Emails, projects, animals, post-it notes, miracles - what do they have to do with excitement? (Very little)
Today I well and truly realised something. I can’t really concentrate on one thing only. This is now staring at me in the eye both at home and at work. Gosh. How is it possible that it’s taken me this long to really realise this?
This is what happens: at work I start writing an email. Half way through a small window appears on my computer screen, telling me I’ve received an email. I quickly check what it says, decide to reply immediately, start doing so and again half way through something else happens, another email maybe, or the phone rings, someone asks something, my boss appears and asks me to do something else. The end result is that soon I have 5-6 unfinished emails waiting for completion and as many other tasks that I’ve started but haven’t finished. Then I start getting overwhelmed because I feel there’s too much going on and how on earth am I going to get everything done without forgetting some little piece of information.
And the same continues at home in the evening, I start a project of some sort, work on it for a while, then get an idea for something else, immediately start on that and soon the first project is forgotten, the same happens with books (non-fiction only, mind), the pile of books next to my bed waiting to be finished is teetering on the brink of collapsing, and evidence of similarly abandoned projects of various kinds is all around me.
Is it any wonder that I feel that I’m not really making any progress in my life?? Anything to the contrary would be nothing but a small miracle!
I hate to admit this but there are even days when I’ve forgotten that I have blog project here. For goodness sake, woman (that’s me speaking to myself). This is just not on.
So I’ve given myself a bit of a talking-to and told myself very clearly that this can’t go on. I am to limit myself to 2-3 projects at any one time and no slipping from that, focus is the flavour of the week, the month and the year ahead. New projects are not to be started till old ones are finished.
And just so that I remember this I’m going to write a note to myself, a rather big one so that I don’t lose it and forget, in fact I’m going to put it on my wall so that I see it clearly several times every day, and list those projects I’m currently working on so that my focus stays on them and them only. That way I can actually expect to see a finished product one day.
One of them is of course this blog. What a learning experience this is turning out to be. There’s me, thinking that by the time I’ve been writing my blog for 4-5 months I’ll have at least jumped out of an aeroplane doing skydiving, ridden on a camel, gone to see some hideous artist at the O2 and tried internet dating, but no. I’ve discovered that I have brain diarrhoea and the attention span of a fruit fly.
I’m of course thinking that I can also blame this behaviour for the lack of major excitement in my life. A new idea is so much more exciting than something that you’re already working on, isn’t it? There’s the thing that you’ve got, let’s say it’s a dress that you’re making (tick) and you’ve come to a tricky bit (tick) and need some more material and getting that takes a bit of effort so you switch off a little and the next thing you know you see a sewing magazine that has some really nice patterns and you fall in love with one and start working on that (tick, tick...). So the short-term increase in excitement leads to long-term lack of excitement when not a single sewing project ever gets finished.
Oh well. It’s better to discover this now than never.
So as of today, I’m practising being focused. Focused on this blog, focused on making my life more exciting, focused on completing projects. It will lead to less chaos, less feeling overwhelmed by the gazillion things going on because there won’t be that many things going on, and mainly, fingers crossed, it will lead to results, excitement!!
Just a funny little thing to finish this post off… The curious individual that I am, I wanted to find out which animal has the longest attention span (as opposed to the shortest which by the way is not fruit fly but allegedly goldfish) and googled it. It turns out that birds have very long attention spans. I didn’t actually finish reading the article because (and I’ve now realised that I may be incurable) I saw this advert offering pet sitting services (you know how the internet works in curious ways). Sadly I don’t have a pet so have no need for such services but I very quickly realised that hey, this service provider also needs pet sitters and wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to do something fun and exciting, I’d get to enjoy looking after a dog for a while and doing so in a nice house for some money might be just the ticket for experiencing something new. Check it out: http://www.trustedhousesitters.com/. I’ve registered for opportunities.
And there I was, thinking that I couldn’t yet again report to having done anything remotely exciting. Now I can! (It's better than nothing. And could lead to something wonderful.)
