These days I feel a bit lethargic. It might just be because I’m recovering from 5ks and need more rest than normal. I also just feel a lot of pressure overall. I see these mornings as a way for me to slowly set up my house, set up my mental space as a good place to work.
I like to go through my to do list, my calendar, and work things out.
On thing that occurs to me when I’m thinking through my to do list is that I’m way to ambitious and unfocused. The point of the to do list is to brain dump and really find the most important high priority thing (using emotional priority not logical priority).
And before I even think about prioritizing, I want to get back to building my house – you are in my house, take risks, be ok with silence, take your time.
Today my main goal is to finish my business cards and website for my art coaching.
Another main system or habit I want to institute, if I miss a time block to do something on my calendar, I delete the event and add it back to my to do list.
Results from day 3 while tired and a little stressed.
Match 1
Reflections:
My mind is kind of sluggish, but this way of working where I’m warming up, then taking breaks to walk is genuinely very relaxing. I don’t feel tired at all from the work.
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? I feel this work was worth less maybe $100. I feel like there were some programmer heavy tasks in here but not a huge amount was accomplished.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? I’d say this work was middling difficulty. Maybe around a 4. It was deceptively simple in the sense that it’s very basic information added, but takes a bit of thinking.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 5%. Not very innovative, business as usual.
Gains in communication and charisma? Fair gains in communication and charisma, it is amazing to be able to show some of the information that I exposed in the data.
Match 2
Reflections:
I tried to do some chess as a mental warmup, but I feel like it left me drained, perhaps next time as a mental warmup, I can try playing chess for creativity not for the win
Overall I felt my energy draining in this match. I felt pretty tired.
I did some extra work after the match and I feel pretty tired. I felt I needed to squeeze that extra bit out.
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? $120. It was pretty not special, some of the work I did programmatically could have been done by someone very cheap, but overall I ran tests that required a lot of deep level troubleshooting that is not easy.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? 6-7. It was debugging which can be extremely difficult, especially for someone who doesn’t know my code.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 5% I don’t know if anything got innovated here.
Gains in communication and charisma? Good gains, gets me much closer to the final goal of presenting results.
Match 3
Reflections:
Focused a lot on thinking smart not hard
I noticed that taking a break is important, staying on the train of thought only makes you want to choose the easiest path, not the most intelligent
Changed work time to 15 minutes
Still need to let go of going fast in the warmup
Like to dance on the breaks
Result Calculation:
How much do I think this work is worth? $150. I was able to output results which is worth a ton, but to just hire someone to do this step, it’s probably less money. There was a lot of data and data manipulation involved as well as some troubleshooting.
How difficult intellectually was this work from 1-10? The output file is quite complex. I give it a 7 in intellectual difficulty. Not achievable by people of lower intelligence, but easy for people of high intelligence.
What percentile do I place this work in terms of innovation? 10% Not much was innovative, the data is quite interesting though.
Gains in communication and charisma? I laid the groundwork for much better result communication, I think it was great.
I feel like I’m on an adventure, even though I am only 40 minutes away from my apartment in Austin. I am in the city of Leander, northwest of Austin and I’m feeling a bit tired but excited about the solar eclipse today.
I’m in the library and I feel at home but also lonely. I think there is something about being in close proximity to books that remind me of my childhood and about daydreaming and reading about people’s lives and wanting to find close friends and conquer the world.
I feel lonely, and I wish it was easier to connect with others.
The library reminds me of elementary school when everything was pretty simple. If you wanted to be friends with people, you just became friends with them.
I’m feeling really tired because I didn’t go to bed very early last night. I also think the sleeping appliance and my sleep mask are not things I’m used to sleeping with so I don’t sleep as well with them.
I’m focusing on recentering on my house, and that anything is possible in my house.
Today there is a solar eclipse, and I’m excited for that. Maybe I will read a book really quick, then get some work done and drive over to watch the eclipse from this really cool park nearby.
I’ve been feeling really out of sorts recently. Not going to bed at a reasonable time. Not brushing my teeth. Not eating well. And it all comes down to pressure. Pressure to post youtube videos. Pressure to perform at work. Pressure to rest my eyes. Pressure to do jiujitsu.
I feel beyond overwhelmed and turn to the only outlet I saw…gaming.
It’s almost as if my unconscious mind felt I really needed to meet my need to succeed and the fastest and easiest way with the lowest chance of failure is to win a game. Makes sense I guess.
In any case, I would like to return to a couple of core tenants.
Extreme focus to deal with the overwhelm. I only need to focus on one thing at a time.
Being there for myself. Asking myself every step of the day, what can I do to be there for myself.
In keeping with the tenant of focus, here are the priorities in order:
Health – let myself take care of myself
Getting work done for my job (to the degree where I feel comfortable)
I feel strongly that my client will not value the work that I did.
