myself there is an order of operations I need to follow. I need to stop believing that I can set a date in the future to start tackling this cliff.
I only wish that this current minute wasn’t trying to drag me into that comfortable space of being a total piece of shit. The last thing I want to do right now is pushups. I have no desire to face my life and see just how much needs to change. I don’t want to stare down a page full of menial tasks I am only putting down so I can get the dopamine hit of crossing things off my list.
I know how to fool my stupid brain but my brain also knows how to talk me into seeking that dopamine elsewhere.
Fine.
Fuck you brain.
Somewhere in these piles of papers and notebooks is the key to my salvation. I am hunting for a folder with homemade workbooks I know will help me get out of the mud pit. They are part of a system I developed by piecing together concepts from a time when I needed a visual motivator. It started with me putting sticky notes on the wall that I was forced to look at every morning.
From there it morphed into a system with software development strategies because, well, we are all basically software running on organic hardware.
Ah, here it is.
The first stack is loosely based on Kanban. It is a series of boxes, one for each day of the week excluding weekends starting on Monday in landscape orientation. If I have any date specific tasks that need done that week I fill those in, then I cram everything I think I can get done that week into the Monday box. Then I focus on that list and try to get as much done as I can.
Anything that isn’t completed is added to the next day. Sometimes the tasks are abandoned entirely, and sometimes they prove to be too complex and require a breakdown. Other times the task requires the help of something external to me or they have a prerequisite so there is another section at the bottom of the page for notes.
If something new arises it is added. This process is repeated through the week. I try to avoid adding anything responsible to my weekends, however I do take an assessment on Sunday nights to prepare for the following Monday. If nothing else this keeps everything I feel I need to do front and center. I look at the list whenever I complete something or feel myself in a moment of downtime when I could be making progress instead of being idle.
Having a physical piece of paper keep me off the digital devices and puts my list into the physical world. It sits there as a real thing, not just some screen I can ignore in favor of content. It calls out to me and holds me responsible for the deal I have made with myself to be better.
At the same time it is fairly useless without a broader goal structure. There are only so many times you can fill out your day with things like; plan meals, do laundry, water plants. Sometimes your life needs you to start with the simple things, but it starts to feel stupid to write that kind of thing down all the time. This isn’t about getting gold stars for maintaining life, it is about improving.
Instead, I try to look at every aspect of life as having a health meter. How is my physical health? How is my mental health? How is my financial health? What is the health of my relationships? How healthy is the environment I am living in? I have a series of questions I ask myself about my life and I set my baseline. I then look at which are the lowest and ask myself how I can bring those values up.
I usually do this on my birthday. Not for any real reason other than the second part of this system is based on the calendar year. Only my year isn’t broken into months. Months are all over the place. My calendar is broken into “sprints” of 13 days each. 28 sprints per year for a total of 364 days. My birthday is not on this calendar, it is there as a day off to reflect on the coming year and to set goals.
This makes 365 days so it works out perfectly.
Don’t ask about leap year.
13 day cycles seem like a good enough period to see if something is working or if it can be modified or abandoned. Having a 13 day cycle also disrupts the flow to keep me focused. If I set the goals for every 14 days then I would have to choose the same day every week to reassess. This might work for some, but I find I need these assessments to drop in sporadically.
A little chaos in the mix keeps me engaged.
The yearlong goals serve as a marker, but the process of getting there is different. Some folks like to set a goal of losing weight. They may even have a number in their head. Meanwhile it is better to set a goal of walking X amount every day, or going X amount of days in a row without drinking soda. These are measurable and the end result will be weightloss.
So with the process in mind I try to choose a moderate goal for each quarter which comes out to 91 days or 7 sprints. These are still markers but are more refined. The goal may still be to lose X amount of pounds but the goal will also to be to have walked X distance for X number of days. That way I can assess what I am realistically capable of and adjust the next quarter’s goal.
At times I find I can accomplish something much faster than an entire year. Other things start to reveal that the process may take longer or the year goal needs to be adjusted to better fit how the process is going. The idea is to be successful and to be successful requires malleability.
From there I make short term goals for each sprint, but not into the future. I set the quarter marker and set the goal for the 13 days. Then I see how effective the strategy is toward achieving the quarter goal and adjust accordingly. This system allows me to tweak both my process and my expectations so I don’t find myself too far along a path that isn’t working or having nothing to do once I reach a goal.
It is the process I know I should trust.
It is the process I abandoned a million minutes ago in favor of wallowing in the disappointment that things took a turn for the worse in my life.
I know in this minute I need to regain that trust. I know that in this moment I need to set everything aside and begin the hard work. There are no more spare minutes. There is only the reality that my future will be worse if I don’t start doing something about it today.
Right now.
I guess that means I should get on with it.
I liked that this wasn't written from the perspective of someone who has everything figured out. That made it feel more authentic. It reads like someone recognizing they already know what works, they just need to begin again. I think that's a place a lot of people quietly find themselves. I especially appreciated your reminder that progress comes from trusting the process instead of waiting for motivation. That's a lesson worth coming back to. Great perspective!
Been there too, B. One thing I've been reminding myself lately is that while we can't always rewrite the chapter we're in, we do get to decide how we show up for the next page. Wishing you well.