How to work on tedious projects?

[Bob]

Fun for awhile yes.  But long run.  Lots of work.  It's not fun then.  Painful sometimes.

Any advice on pushing through things?


I'm thinking ultimately do very little, but do that over a long amount of time.  That way it's less painful and has a big impact.

[keypeg]

Work work?  Or music work?  Your own boss or freedom of your own use of time, or restrictd in how and when?

[Bob]

With work.  Projects.  Some music, some not.  On my own time then and the time I control at work.

[keypeg]

Hard to tell without specifics.  Pacing? Rewarding?  Turn work into play?  It sounds like you have too much on your plate - not heading toward burnout, one hopes.

For some things I have sily tricks.  Housework, which is not the most challenging thing in my life, is decided by the roll of the die.  Whichever room it falls on, that's the "room of the day".  With all other tasks, that's the one that will be neglected for weeks on end.

Increments?  Passes through each set of things so that there is less and less each time?

It depends on how much control you have over the work.  Also your own nature.  I am relatively intense and quick.  I cannot stand working in teams and I am self-employed.  Slow people or slow tedious procedures that are not necessary absolutely drain me.  I would rather do things in powerful bursts, or well timed cycles.  Planning without overplanning.

And I find if it is something that you can put yourself into and do on your own terms it can become "unwork".  I don't know if that makes sense.

[Bob]

Work without an end.

I'm just finding I seem to be wearing down quickly.  A few hours and I'm tired of it. 

Yet, there is time.  Plenty of time.  I want to use more of the time available.  I'm just sick of working on this stuff.  I'd like to get rid of that feeling of tediousness.

[keypeg]

Work without an end.

I'm just finding I seem to be wearing down quickly.  A few hours and I'm tired of it. 

Yet, there is time.  Plenty of time.  I want to use more of the time available.  I'm just sick of working on this stuff.  I'd like to get rid of that feeling of tediousness.

Hm, I've learned that a problem is an opportunity.  If a problem keeps coming up it means something different is asking to be found.

Is all your work of the same nature?

What is it that you would like to be doing (in nature, or specifically) and what is it that you are doing?

I've been told that I should get a 9 - 5 job and steady income.  I don't think I could hack it.  In my work I might be getting rush work that leaves me with barely enough sleep for three days, or something steady, or nothing for a period of time, during which I can get more into the music.

I might be working on a bunch of birth and death certificates, marriage and divorce papers. Suddenly I'm translating stuff on what happens to blood on a microscopic level when a person is in shock.  then I'm off to another divorce.  Then there is the robot that babysits Japanese children, followed by a financial report, followed by a long lull in which I'm back at the piano and music theory book and roll my dice to see which room I should clean today ....

My personal need is for variety and challenge.  The 9 - 5 would not work for me.  What's your style and need?

... and sometimes we just have to slug through.  Are you a perfectionist by any chance?  That can also be a hurdle.

[G.W.K]

Some people find it easy to work through something if they have something to look forward too. Do you have anything to look forward to? Some form of a treat or reward?

The problem with doing little over a long period of time is if you have a deadline. Say...an exam or publication, etc. That method wouldn't work very well.

Unfortunately, most things we have to do are boring, tedious and labourious.

 

G.W.K

[Bob]

Just more work after this is over.  Fun, fun, fun.  And I shouldn't really practice until I get this stuff done, but there's no end to it.

I need more discipline or something like that.  I've probably spent just as much time dragging as actually doing work today.

[G.W.K]

LOL...lucky you!

Your mind will probably need more discipline...but breaks (even short breaks) are needed during work, revision, etc. If you don't, you'll probably just shut down completely!

G.W.K

[keypeg]

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Just more work after this is over.  Fun, fun, fun.  And I shouldn't really practice until I get this stuff done, but there's no end to it.

I need more discipline or something like that.  I've probably spent just as much time dragging as actually doing work today.

You might have noticed how much I'm posting today.  Procrastination is not a stranger, and I know what I'm avoiding.   

You've been writing about work as a burden for a while I noticed.  Does something need to change?  Where?  How?

[Bob]

It is just a burden for awhile.  Taking up my time.

I was going to post something, but it got pushed out of my mind.  Argh!  Grr.   Dang, I just can't think of it now.  And it was something good too.  Dang.


How can I make the stuff I just have to do more enjoyable?  There is no end to it.  I just see that I could work more, but it's like my mind is shutting down a bit or is working against me, dragging its feet.  When I shift over to a different topic, I can just dive in a start producing a lot of results.  Lots of producitivity, just in the wrong area.  A type of procrastination I suppose.  Then I go back to what I'm supposed to be doing and it's dragging a stubborn mule along.  It's like my mind has dried up in that area.  I think there's something to that idea. 