Now focus. Finish your research on animals with the longest attention spans (speaking to myself again…).
This is what happens: at work I start writing an email. Half way through a small window appears on my computer screen, telling me I’ve received an email. I quickly check what it says, decide to reply immediately, start doing so and again half way through something else happens, another email maybe, or the phone rings, someone asks something, my boss appears and asks me to do something else. The end result is that soon I have 5-6 unfinished emails waiting for completion and as many other tasks that I’ve started but haven’t finished. Then I start getting overwhelmed because I feel there’s too much going on and how on earth am I going to get everything done without forgetting some little piece of information.
And the same continues at home in the evening, I start a project of some sort, work on it for a while, then get an idea for something else, immediately start on that and soon the first project is forgotten, the same happens with books (non-fiction only, mind), the pile of books next to my bed waiting to be finished is teetering on the brink of collapsing, and evidence of similarly abandoned projects of various kinds is all around me.
Is it any wonder that I feel that I’m not really making any progress in my life?? Anything to the contrary would be nothing but a small miracle!
I hate to admit this but there are even days when I’ve forgotten that I have blog project here. For goodness sake, woman (that’s me speaking to myself). This is just not on.
So I’ve given myself a bit of a talking-to and told myself very clearly that this can’t go on. I am to limit myself to 2-3 projects at any one time and no slipping from that, focus is the flavour of the week, the month and the year ahead. New projects are not to be started till old ones are finished.
And just so that I remember this I’m going to write a note to myself, a rather big one so that I don’t lose it and forget, in fact I’m going to put it on my wall so that I see it clearly several times every day, and list those projects I’m currently working on so that my focus stays on them and them only. That way I can actually expect to see a finished product one day. One of them is of course this blog. What a learning experience this is turning out to be. There’s me, thinking that by the time I’ve been writing my blog for 4-5 months I’ll have at least jumped out of an aeroplane doing skydiving, ridden on a camel, gone to see some hideous artist at the O2 and tried internet dating, but no. I’ve discovered that I have brain diarrhoea and the attention span of a fruit fly.
I’m of course thinking that I can also blame this behaviour for the lack of major excitement in my life. A new idea is so much more exciting than something that you’re already working on, isn’t it? There’s the thing that you’ve got, let’s say it’s a dress that you’re making (tick) and you’ve come to a tricky bit (tick) and need some more material and getting that takes a bit of effort so you switch off a little and the next thing you know you see a sewing magazine that has some really nice patterns and you fall in love with one and start working on that (tick, tick...). So the short-term increase in excitement leads to long-term lack of excitement when not a single sewing project ever gets finished.
Oh well. It’s better to discover this now than never.
So as of today, I’m practising being focused. Focused on this blog, focused on making my life more exciting, focused on completing projects. It will lead to less chaos, less feeling overwhelmed by the gazillion things going on because there won’t be that many things going on, and mainly, fingers crossed, it will lead to results, excitement!!
Just a funny little thing to finish this post off… The curious individual that I am, I wanted to find out which animal has the longest attention span (as opposed to the shortest which by the way is not fruit fly but allegedly goldfish) and googled it. It turns out that birds have very long attention spans. I didn’t actually finish reading the article because (and I’ve now realised that I may be incurable) I saw this advert offering pet sitting services (you know how the internet works in curious ways). Sadly I don’t have a pet so have no need for such services but I very quickly realised that hey, this service provider also needs pet sitters and wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to do something fun and exciting, I’d get to enjoy looking after a dog for a while and doing so in a nice house for some money might be just the ticket for experiencing something new. Check it out: http://www.trustedhousesitters.com/. I’ve registered for opportunities.
And there I was, thinking that I couldn’t yet again report to having done anything remotely exciting. Now I can! (It's better than nothing. And could lead to something wonderful.)Now focus. Finish your research on animals with the longest attention spans (speaking to myself again…).
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