76 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
Executable file
76 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
Executable file
id: mop
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title: The Myth of Perfection
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previous: onreading
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next: foundation
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date: 2021-01-15
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---
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<h2>
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The Myth of Perfection
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</h2>
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<p>
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I am not sure if you have had this problem, maybe you have, maybe you haven’t.
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It seems to me something that plagues many of us and is often reinforced by our environment.
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It is expecting perfection from ourselves when we are fundamentally imperfect.
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</p>
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<p>
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I often try to fit too much in a day.
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Either planning it too granularly down to 15 minute intervals, or just making an unreasonably long list of things to get done.
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They could get done in a day for sure if I was a machine.
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I am not however and life is too variable to plan that way, then when I fail at getting something done, something unforeseen happens and my schedule falls apart, or I just did not properly estimate how long something would take me I feel terrible.
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</p>
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<p>
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Striving to do more is a good thing I think.
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We have limited time and it takes work to realise our dreams, however looking only to the future is a sure way to be miserable in the present.
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I struggle with this.
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I spend most of my time working towards some future reward, goal, or achievement, I don’t plan my schedule around things that make me feel good or allow me to recuperate.
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When I inevitably need some time to decompress I feel guilty for taking it.
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</p>
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<p>
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This is something I have been working on recently.
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Giving myself more space to make mistakes and more time to enjoy the moment.
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It is hard and I still feel like I should be doing more but I try to do it anyway in the hopes that over time I will accept it.
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Taking time for myself does allow me to work harder but it never feels that way at the time.
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</p>
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<p>
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In the fantastic book Deep Work by Cal Newport he speaks to the need to schedule downtime, decide in advance and write it into your calendar to give yourself space.
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It is often the case that our mind keeps working on a problem when we are no longer directly focussed on it, the eureka moment in the shower or the solution that pops into your head as you are falling asleep.
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By never taking the step back from the work we block out that diffuse thinking that allows for such intuitive leaps.
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He also strongly advises having a cutoff time for the work day.
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A time past which no work is allowed.
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</p>
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<p>
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I have school and a number of projects including this blog that I am working on currently.
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It makes it hard to back away, it also means that at any point work is just a few steps away.
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I try to implement a cutoff, but when it gets to that point and my list has only a few items left I more often than not keep working.
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Then I stay up later to have a little time to decompress and it makes it harder to get up the next morning.
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</p>
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<p>
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This is doubly painful as it is much easier to schedule the earlier parts of the day then later.
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People are just waking up and you have not had so much time for things to deviate from the plan.
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If I am up at 5am I can often fairly solidly follow my schedule until 1 or 2pm, that is 8-9 hours of solid productive time before things begin to fall apart.
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If I need to run errands, have a short nap, or do any number of other things they can fit into this afternoon time and still give me a few more hours of work before I try to call the day at 5 or 6pm.
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</p>
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<p>
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If I stay up late and get up later it is much harder to get started.
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The gym is busy, the world is loud and I am already feeling bad for turning off my alarm.
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I often have a broken schedule from the start which makes me work later, get less done, and feel worse.
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The cycle repeats.
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</p>
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<p>
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I feel like for the most part this is one of the most predominant stresses in my day to day life.
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I can’t remember a day where I have not gone to bed feeling like I could have done more.
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I am also aware that this is likely one of the main changes that I could make to improve both my quality of life and productivity.
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</p>
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<p>
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When looking at it in the short term it seems counter intuitive, but in the long term a more reliably planned routine including time for rest and relaxation will reduce burnout and allow me to try and find what that ideal level of work is that I can accomplish in a day.
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I feel like my oscillations around this amount are getting smaller.
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I used to swing far into trying to get far too much done, and then crashing to getting almost nothing done for a number of days.
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The extremes are now less extreme and I hope that over time it can settle completely into a steady stream of productivity.
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</p>
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<p>
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Thank you for reading.
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</p>
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