Yes, I'm a perfrectionist if I can be.  And I tend to bog down.  Probably what's going on here. 

I do find I would like to stop and work on smaller elements of the "dry" project, but there just isnt' time.  It's a situation where I need to get through a certain amount at least, or as much as I can, in a certain amount of time.  More info than my mind can take apparently.

I'm just wondering if there's a way to ease up and slick up the mind so I can just work faster.  I know I can do better, but it's like my mind is resisting.  I could force it, I could take a break, I could just stop thinking about things... I don't know. 

[keypeg]

It's hard to make suggestions without having a bit of a picture that is more specific, but that my tread on your privacy.  It sounds like what you have to work on doesn't interest you, and it is preventing you from doing what you would like to do.

[Bob]

Bingo.  It can be more interesting... when I do just that project the whole day for a few days, don't think about much else, and have time then to delve into the details better, to get things done the right way.

[keypeg]

Ok, so are you a student?  Office worker also doing music?  Entrepreneur?  Like depending on what kinds of things you are actualy dealing with it's hard to suggest anything.

Here's where I'm at in the same theme:

I would love to spend all my time with music.  I would be a full time music student, I guess.  I am in my fifties, so I can aim to learn and develop as much as possible, but regardless of the potential I have (and apparently it exists, I'm told, possibly not in a small measure) I will never reach things I would have if I had started at a young age.  I can't stand doing everything amateurishly through guesswork.  I am good at winging it for many things, but I would like to have proficiency and some kind of expertise, i.e. properly learned and taught, in music.  That is the thing of choice.  It will not turn into a career.  I might teach some time far in the future.  I can't even think that far.  All I want to do right now is learn mentally and physically.  That's what drives me.

Except ..... I have to earn money, pay bills, and what I "have to do" takes time away from what I want to do.

There are some issues that I have to take care of, decisions to make, people to talk to, and these things will create changes where I want them so I can come closer to what I want to do.  Among others, the music thing needs some kind of support - I can't be teaching myself - and things have to happen here and in areas affecting it.  This part is taking up a lot of my time because decision-making is hard.  This is where I'm writing on the boards, procrastinating, while my thoughts flow together.  It's not that productive.  But I can accept the state of flux because it's part of the process.  I go off and do these senseless things like writing in forums, and when I stop it seems my thoughts have clarified a bit more.

The thing is that I know roughly what I want to be doing, and while I started by being dissatisfied with the status quo, I'm not staying there.  It took a while to define what I wrote about and this organizing, deciding, arranging part is the hard part.  It's time consuming, slow moving - I'm often frustrated and irritated, but I've had to accept that it (I) won't move faster than snail's pace for this part and that's just how it is.  Once my pieces are in place, that stage will be done with.

Roughly having the various goals in place, there will have to be routines of some kind, some kind of a flexible structure that can be bent totaly out of shape but it will be there.  The first thing was knowing what I want to do (sort of).  I would be unmotivated and unable to get much done if I resigned myself to the status quo.  I have to make changes.

So that's the hard part, what I just wrote about.

In "regular life" there are the regular unroutine-routines.  I have to fit the decision-making arranging part into it. These are the things we can avoid forever and it's hard to get ourselves into gear for them.  It is a decision to work on them and bring them forward.  When a decision is made, it can be acted on.  Decision making is uncomfortable.  I'm forcing myself like my own taskmaster.

Then there is "life".  If a translation job comes in I have to do it, and it has to be professional, with full concentration and absolute accuracy.  My mind has to be totally on it.  I respond to that by being as efficient as possible so that I can maximize my time.  I also have a working routine - three steps - and I simply go through those steps.  It's like being on automatic.  The reward is getting done, seeing that it's an excellent job, and knowing that I will get paid.  In self-employment there is at least that: your actions are immediately linked to reward (payment) while if you are salaried you get paid no matter what you do.

I have a routine with part of my music.  Theory and piano, though piano is not my main instrument.  The main instrument is part of the flux and issue so it's sitting aside for the moment until I can get my act and situation together.  I have the things I am working on stacked in a certain way.  I have a list of my routine taped to the wall, about 5 things, and some time during the day I go through them.  For some reason this keeps me steady.  I'm working on the things that are personally important to me, and there is progress.  It allows me to work on the things that I don't like doing.

I think the fact that I am doing what I want to do each day is the key.  I have established these as important, priority, and not trivial.

What is the killer is when I can only do music in small bits and pieces.  Not much can be accomplished that way.  I think that this is something you mentioned.  In my case, however, I know that I will have days in which huge chunks of time are available.  I am not on a relentless hamster wheel.  I think the "daily grind" is what wears people down.  I don't have that, but with enterpreneurship I have also placed myself in a state of insecurity.  I never know when the next job will come in, how large it will be, how much I will earn in a given month.

