Focusing on the process and not the future outcomes.... isn't easy

Whoops forgot to blog for last week's although I did still tweet, so, uh, here's the last two weeks of planner entries:

☑ weekly planner accountability post

The cherry blossom/spring theme on this week's pages is so pretty ;_; pic.twitter.com/n32kPXvLNa

— sassa: 100% (@AWildSassaApprs) April 8, 2019

☑ weekly planner accountability post

All the art for April is so sweet ;v; Akiren offering Iwai cake is A+ content 🌟 pic.twitter.com/04dBuPkh79

— sassa: 100% (@AWildSassaApprs) April 17, 2019

As fas as how things are, I've been freaking out over how fast time has gone, HOW IS IT NEARLY MAY. There's a few things I wanted to have achieved by now that I haven't, so I think I need to find some more ways to get the most out of my time... I very much feel like I've spent a lot of time still healing from my last job and the bad mental habits/frameworks I picked up there... but while healing is important if I don't achieve some of these more difficult tasks soon life might become tougher.

Finding a balance of what is reasonable to try achieving each day and also keeping my energy levels up is... a challenge. And my insomnia has been a real issue lately, though I FINALLY got a GP to renew the meds for my RLS so that should help a little.

Anyway. I know I need to focus on making the most of each day, and spend WAY LESS time worrying about the future, honestly if I switched all my worry hours to productive/rest hours I'd probably already be where I needed to be. It's just a hard mental thing to unlearn/mitigate/manage.

Still. I do think these daily/weekly/monthly/yearly plans I've been doing are helping. I'm much better off than if I was not doing this recording stuff. Every month, I've gotten better and better at working towards my goals. I just always set the bar higher each month/week/day than I can manage, so even though I improve, I always feel something is still lacking.

All I can do is keep reflecting and improving.

Nothing to say but what a day how's ya boy been?

☑ weekly planner accountability check in! pic.twitter.com/EIqQG7LJ7N

— sassa loves and appreciates u (@AWildSassaApprs) April 3, 2019

I've got nothing to say but it's okay.

Okay.
Well.
Like...

...maybe one thing.

It's awesome that as of this post, I've been doing this for 1/4 of a year! I've never used a planner this consistently before! And honestly, tweeting/blogging my pages has definitely been the reason I've kept going at times. Just having that vague sense of accountability is enough for me.

March: Pre-autumn cleaning

☑ weekly accountability check-in (I really gotta book that GP appt tho whoops) pic.twitter.com/6bfZbZOdRo

— sassa loves and appreciates u (@AWildSassaApprs) March 25, 2019

I feel satisfied with my choices this week, I think, even though as always, I wanted to do even more than I actually... did.

Plus side, spent the whole weekend cleaning and gardening so my environment is lovely... it all helps!

March: [Mii plaza theme plays on loop]

☑ weekly planner check-in pic.twitter.com/ccqXnmVqJn

— sassa loves and appreciates u (@AWildSassaApprs) March 18, 2019

I feel like I'm starting to get a hold on how to structure my days as a freelancer. One big challenge has been attempting to work when I'm not home alone - it's really not easy at all to avoid disruptions when you live in a tiny apartment.

I've brought my wake-up time back to 7am, and I'm finding it helps a lot. Even though my favourite time to work is at night, it's not easy when your partner is going through a rough time and really needs your company in the evenings and the days when they're at home. Getting up earlier means I can walk them to the train in the morning, and then get to work right away - meaning it's much easier to stop working once they get home, without feeling stressed over wanting to get more done but no longer feeling I can work because my company is desired/needed. They work from home one day a week too, so I'm also front-loading a lot of my chores on that day so that if they need to talk it doesn't interrupt me during a particular attention-demanding point of my work.

I know 7am probably seems pretty late to a lot of you with office jobs, but yeah, my ideal work day is two separate sessions, with the second running about 9pm - 2am, so, 7am was a little rough previously. But now I'm trying to synch my sleep schedule with my partner's a little more, so that we can spend more time together.

So, if I was single and living alone I think I'd most likely be somewhat nocturnal, but overall it's probably for the best that I'm synching up with my partner this way, because the world is designed around people being awake during the day anyway, so while working at night was good for talking to friends in other time zones, it made some other things more difficult. And my best friend is 5 hours ahead of my timezone, so working late nights actually sucked for talking with them anyway.

