How to Keep Going

Warning: this does get a bit self-help-y.

I'm writing this at exactly midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. Another week has come and gone and I feel a bit crap because I haven't done my weekly blogpost again. Loyal readers - all eight of you - will know that one of my New Year's resolutions was to do one post a week, but so far I feel like I just haphazardly rush something out before bed, or else don't get it done until a couple of days late. Looking at the publishing dates makes me feel like a failure.

But then I look at them again and I think - well, this is my sixth post of the year. And it's been six weeks. Okay, so if you discount the one where I literally just wrote "tuna sandwich" there's only five. And if you discount the one that was only a couple of lines, it's only four...

...and if you discount whatever this is, it's three.

But that's three more than nothing. And it's following on from nine months where I didn't post at all. For a hobby that I'm balancing with a full-time job and various other life demands, it's actually not that bad. Maybe I need to stop feeling so guilty all the time for not committing myself 100% to everything when I only have 100% of me to give (85% if you allow for naps).

As I said in my last post, I have an all-or-nothing tendency where a key part of being productive is feeling like I'm being productive, and riding the wave of that energy, if that metaphor doesn't make me sound unbearable. If I waste a day sitting around, it lowers my mood and makes me feel guilty and useless, which tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of convincing myself I can't do anything and perpetuating the cycle of doing nothing again and again. If, on the other hand, I get lots of things done, I feel like I'm capable of more. I can keep going. If I could have that feeling all the time, I know I'd be so much better at life. So: maybe part of being productive isn't just about doing everything right away. Maybe it's about forgiving yourself when you don't do everything right away, so you don't feel worse and get worse. Maybe I have to get a more accurate picture of how much I should expect myself to do, and realise that there are only so many hours in a day. Maybe the trick is, instead of punishing yourself for failure, to give yourself the privilege of letting it go so you can keep going.

Even right now, with this blog post, focusing on the positive of how much more I've posted in the last few weeks has spurred me on to finish this post. I was originally telling myself just to start it, do a couple of sentences, see how it goes, and yet now I'm finishing it within 27 minutes of starting it (sorry about the unedited feel). I feel like this is probably a healthier way of going about things than my usual all-or-nothing tendencies - managing my goals and breaking them into smaller pieces when I don't feel totally up to them. Of course, I want to draw a line between letting go of failures and outright complacency, but I'm also going to accept that finding that line will take some time. We all struggle with that to an extent, I think, so I shouldn't expect myself to get the balance right instantly.

I'm going to bed now. It's 12.27 and I'm really tired. Happy though. Happy I kept going.

How to be Useful: The Importance of Nice Sounds

I'm not very good at getting things done. 

I like to sit. Sitting is really, really nice. I like walking as well, but oh boy, do I love to sit. I like warmth. I like sitting in warm places. I'm essentially a human cat. And, like any other cat, I'm not terribly good at writing blogposts or taking out the recycling on time or getting to a spin class.

But, whether it's because I'm feeling more energetic, or just because I'm getting older and it's putting the fear of death in me, I've spent the last couple of months getting more and more done. I've noticed a massive, pleasing uptick in the speed in which I cross things off my list. It's surprising, given that it's coincided with moving back into working a full-time job, but this seems to be how I act - like a gas, I expand or contract into whatever space you squeeze me into (I always like to think of the most flattering similes for myself). In periods where I haven't had a lot going on, I find it easy to slip into bad habits: sleeping in late, not getting out of the house until late, general wallowing. When I have a job or activity that takes up a bunch of my day, I manage to use my time much better, I guess because I value it more.

So how do I make myself get things done? And keep track of everything I need to do? In the past I used my laptop to keep long to-do lists and notes; then, for a while, I moved to keeping a notebook in what I believe trendy people refer to as "bullet journalling", but both were imperfect systems. I found them a bit fiddly and I didn't necessarily have a laptop or notebook everywhere I went, which was unhelpful because I tend to think of things to put on there constantly. In addition, it didn't give me much satisfaction when I managed to finish a task; on the laptop lists, I would delete the task and it was like it never existed in the first place, and in my notebooks crossing things off just looked a bit ugly, like I was a child who'd crossed something out in an essay. It sounds dumb but I like organisational systems that are aesthetically pleasing: neat, cute and fulfilling when I tick something off. I want to enjoy my productivity. Ideally, I wanted to hear a little "bing!" sound when I achieve something. I like bing sounds.

I'm not sure how the thought didn't occur to me earlier, but since I'm carrying my phone everywhere I go, I recently realised I should probably find an app that does this job for me. I haven't actually managed to find one perfect app, but I have two that I use in conjunction: Wunderlist, and Productive.

They're both very simple, which I love. Productive is good for things you want to get done on a regular basis - household chores, the gym, taking medication, studying etc. You can program what the task is and what days of the week you want to do it, then check your list daily and swipe things as you complete them. And yes, you get a bing. I've been using that for seven months now and found I have pretty good success; plus you can look back at previous weeks and months and see how often you achieved perfect days where you completed all your tasks. My only nitpick is that the system doesn't distinguish between days where you completed, say, six out of seven tasks, from days where you were total rubbish and achieved nothing, but I guess it might encourage you to strive for perfection. Wunderlist is newer to me; I've been using it a few weeks, but I really like it. It's a lot more flexible and allows you to create multiple lists; so you can have shopping lists but also things you want to get done that week or that month, lists of places you want to travel to etc. I like Wunderlist for keeping lists of one-off tasks, to be used together with Productive for my daily tasks. You get bings in Wunderlist too. Productive has a heavier bing - more of a bloop, actually - whereas Wunderlist has a light, springy bing. Bings are very important when it comes to productivity.

I'm curious to know how other people organise themselves, so please let me know if you have apps or systems that you like (also let me know if it involves bings). Myself, I'm going to continue trying to get better at using my time. Although I don't think I'm ever going to be the kind of person who doesn't like to sit.

University applications suck.

Being up at 2am trying to write an essay about how great you are is no fun. I would be rubbish at being Donald Trump.