I spent a fair amount of time analyzing where I was at, what I wanted, what the options were, where changes were needed.  Sometimes the changes were not externally but within routines, or attitudes, or time organization, or "having too much stuff".  Now I'm at the stage of putting some of that into action and since change is scary this is where the procrastination is coming in.

Can you use any of this?

[Bob]

Yes, something in there I think.  Thanks for writing.

I'm seeing...  essentially do what you have to to get back to music.  Force it to happen and be efficient about it.

[keypeg]

Good luck at your end.  Let us know how you get on.

[Bob]

Any more ideas?  I think I'm giving up for today.

[keypeg]

What have you tried since then?

[Bob]

More forcing.  Situation stays the same.

I think it's a combination of getting worn down, not quite getting good/enough sleep, and then trying to do too much. 

I'm not trying to do anything now.  It's much nicer that.  Takes the monkey off the back.  And it's Friday.  I can slack off tonight.

[keypeg]

Lucky you! (Friday, that is)  I've got work this week-end.
Well, the daily grind is one thing.  Taking time off sometimes works wonders.  But if this is ongoing you have to start getting a handle on the big picture.  Be creative.  Brainstorm.  Scribble down crazy ideas.  Decide your days will be nights, nights will be days, Friday from now on is Monday and they've abolished Thursdays for some strange reasons that's only known in the seventeenth dimension.  Break the impasse. 

Enjoy your break.

[Bob]

Haha.  It's nice to just decide to do nothing.

I practiced some.  Finally.

Except I feel the deadlines creeping ahead. 

I think I need a few days to recover.  I've worn down.  A few days of complete rest maybe.

[Essyne]

A friend and I were talking about this subject today -

Do you guys ever feel like your entire life is a big "preparation" for the next thing? Elementary school prepares you for high school which prepares you for college which prepares you for a job which prepares you for a better job which prepares you for a better job which prepares you for an EVEN BETTER job which prepares you for retirement, and you get the point. You get stuck in this rut of working and working and preparing and not really enjoying your life. You're stuck in an endless pursuit of something that you can't quite place.

When will we ever live and just stop "preparing" ?!

I think it's a problem, but am not sure if it's universal . . . . nor if it is even applicable to your situation. . . . just "food for thought" so to speak.

~Ess~

[Bob]

That's exactly what I've been thinking.  Always working.  What's the point if it's not enjoyable?  I've spent my whole life preparing.  Work hard and get the reward of... working even harder?  That doesn't make sense.

You might move up in terms of prestige, but what's the point after awhile?  So what? 

It seems to always to be having to do work at the expense of what you want to do.

[Bob]

And, it's always reaching for the goal.  You get there and then a length of time has gone by. 

[Essyne]

Haha - what a pair we make 

At the same time you have to "bring in the bacon." I guess it just boils down to finding work that you enjoy (Yes, this is where my 17-y/o, "everything is roses, and I have no experience in the real world" comes out). I find that I don't particularly LIKE working on the farm, but I can ENJOY it, if that makes sense at all. It's the difference between being happy and joyous. Knowing yourself and not knowing yourself. Living and just. getting. by. If you have a joyous life, then the not-so-happy parts will be appreciated as part of the bigger scheme of things.

You can undergo this endless "pursuit" of happiness, but you'll never find it in anything material or conceptual. Things can't make you happy, places can't make you happy, people can't make you happy; and no, not even TIME can make you happy. Only complete joyousness can make you happy. You aren't "happy" when you had a bad day or a lover leaves you for another, younger, better looking lover. But you understand that this is life, and life is beautiful. It's a tacky, and cheesy, and everything else statement when taken at face-value. But when actually experienced and understood, it reigns supreme. Life is beautiful.

[rc]

I've started to enjoy my work, I take it as a kind of challenge to see how good I can do from day to day, just for it's own sake.  I figure I have to do this anyways so I might as well make it interesting.  Sometimes I experiment with different ways of doing things, sometime I refine, sometimes I look at a job and get all motivated and ready to mow it down, see how quickly I can get it done... and it's not like my job is anything special, most people think my job is tedious.

But I know what burnout is like.  Some days the challenge is to still do a good job even though I don't want to be there.

If I'm working too long, then I get home tired but I still want to do all the stuff I'd usually do at home, and I usually stay up too late doing them...  Then I'm tired and the next day is even worse.

I can go through a few days of doing nothing but work, but eventually it starts killing the soul. "I'm getting a lot done, but what for? I haven't got a life anymore".  Even from the work perspective, that's where things become counterproductive.  Then the most productive thing is to take some time off.  That's why we got weekends, labour laws, and vacations.  After some time off to relax, I come back to the job with so much energy.