The Done List

I have struggled with procrastination for most of my life. I am still struggling now, as it so happens. I was outside taking a smoke break, after narrowly avoiding starting another game of Starcraft, when I started thinking about strategies for dealing with my procrastination.

Life and Logistics
The Oxford Dictionary defines logistics as: the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. I can assure you, Life is a complex operation. The more we desire (desire to do, desire to be) the more complex it gets. It seems that resource management skills are vital to our success in this complex operation, and that makes life a logistics problem.

Thinking on how to tackle my procrastination from a logistics viewpoint made think of doing some research into time management techniques. As I did not feel the urge to start doing so right away (procrastination vs. hey, I am in the planning stages), I thought about adding time management research to my to do list.

From To Do to Done

This got me thinking about to do lists, and how often in the past I have tried to use them for the same purpose with poor results. The thought of adding time management research to my to do list seemed like work. The time management research seemed like work. I never really look forward to doing work. That might be why to do  lists have never really done anything for me.

So, I asked myself "what would I look forward to?"

Being Done.

The supposed magic that makes a to do list works is the warm and tingly sense of accomplishment you get when you cross something off the list. That's what I was after. I am not looking forward to a long to do list. What excites me is the prospect of having a nice long list of things I have done. 

I have decided to make a Done list rather than a to do list.  See, a to do list is meant to be full of things that are not yet done. That is its natural state of being. If you have a to do list with everything crossed off, there is something wrong with it. It is a needful thing, that needs you to add things to do in order to function. A Done list on the other hand, is designed to be completed. If there are uncompleted tasks on it, there is something wrong with universe. 

Adding a task to a Done list throws the universe out of balance. Then, I can do something to bring balance to the universe. This will work for me. Look, it already is:

Write Today

The Witching Hour

At least, I think 11 to midnight is the witching hour. Maybe it's midnight to 1. I probably should have researched that before I decided to title this post as such. Oh well, maybe I'll fix that before I hit the post button.

At any rate, I've decided to make myself write between 11 and midnight on as regular of a basis as I can. If I'm ever going to actually get paid for things I've written, I'm going to have to write them. Not much of a self-discipline kind of guy, but maybe that can come with practice.

Provided I'm successful, it won't necessarily mean there will be a daily post. Hopefully I'll get into writing fiction at some point. If/when I do, I'll be keeping the story/whatever as a draft until it's finished even if I'm working on it every night. For now though, the rambling post this is and you may see over the next week or so is just public accountability. Knowing that people can see I'm doing what I intended to do is a good way to encourage myself to keep doing it. Not that I'm positive I have an audience...

Untitled from 6/4/2000

Will it begin tomorrow, or will I put it off again?
Will I believe my own lies and justify my own failure?

The only thing stopping me from

achieving my dreams
becoming what I want to be
being happy

...is me.

So I struggle. I fight with myself. The person I want to be grapples with the person I've always been.

Whose side am I on?

I'm tired of the fight. Is it just my inability to be happy with who I am? When I become who I want to be, will I still be unhappy with who I am?

I claim each small victory and deny each defeat. Viva la optimism.

I pray that I can seize the day
and that I won't just rot away
May I make memories I won't forget
and climb out of this sea of regret

I wanna be a lightning bug in God's purple canvas sky
 open the jar and let me out, I know that I can fly- 

Me - 6/4/2000 (formatting 4.1.2011)

The Path of Least Resistance

Sometimes I wonder if we do have a destiny or a purpose. Suppose there's something you're meant to do, or meant to be. Assume that in this mythical world where everyone is born to have a purpose (or at least some people are born to have a purpose and you're one of those people) free will still exists. What if you ignore your purpose and do your own thing, or talk yourself out of doing what you really think you're meant to do. Would life be harder? Would life flow more smoothly and things more often go your way if you do what you're destined to?

Sometimes I think I was destined to write. I don't know whether it's supposed to be fiction, non-fiction, or just crazy rambling thoughts like these. Let's assume it's supposed to be in story form, and let me tell you my tale.

Once upon a time, a bastard was born. There's a chance this bastard was meant to write. He had a story published in the newspaper as a child about taking a picture of Santa or something similarly mundane. In the fourth grade he was assigned to write a story and came back with ten pages worth.

His mother took him to live in Hawaii when he was 9, and during that time he entered some sort of writing contest and got 3rd place for an essay he felt ambivalent about then and can't even remember now. Also when in Hawaii he had the opportunity to meet Madeleine L'Engle, though he didn't even bother to read 'A Wrinkle in Time' until afterward.

In high school he wrote a few poems, some of which he still remembers, and a short story about a date rape that he was terribly proud of. He tried to resubmit the story in a creative writing class the next term, but the teacher found the subject matter terribly inappropriate and instructed him to write a new story. Bitter, he wrote a story about smurf-like characters called Karakters or something similar. He was disgusted with story, but the teacher loved it and life went on.

At another point in the creative writing class, possibly before, possibly after, he was assigned to read the poem 'The Road not Taken' by Robert Frost, and then write a poem inspired by it (here's where the story gets creepy). He used an identical setting, a fork in the road, but instead of taking the road less traveled the author of the poem didn't take either road. He sat down next to a tree at the fork and made the tree his friend. At the time, several of the boy's friends were joining the military, and the majority of his peers were lining up their college careers. When writing the poem the road less traveled represented the military, and the worn path was off to college after high school. Both roads led to the same place, the top of a hill, but the author just sat by his friend the tree.

Eventually either the tree spoke to him and told him to get a move on, or he decided too on his own. He struggled up the hill trying to reach the top where his friends and peers had already gone, but because he was so far behind he took no path and went the brush and brambles.

As the boy became a man, his life very much resembled the figurative happenings of the poem. He did not join the military and did not go straight to college. He valued his friendships more than his future and thought this was a great investment until life happened. Marriages, children, careers, and all the standard fare came for his friends and peers who had continued on one of the paths. He however, lingered and languished parked beside a tree.

Eventually he tried the college route, but stumbled along the way, perhaps because he was trying to make his own short cut. He fell into a doomed career for a while, and when that came crashing down he started up the hill again.

One day, he found himself wondering if he'd ever make it up the hill. He began searching for the next shrub to grab that he might pull himself a little higher. As he struggled, he began to wonder if the climb would go smoother if we was doing what he might have been born to do.