TLDR I've started getting up earlier which goes against every fibre of my being but it's actually pretty good after all the end.

March: Well that was week two I guess

☑ weekly planner accountability post pic.twitter.com/PzTs6QqHKs

— sassa loves and appreciates u (@AWildSassaApprs) March 11, 2019

Something of a tumultuous week, but I managed to do a lot despite all the Life Things going on.

February - March: I still have so much to learn

accountability check-in w my planner... h, pic.twitter.com/52eH3tb3ey

— sassa loves and appreciates u (@AWildSassaApprs) March 5, 2019

I'm an INFJ (and consistently test as one) and while you can't put everything on your type, the description really works for me, and learning about typical INFJ strengths and weaknesses has been a real help.

One INFJ trait is that we tend to see the big picture, pull together a lot of information well to make assessments but... get lost when it comes to the details.

I'm lost.

I'm doing my best. I think another thing I need to change is that I need to stop saying things like "work on Discord bot" as a checkbox, because that's _so vague_. Like, when is that box checked? When I totally code, implement, document, and share it (definitely not something I can do in one day right now). Is it "once I've started at this code for two hours, check the box?" (Yes, I'm aware of S.M.A.R.T. goals)

But even saying "Work on Discord bot for two hours"... rubs me the wrong way. Because sometimes you make so much progress in two hours, and other times, barely any at all. It's the same with saying something like "configure [feature X]" when... that could take two hours, or twenty, and at this point I don't know! Which means setting those daily three tasks that will make me stay focused and feel confident because way more stressful than I anticipated. Especially when you wind up checking none of the boxes.

How do I just... make myself function at 100% all the time? That's reasonable, right? Haha...

I also still struggle to take breaks that actually mean anything. My "breaks" are usually twitter, which, isn't really restoring energy... but if I don't, when am I gonna socialise?

Maybe I should try setting objectives in the morning, and then at the end of the day, recording three things I achieved... so I can set an objective of "work on Discord bot" and if that's all I do that day, maybe I can find three things I got out of it? Like, "completed feature X" "learned about AWS setups" and "learned about tracking down permissions conflicts and ownership issues with plugins".

It feels like cheating, but the thing is, _I'm_ the one setting the rules. And the KPIs! Everything I'm doing - the planner, the accountability tweeting, this blog - is all an attempt to improve myself - improve how I work now that I'm working on my own, a totally new thing for me - improve how I manage my projects - improve how I manage my own mind.

And I can't improve if I don't experiment. And beating myself up over failures won't let me get stronger, either. But not being afraid of failure is so hard for me, even when the cost of that failure is nothing but my own self-esteem - and only forced on me, by me.

I'm so easily disheartened. It's all too easy to over-promise to myself, under-deliver, and then find myself unable to focus on my work because I'm so demoralised over my inability to do something there's no way I'd ask someone else to do in that short a period of time, let alone when they're working on other projects at the same time.

I just don't know how to be realistic. I get S.M.A.R.T., but that whole "Realistic" part of the phrase?

I have. No. Idea. How to be realistic. And it's making me feel so lost.

I don't really know exactly how to tackle this right now. All I can really do is keep attempting to learn more, and solve the issue in new ways, and hope that eventually, one of them will work for me.

February: Small things

I missed last week, but I did still use my planner, so here's a tweet with both:

whoops I forgot to post last week's but I'm Still Doing This

It's kinda morphing though, at first I was making this my three most important tasks to focus on but I'm finding it's better to set Three Sanity Tasks pic.twitter.com/1O5DTwHn9S

— sassa loves and appreciates u (@AWildSassaApprs) February 26, 2019

I think what worked for me a couple weeks ago no longer works, because I've been hit with more Brain Stuff. So I'm shifting my strategy from three "most important tasks" to three "doable tasks".

I talk about it more in the Twitter thread, but basically at the moment I think it's better for me to build up my resilience by getting a bunch of ticks on a page before I actually start on my "important" ones.

So stuff like... changing the kitty litter... eating enough vegetables for the day... getting all the laundry done. And all my more demanding tasks happen after those.

I think I have to be flexible and change my methods for getting stuff done to match a whole bunch of things - current life events, current hormonal balance, current brain noise, etc...

I'd love it if there was just One Right Way to do things I could follow forever but... Life Don't Be Like That.

Still, I'm learning, and getting a little better at matching my approach to my current situation each day, I think.