Tag: Perfectionism

Tick, Tock…

How is YOUR day structured?
How is YOUR day structured?

I joined Bria‘s writing goals accountability thread on Romance Divas‘s forum and have been thinking about time management a lot lately. The other night, Andi and I were talking about how this past year has flown by so quickly. There’s lots of theories out there and I’m not going to dig into any of them here.

I’ve always been bad at time management strategies. Stuff either happens or it doesn’t. For me, this usually means it doesn’t. I’m a major procrastinator: Why do today what can be put off ’til tomorrow? This accountability thread has been keeping my on my toes. I did great the first week and the next three days, but then with the holiday looming and the realization that other obligations also need to be met… well I earned my first unhappy face. I don’t know how the rest of this weekend is going to go. I’m nearly done with two of my goals (journal entry and blogging), so that just leaves 2 hours of writing on my WIP for today. Sounds easy you say? If I didn’t need to live in the real world, sure, piece of cake.

Most of the time I find myself hyperfocusing on something that allows me to escape from things I don’t want to do or think about. I shouldn’t be surprised when DD and DS whine that they don’t want to do boring but necessary jobs around the house. No one likes to (do they?). They certainly don’t have the best role models.

I’ve always been amazed and a little awed by people who manage to fit so much into their lives: scouts, sports, work, hobbies, entertaining, as well as all the little daily maintenance things that make their lives run smoothly. I like the idea of “found minutes”, but I think I’ve lost so many minutes I think they’re all curled up with the dust bunnies. I know they add up, but I find it takes time for me to get into tasks and then once there, I tend to hyper focus and my perfectionist tendencies override any permission I’ve given myself to do the task for “just fifteen minutes.” Because you can do ANYTHING for just 15 minutes, right?

I also find I lie to myself all the time by pretending I work well under pressure with tight deadlines. Papers in college were always started the night before they were due and that worked out ok. However, as I get older, I find I want to enjoy more quality time, but the guilt of other things left undone ruins that. I don’t want to put everything off to the last minute any more.

I think the best quote I ever read was “We all have routines, but is the one you have working for you?” I’m learning to juggle my commitments, but finding that sweet spot of balance is difficult. I just need to keep at it and establish better routines that actually work for all the areas I need to balance instead of just going with the flow and ending up caught in the eddies.

Perfection!

That 70s classic, Perfection!I’m sure many of you remember the game where you had to fit all the funky shaped little pegs into their appropriately shaped holes before the timer counted down, the board popped up and they all went flying again?

Anyway, that’s how I feel lately. I’m holding too many funky shaped pieces and they don’t look at all like any of the holes in my board. Every time I think things are settled the way I want them, something happens and the whole thing explodes in my face.

I’ve always fought against one form of perfectionism or another. Either I’ll hyper focus on something until it’s just right or I’ll give up midway through, knowing my completed project will never look like the one on the box cover (or whatever).

Writing currently falls under the hyper-focus category, which is good in a way, since I’ve always given up on it in the past. Bria dubbed me the Highly Theoretical FlanTastic Diva, because I always seem to have my nose in a craft book, offer some suggestion based on something I’ve read, or wax philosophical here on the blog about what I’m learning.

I think it’s funny, but I also must admit it’s very accurate. I’ve always been very interested in theory – music theory, economic theory, etc. The trick is gaining a solid grounding in the theory and then allowing myself the freedom to flop spectacularly when I try to put it into practice.

I still haven’t finished Dunne’s Emotional Structure yet. (I know. I need to finish it so I have something else to talk about. =P) I feel the panic building as I read the book and wonder, how in the hell am I going to be able to pull this off! I’m standing on that delicate balance point where it’s either fight or flight. I can’t afford to back away from this challenge. I need to push myself to try his approach. I need to work through my apprehension and self-doubt. My first attempt(s) may not be pretty, but they will be learning experiences.

I’m still not happy with those three sentences from yesterday. I need to work on them some more so I can expand them to three pages. After that, I can have fun playing with index cards! It sounds like a lot of work, but I suspect it’s exactly what I’ve been avoiding and it’s showed.