Tuesday, July 5, 2011

How Do You Stir Up The Doldrums?

Douglas Clark

-Head writer, The Inspiration Engine

Sometimes I get stuck in a rut.  I hate to admit it, but it’s true.  For all of my own self-motivation and determined fortitude, I sometimes slack off.  Actually I probably do it a whole lot more than I am willing to admit to you or myself.  I’m not proud of that though.  In fact, sometimes I’ve actually sat down and calculated all the ‘wasted time’ during a week I could have used for something productive.  Yeah, that number can sometimes be staggering.  So what is it about life and responsibilities that fosters procrastination and the blasé feeling of the Doldrums?  Could it be disinterest? Or stress?  Possibly anxiety and lack of ability?  I think any one of those or a combination is definitely possible. However, I also think that the major cause is Overload. 
Think of all the things you have to do during just one single week.  For me, well, I work full time, I’m a single parent, I’m writing a master’s thesis, I’ve started my own small business, I write a blog, I’m writing a novel, I’m attempting to have a social life and engage in fun activities and hobbies.  Okay, I must be nuts!  Overload is a very real and likely possibility pretty much every day.  So with all that pressure, self-imposed and otherwise, it makes sense that even for just a little while during the day, you might just not want to ‘care’, even if it’s for a few minutes staring off into outer space.  It happens.  But what do you do when you’re so overloaded, you seem to get nothing done?  I realized recently that I was overloaded to the point of distraction.  In fact I was even getting distracted from my distractions.  It was disconcerting to say the least.  How did I fix it? 
Well, the first thing I did was admit I was overloaded and was wasting time in the doldrums.  I then picked ONE project that I knew was a major commitment and mental drain.  For me it is/was my thesis.  I committed all my free time to actually getting it finished and ready for submission.  Except for my daughter, I didn’t worry about all the rest (even though I knew they were all very important).  I now stand 99% ready to send it in to my review board.  As I committed all my ‘doldrums’ time to completing that literary monster I felt a relief, not because I was working hard, but because I could see the end coming up fast.  It let me know I would soon have a large chunk of my mind back to allocate to other things, or just give everything else a little wiggle room in my mind. Anxiety and stress immediately leveled off.
So, I learned the time old adage is true, ‘if you want something done, give it to a busy person’, but I also learned that wasting time and procrastinating only makes long projects longer.  And who wants that?


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