Sometimes, it is easier - and a whole lot less trouble - to start over, rather than trying to back-solve, reverse-engineer, or repair all broken pieces of a problem. I wanted to move this blog from one host to another. It was much easier to create a clean slate and move things over, rather than trying to move things over and try to address all the random problems that I caused…
Not everyone is as excited to express their creativity in grad school as I was in mine. I was frustrated by a handful of seemingly unrelated emails telling me that they just wanted me to “tell them what I want to see.” I feel protective, often without a good reason, of other people’s “unexpressed creativity” or “repressed curiosity.” I learned from talking to friends that very few people have chosen their grad program as the target of their creative expressions. OK, then.
Trying to hide from your troubles is like holding your breath underwater. You can do it for a short time, but eventually you have to deal with them. I’ve had some really undesirable issues that I have been successfully putting off for a few years. Now, though… I faced a couple of them and they went away. Don’t avoid them too much, those memories are pretty fragile and weak. Face them!
While it is helpful to plan out your day to include 30-minute blocks for focused effort, frustration follows when trying to plan too many days in the future. Many productivity programs suggest a weekly review to keep things on the rails. During this review, a person lays out what they have accomplished in a given week, updates their system for tracking progress on projects, and plans out what will happen in the coming week. I cannot plan seven days into the future… or maybe I just don’t want to face the consequences if I try??
Despite all appearances, you may not be in as much day-to-day trouble as you think. Sometimes, a looming deadline accumulates a lot of baggage that is not useful, nor does it relate to reality. Just do the work. It’s not as hard, complicated, or as much as you think.
Calendars are really only useful for keeping track of things that need to happen on a given day or at a given time. They are not useful as to-do lists. There is a pressure or urgency that comes with deadlines. Your heart and body know which deadlines are “real” and which only have this pressure attached to them because YOU made them that way. Once your body and heart turn against a system, it’s already a failure… Know what the tool is really good for, and limit yourself to that.