The Little Room

Last week I got derailed early and hard. Like Wednesday morning early, and it’s sad to admit this, but I was very unproductive for the remainder of the week. I fell into a blue funk that crippled my productivity on Wednesday. I didn’t write a word, and barely completed any other tasks. My brain’s response to that one day was to take the rest of the week off. And I did. That doesn’t make any sense at all. I understand that, I’m aware of the folly of thoughts like that, and yet I heed them. Why?

Some people call it the lizard brain. Others call it the resistance.

I think in terms of planner versus doer, as the authors of Nudge describe it. We make plans, and our doer has to act on those plans. Sometimes the doer listens a little to closely to the lizard brain and ends up goofing off on the internet or taking mid-day naps instead of following through.

The point of Nudge is that we can encourage our doer to follow-through with things by putting the right decision-architecture in place. If we build a world where the defaults are the best options, then we behave in better ways. This reasoning is what led me to the STANDARDS project in the first place. As a piece of decision-architecture STANDARDS does it’s job well. By thinking about what I want to accomplish and holding myself to those, ahem, standards I’m installing good default options. What I should be doing in my “at work” time is making sure I fulfill those standards. That part is simple, and the planner side of me really likes it.

Then we get to the doer. He’s a little harder to manage. I think all doers are a mix of procrastinators and perfectionists. Mine also lacks resilience. Knock him off the horse and he’s likely to forget horses even exists. He will not get back on without a serious amount of struggle.

I don’t what causes this lack of persistence, but being aware of it will help. I’ve established goals. I’ve shared those goals, and I’ve put plans in place for achieving those goals. Those are steps towards persistence. Maybe quitting is a habit, which means persistence is too.

My goal this week is simple. Whenever I feel like quitting I have to push through. That way I don’t have to write any more posts like this one.