meltdown, dread

[Bob]

I looked at all the garbage I have to do.  I get a feeling of dread.  sometimes, like today, I end up doing nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Anyone else get this?

How do you deal with it?  It seems like my brain goes into "dread" mode.  I become very negative I think.  It seems like things become exaggerated -- Just now I was thinking it was "hundreds" of things I have to do.  Probably not.  Maybe though.

I'm just looking for ideas.  And wasting more time...  It seems like my mind knows not all that can get done, that I will be exhuasted doing all that.... so why do anything at all?  And I'm sick of working on things, so it feels like I'm just being pushed to work some more when I'm already tired and sick of doing things.

[tds]

practice

[pianistimo]

maybe you're doing the right thing, bob.  getting some rest.  i've learned that i need a certain amount of charging up to be able to face large quantities of work, too.  sometimes it's a couple of days of not doing so much, and then i make up for it when i'm feeling better.  i feel like i can formulate ideas (for letter writing and organizing) when i'm rested and able to 'think straight.'  exercise is good, too.  sometimes i'll feel just like you, and then go exercise for 1/2 to1 hr. and i feel totally different about stuff that has to get done. 

also, diet can control how you feel. for isntance, when i'm tired i tend to eat the wrong things (snack food) and not drink enough water.  when i'm feeling good, i tend to drink a lot of water/juice and eat less and eat better (more veggies). 

anything else on your mind.  did you snair anyone in your lair recently?  say, do you watch that 'date your mom' show occasionally.  i think some of these mom's are worse than their daughters.  this one guy openly make really disgusting comments/questions to this one mom, and she laughed it off.  not sure i like that, but at least the mom knows what the guy is about.  you'd have to make yourself look a bit like a teenager to get on the show, but how hard would that be?  you probably look young enough.  you'd just have to get the adrenaline going (this would be on a good day).  on second thought, i think this is a bad idea.  take a cooking class or something.  that's a way to meet ladies who are not already married.

[gilad]

yesterday i was supposed work on a uni assignment. i dreaded starting it and did nothing here for 6 hours. nothing!!! i sat around and did nothing. i'd rather have worked on my assignment , it would have been more invigorating and fun.

[jas]

yesterday i was supposed work on a uni assignment. i dreaded starting it and did nothing here for 6 hours. nothing!!! i sat around and did nothing. i'd rather have worked on my assignment , it would have been more invigorating and fun.

I know exactly what you mean. I'm in my final year and I have so much to do, but whenever I think about it I get this horrible feeling of dread that I'd rather avoid, so I try not to think about it (and regret it later, of course). I need more discipline. The difference, though, is that only one of the three things I have to work on at the moment is invigorating and fun. The other two are crap. But all are big important essays, so I can't procrastinate for too much longer...

Jas

[gilad]

Jas, if you're reading you're procrastinating  .

haha,i know that dread, *gulps* good luck man, get stuck in.

i'll be working all night. can't wait. i deserve no sleep for being a lazy bastard today.

[rc]

I'm sure we can all relate... Pianistimo makes a good point, sometimes it's just better to take it easy.

If it's something important, like the dishes which will stink up the house if I leave 'em for too long, I just get it done with. I typically will use these household chores as breaks between practicing, works well for me.

Then, some duties I just decide aren't important... Like when somebody at work begins to pile duties onto me, I don't worry about it because I don't care - I can only do so much in the day and am not going to stress if I can't get everything done that everybody wants, those are their priorities and not mine.

I distinctly remember stressing over homework as a kid, until I found the solution: don't do the homework . Sure, the grades dropped slightly, parents and teachers got upset, but the important thing was that I was stress free and had more energy to do things that actually mattered.

[jas]

Jas, if you're reading you're procrastinating  .

haha,i know that dread, *gulps* good luck man, get stuck in.

i'll be working all night. can't wait. i deserve no sleep for being a lazy bastard today.

Caught me. ***. Back to the books, then...

EDIT: I can't believe it censored a ... beaver's house with an "n" on the end. (I think it's a beaver's house, anyway.)

[abell88]

Bob, I'm prone to that, too. But sometimes I have found that if I make a list and look at it really honestly, many of the things that are on there I can do very quickly. I even write down how long I think they'll take...then add them up and see that I can get most if not all done in the time I have.

 I find making lists a huge help, and crossing out the things I've done very satisfying. If you're making a list, put "make list" at the top and then you know you'll be able to cross one thing off very soon. Sometimes I give myself a small reward -- chocolate or tea or a favourite piece of music -- for achieving a certain point on my list.

I also talk to myself all the time, and reassure myself that it's okay, I'll manage, I can do it, etc. May sound crazy but it works for me.

[quantum]

I used to do all nighters to finish up essays and such in high school and university.  But in last year of university I realized, sleep is more important - the essay can be late. 

Or think of it this way, once you write the essay, you'll never have to write the same one again.  Anyways because of stupid plagirism rules you can't even copy yourself otherwise you plagerize yourself.  Please, I would consider it an honor if somone wanted to copy my work - feel free to plagerise me.  No rights reserved (some lefts reserved).   

