Wednesday, 22 May 2019

It's really happening

By the end of this evening, I should have cut off a lifeline that has kept me, honestly, a little complacent. It isn't that I haven't been pursuing my goals daily, but, I've allowed myself to stay in a pretty perfectionist mindset, prioritising being at least 95% happy with a task before I complete it, rather than focusing on 'good enough' and moving to the next one.

Without this lifeline, there will be more pressure on me to get things done, faster. I think it won't be too much? Balancing the exact amount of eustress I need (over plain old stress) is tricky. See, now I'm just getting perfectionistic about finding the exact amount of pressure I need to work efficiently without my mental health deteriorating, haha...

Pretty happy with how I did last week. It's hard to just say 'I'm happy with it' because I always, always see where I could have done more, and done better. But I gotta remind myself that I was in a very different place a year ago than I am today, and I have come very far from that point. And life will never reach an end point where I am 100% efficient with my time 24/7.

You can only aim to live your life in such a way that the act of living leaves you satisfied with your efforts. There is no end point where you go "ah, I'm now in a state of perfection, and can now do everything I wish with zero emotional/mental/financial/whatever friction". To believe you're perfect is to kill off your ability to grow; because it's guaranteed you are not perfect. Such an absolute doesn't truly exist when it comes to human beings, no matter how we might try and pursue it.

So yeah. I really gotta stop aiming for 'perfect' when that's a false idea to begin with. Honestly, I think the solution is to continue to read more philosophy books. I just read one by Carlo Strenger that has helped me with these thoughts a little (The Fear of Insignificance).

So this one messy human will continue to look for ways to make bigger and more beautiful messes, and try not to sweat the details quite so much............................................................ we'll see how that goes.


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Wednesday, 15 May 2019

Actual work desk soon?!

So I've just been working on our dining table for the last couple years, or on the coffee table, neither of which is exactly optimised for a computer setup. But!!! Last night I ordered a desk for myself and my partner, after comparing... so... so many online. I'll have a real workspace!

I'm really nervous about it because I went through eBay... at first I was going to use DShop, but they just have so many bad reviews... like, 50% of customers report damaged, clearly secondhand furniture being delivered without the screws needed to put it together, totally different type of desk delivered etc... and that getting a reply out of their customer service team is near-impossible. So even though half the people shopping there seem okay, it just doesn't seem like it's worth the risk.

The eBay seller probably is sourcing their desks from the same warehouse as DShop, I suspect, but I feel a little more confident having eBay's buyer protection stuff and PayPal's refund stuff. I compared all the sellers on eBay with the type of desk I wanted, and then carefully read all their user feedback - the one I picked hadn't really sold many pieces of furniture, and they didn't have 100% positive reviews, but I liked that they at least responded to the couple negative feedback messages they received... like, buying something and then having the seller refuse to respond at all is the worst. Though even if there was a problem and that happened, again, eBay protection...

So, I really hope the desks work out, I don't wanna have to go through finding one again... but at the very least, I'm unlikely to have just thrown my money into a void... though I hope they aren't damage and require me to send them back because yikes, the idea of repackaging a desk sounds like the worst.

Anyway, just needed to get that out somewhere. Here's my planner accountability check!


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Thursday, 2 May 2019

Chihaya page!

The art for April has all been so gorgeous, ahhhhhh. Another 2x week post because last week was PACKED so other than tweeting my planner I didn't have time to post here as well. Well. I didn't make time.

I do like the low level option of tweeting the planner to cover me for the week, but then coming back here when I have a moment to catch my breath and document anything else I wanna note for posterity/reflection.

I've finally been back on sifrol for my RLS over the last fortnight-ish (the previous GP I saw about renewing my prescription was new, didn't have access to my original prescription and was hesitant to write me a script when I saw her, so I wound up... going off my meds for about 10 months because seeing a second doctor to write the prescription = $$$). But I finally got around to seeing a new doctor last month, who was happy to prescribe it given my history with it (it has some side effects that the first one was worried about but... I'd already been taking it for a year without experiencing those... sigh).

ANYWAY. The good news is now that I'm back on the sifrol, my improved sleep has really been helping with my daily levels of motivation, focus and capacity to face tasks that are out of my comfort zone. I really need to make sure I never let another doctor put me off renewing my prescription like that, the difference I'm feeling after 2+ weeks back on sifrol is amazing. I'm really glad I'm one of the people who doesn't experience bad side effects from it, because normally I'm the unlucky person who does. (For example, valerian helps most people sleep but for 20% of the population, including me, it makes us MORE awake).

There's certainly many factors to consider when I look at my improved capacity to get things done recently, but I honestly feel my improved sleep from the sifrol has been a significant factor. So, yay for finally getting my prescription renewed!
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Saturday, 20 April 2019

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:





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.
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Wednesday, 3 April 2019

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


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.
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Tuesday, 26 March 2019

March: Pre-autumn cleaning

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!
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Sunday, 17 March 2019

March: [Mii plaza theme plays on loop]

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.
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