I bought bread yesterday specifically so that I can make avocado toast with my ripened avocados over the next few days. Not gonna lie, this is like the primary thing I'm looking forward to this week.
Last week, the work-batching experiment was a success. Reducing the number of things I committed to each day forced me to dive deeper into each of them and it felt, generally, more efficient.
That said, I still ran out of steam by the time Friday rolled around. Friday was a transition day for me, meaning I was moving from my design contract block back to my commissions block. Because of that, I basically shut down. I was too tired from doing other things earlier in the week to pick up steam on a new line of work that close to the end. This week, I'm going to do commissions and admin today + tomorrow while the energy is fresh and then try to build enough momentum on Wednesday to push me through the design contract work for the remainder of the week. Perhaps it will be easier for me to continue momentum on my lower-energy days than it is to generate momentum.
That was a worthwhile experiment. I'm glad I tried it.
I have finally gotten over myself enough to understand that self-employment is nothing but an endless loop of trial and error. I used to be upset by this "Why the fuck can't I just find and stick to a routine?!" Now I accept it as a freedom. Self-employment affords me the freedom to figure out how I work best. Instead of being mad that it's taking a while to uncover, I should probably be thankful that I've been given the opportunity to even try it. P.E.R.S.P.E.C.T.I.V.E.
It's hard as shit though. Why are we so bad at understanding ourselves?
Related, yet unrelated, I went down a very long Enneagram rabbit hole last night. I've taken the test a few times over the years (the RHETI 2.5, if you're a nerd and are wondering which test) and have, expectedly, always gotten the same dominant type with slightly shifting distributions of the others. I'm a six—overly anxious with a lack of trust in my own "inner knowing." Aka, I constantly seek external validation to feel a sense of security in my choices. Anyone who knows me personally has been on the receiving end of at least one "Do you think this ___ is still edible?" or "I'm not sure which ___ to buy. Here is my extensive research, analysis, and conclusion. But... do you think that's right?"
I know this about myself. It was helpful to see it written out (again). Much of my anxiety comes from second guessing my own instincts.
As such, I would like to try something this week:
- I would like to try to be better about noticing when I'm doing this, even if I can't stop it.
- I would like to stop myself at least once, preferably with a creative task. I want to make a decision about something based on my own analysis without asking for another's opinion on it. I'm going to give myself a healthy amount of time at the beginning to write out my analysis, and then I'm going to unapologetically act on it to try and train these muscles.
LOL. I've already asked for validation at least 4 times this morning. It's ok. I only need to break the cycle once to get the ball rolling.
And I'm gonna eat the shit out of that avocado toast.