Or explain to your marker - the fact that my work doesn't make any sense when reading it is a sign of sophisticated writing.  I mean who can understand an educational article by Adorno, Seeger, or Freud the first time they read it?  This is just my way of not making sense to the rest of the world (even though it doesn't even make sense to me).  Does this make any sense?

[m1469]

Well, I do run into this quite often, and as abell mentioned, lists are the way to go.  One thing I have started doing is planning out my days of the weekend a little better.  Each of the two days has a specific purpose, and Sundays include me sitting down at the computer typing in my goals/things I have to do for the week to come. 

I recently was indeed feeling completely overwhelmed with stuff I had to do, so I put it all down on paper.  This was a Sunday.  Then, I separated out the things that I wanted to be doing every day, like practising, with the things that were just one-time deals.  I made a separate sheet for each day. Then I prioritized each task, and decided what things were truly most important for me to do and placed a number of tasks on each day. 

One thing that makes a HUGE difference for me is taking time each day to center myself in the mornings, including true gratitude for the day at hand.  This may take 20 minutes to 1 hour, and I will allow myself however long it takes to truly gain a sense of peace about the day at hand.  At certain points in my life, I have cut this step out of my day because I have thought I was too busy to include that.  But, I have realized that cutting this out does not help me, but often makes matters worse because without this step I have a difficult time being calm about my tasks during the day.  Without it often means less focus, more worry, and less efficient and useful energy expenditures.  So, I have decided that centering myself is one of the most, if not THEE most, important steps I can take in each day.   I also make a point of being grateful for and releasing the day at the end of the day, and trusting that tomorrow will be okay.  What's done is done, and what needs to be done tomorrow will get done tomorrow.  This helps me sleep.

Planning this all out, I saw that if I did indeed follow my schedule, I would get everything done that needed to get done.  At the end of each day, or at the beginning of the new day, I would sit down with my list for the day that just passed and the day that was at hand.  If something did not get done the day before, I simply crossed it off the day before's list, and moved it to another day.  This way, everything was always getting crossed off. 

I have always been quite good at making informal lists that I just write out by hand in a random notebook.  But, often, there was truly too much to do in one day (partly because some of the projects were HUGE).  So, sometimes things did not get crossed off and I started feeling like a failure just because of the uncompleted list.  This may sound silly, but since I am self-employed and my job is music related, it is often difficult to feel like I have accomplished something concrete during the day if I don't have a list of "things" that have been crossed off.  As a side note, I will add anything to the list from the day before that I ended up doing that wasn't on the list to begin with.  Also, this has helped me wake up each morning feeling a sense of purpose in getting up and as though my days are already kind of "together" (maybe more pertinent to being self-employed, I don't know).

This has done two main things for me.  It has greatly helped me schedule my time and feel more at ease about being able to get things done, plus, at the end of each week I see on paper what I have been up to with my time.  I have something somewhat concrete to show for how busy I have been feeling.  But also, because everything is down on paper, I don't spin my mental wheels thinking about all of it all of the time.  I can focus better on the task at hand.  This has left me with more energy to do my other tasks. 

Another important factor lay in defending my time.  I have realized that there are always excuses and things popping up that would love to be a distraction from the things I need to be doing.   I think it's important to have a main focus (in life, in each day.. and so on), and have some sort of mixture of activities too.  But, that mixture should feed the focus and not distract from it.  Once the mixture starts distracting from the focus, there is a need to re-evaluate, re-balance, and adjust accordingly again.

One more thing in closing (this is why I did not respond right away, I knew this response would be huge).  Sometimes I have felt something like doing the thngs I "need" to do and "living my life" are two separate things.  I have often felt something like "how am I going to just have time to live if I constantly have all of these tasks filling up my time ?".   I have realized though that I need to be alert to this kind of thinking.  What would be my definition of "living" if my time was not full of these activities ?  I have realized that if it were not for my job and all that that entails, and all of the other things that I do in my life (even house-hold chores), I would not be living. 

It is not my ideal to sit around watching TV all day or just going outside to play.  I would not be a more at peace person should this be my style of living on a consistent basis (there is a right time for these things too).  So these very activities include what my definition is of living, and being myself.  There is not really a separation.  I am not waiting to get done with my "chores" in order to start living my life.  So, there does not need to be any dread for having tasks that need to be done, that is a sign of a vital life.

Okay, I am signing off now... breaker, breaker... over and out.


m1469 

[nanabush]

I felt exactly that this past week.  I had to do a major essay that's being sent off to Switzerland to be marked, I had to do another essay for another class, and I have a major project due very soon.  One day I decided to stay home from school to work, and I honestly sat around and did nothing.  I kept saying "Why don't i work!"  Then I'd go to the computer and just daydream about all the stuff I had to accomplish...  I have gotten pretty much nothing done in the past four days.  !!! AAAH