So this is an apposite post given my last blog entry was nearly three months ago. My post-summer burst of motivation was real, and I channelled it into doing ‘stuff’, but with hindsight, I dropped the ball on this writing gig. Many books have been written by far smarter and more qualified individuals than me on the subject of procrastination – mostly for lazy people who are content with their shitty middle-management job or, at the other end of the spectrum, the kind of person who drops their kids off whilst still in their pyjamas.
I’m not either of those stereotypes. A lack of drive has never been my problem. It’s where I focus that energy and what the outcomes of it are that make the difference between my activity being defined as either ‘work wonderful’ or ‘work wanking’ (I’ll go into the latter concept in more detail in another post).
Example 1: Categorising 10 years of old electronics and books, photographing them all, posting it on eBay and making £600. If this took me one day, it would be ‘Work Wonderful’. It actually took me a week, hence ‘Work Wanking’.
Example 2: Organise the recording and editing of a friends wedding. Recording it and sending off the footage to someone on Fiverr would have been ‘Work Wonderful’. Self-learning how to edit in Premier Pro and spending three days on it was ‘Work Wanking’.
I don’t regret doing either of the above activities, but the way I went about doing them was pretty dumb. The truth is, the eBay job was a classic example of ‘small achievable tasks’ which satisfied my caveman brain of making progress with minimal challenge. It’s why playing idiotic freemium games like Candy Crush are so popular. Do the thing, get a reward, repeat.
And the video editing job was partially a case of massively underestimating how complex learning a new skill like this would take, combined with “this is a bit fun and creative, and it’s okay, because my friend will be chuffed with the result”. They were, but if I’d spent £40 on a professional freelancer on Fiverr, I would have saved three days and ended up with a better video.
In both cases I failed to evaluate the task properly and prioritise accordingly. I know how to do this shit, I just chose not to. So I’m going to write a guide to Productivity in the next two weeks, with my top tips on how to stop dicking around and do the things that are important to you. Starting with getting dressed and taking the kids to school.