I feel that he will say, “yea is this what you’ve been spending all your time on??? This is not what we need”. Then I will feel frustrated because it IS what we need.
I feel unseen, underappreciated, and misunderstood.
I feel uncomfortable in this room with someone else on the phone. I feel watched, judged, and disliked.
I am now realizing this is a time that I can let go of taking responsibility for others emotions. I can have faith in their abilities to process feelings themselves.
I’m feel numb buzzing fear in my heart and stomach. I feel a little trapped in my shoulders from feeling watched.
Maybe this guy is friendly, both of us clearly like to work. We are both trying to get something done. Maybe this is a warm environment after all.
Reframe: I get to work with people near me, I can get a little sense of community without having to talk
I worry about him being uncomfortable walking behind him or listening to his calls.
I feel fear in my stomach and trapped in my shoulders. I feel I am not safe.
Maybe his calls can motivate me to work on my stuff. I feel rejected, pain in my heart, fear of rejection.
Chase rejection, it will set you free.
With the feeling for my client, I feel deep painful fear in my heart and stomach. I feel a fear of rejection again.
Reframe: if I have a fear of being misunderstood, I can take this time to understand myself.
What I do is important because clarity will give a lot of direction and power to everything you do. Noone like to buy a confused product from a confused company with confused founders. Noone is passionate about a product that isn’t clear in its purpose with a company that isn’t clear on it’s purpose.
I want to be excited about this product and company. Excitement and passionate is the lever arm for work.
Inspiration is the lever arm for creativity. Purpose is the lever arm for fulfillment. Branding is the lever arm for product value. Vision is the lever arm for decision making.
I feel exhausted. My head feels numb. I feel hot and tired. My back aches.
My heart feels heavy. I feel angry at myself. So helpless. My mind in a fog.
My apartment is a mess. I just want to cry.
I can’t work. I just play games all day long. my eyes feel tired.
It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. All I want to do is eat and play video games. The pull is so strong in my heart like there is a strand of honey getting pulled.
I feel a numb panic deep in my chest. I’m afraid of failure. I’m scared I will disappoint myself and everyone around me. Pushing myself to make my business cards is only making me curl up even harder.
It was a long week. I’m exhausted. But the work just keeps coming.
I guess I can cancel tai chi tomorrow. Sleep in.
Tonight I can clean my apartment until I feel more peaceful.
I know I can use the gym as a way to process emotions, but I don’t use it.
I feel this pull, this overwhelm, like the honey being pulled, from my heart.
I’m capable of anything. Even rising from this challenge. This is important because as I get more successful, there will be days I feel exhausted, and in those moments, I need to find a way to find balance, to find peace.
I also want to learn to embrace failure. Failure is so scary to me. There is an image in my mind of my business cards being a complete disappointment and I feel a pit in my heart. A horrible amaturish website I’m not proud of and I can’t fix it.
Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone starts at the beginning. The people who are exceptional, who are savants are not people who started at the middle. They are people who enjoyed the beginning.
But how can I enjoy this? I feel so scared it won’t be good.
Makes me think of this video:
In this video, Jesse talks about how play allows us to feel pressure while still being able to learn.
That fun is the key to this.
But what is the key to fun? What would make this fun for me, regardless of the outcome, what would make designing and drawing fun for me?
What would make it an infinite game, not just a finite game focused on an end goal?
It’s true, the thought of designing business cards does not sound fun to me at all. It sounds like a slog. But maybe that’s because I’m worried about failing.
Ok, what if I tried to merge my painterly style with “woodcut” style prints. What if I created a new drawing technique that I could use to create cool stuff for friends and to sell as products?
That definitely sounds more like play to me.
So what about going to the gym, because I like it so much when I actually go, but I find it hard to go to begin with.
What if I saw it as supercharging myself – which it really is doing. Whether I go to lift weights or just to hang from the bar and stretch it really is building my body up to full potential. It might even solve my sleep problems.
And what about sleep, why do I not want to go to bed? Because if I go to bed, tomorrow, I wake up with tons of problems. Well maybe, that’s not a bad thing. Maybe before I go to bed, I fill my to do list with questions that I want to search out the answers to.
Here are the questions I have today, that if I knew the answers to I would rest easy:
What am I going to do about my art coaching and AI gaming companies?
Am I behind schedule and if so what do I do about it?
Should I extend the schedule?
Am I losing money?
How do I get out of my procrastination phase and get working?
What do I do about my art coaching website?
How do I get everything done in such a short period of time?
Should I start registering for fairs?
Should I pay someone to design the website for me?
How am I going to get the motivation to start drawing? How do I start drawing consistently?
How do I start going to the gym and working outsite the apartment consistently?
How will I start cooking again and cleaning up my apartment? Where will I find the time?
How will I prepare for the next week of work? How do I balance my other businesses?
When will I continue to work on my Javascript projects? What is the breakdown between AI work time and coaching work time.