6 Day Streak in Danger

Six productive days I’ve had, six in a row. Things began to wane yesterday though. It was still a productive day, but the rot was beginning to set in.

ole P’s favourite trick when you’re in a productive patch is to overload you. He makes you think of any number of little tasks that weren’t on your to-do list, and sets you to work on them. So you’re working productively on all these little side projects that aren’t at all what you’re meant to be doing.

I mean, a couple of weeks ago I was sweating because I had this mountain of work I thought I could never get through. I get a few productive days, and I start to make some measureable progress. So how does Procrastinor deal with this? He can’t get you to go from productive focussed work straight to completely wasting your time with nothing inbetween. So the trick he pulls on you has to be fiendishly clever:

First of all he points at all the marvellous productive work you’ve done, and starts telling you what a wonderful genius you are, gets your ego all puffed up. He starts telling you that you’re a superman, hyper-productive and ready for anything. So next thing you know you’re looking around for other projects that could benefit from your superpowers. Before you know what’s what, you’ve bounded into your supervisor’s office with an exciting plan for a new sideproject. He gets excited about it too and tells you to go for it.

You’re getting an idea a minute about all the different things you could do, and you’re firing off emails left, right and centre about things that you could do. Before long you’ve got a list of things to do as long as your arm, things that you weren’t on your to-do list last week, but you’ve just gone and promised to people. So after six days of solid work, you’ve actually got more to do than you started with!

Procrastinor laughs and says:

Ha-ha you fool! Look how much you have to do! You can never possibly hope to do it! Give up, give up now. You might as well spend your days reading about Stalin’s purges on wikipedia! And the Zimbabwe slum clearances of 2005, yes, yes! You must be an expert on that, mwa-ha-ha!

Well it’s 13:36, and I’ve wasted the day so far. If I can work solid till 18.30 – 19.00 then I will declare a productive day, making it a 7-day streak and perhaps one of my most significant victories over Procrastinor. Victory from the jaws of defeat, no?

Battles Won in the War Against Procrastinor

You’ll notice that my most recent posts didn’t mention Procrastinor much. The reason they didn’t is that from the 21st of March until Tuesday of last week, virtually every single one of my waking moments was spent in his grasp. He’s a wily one…

Procrastinor’s goal is for you to neglect your responsibilities. In my case I need to produce a thesis. I had set a date of the 5th of September as my goal. I was clear on this goal, and I was working steadily towards it. Then suddenly on the 21st, everything just flipped upside down. I stopped working on my thesis, and would hunt high and low for other things I could do that weren’t my thesis. Procrastinor makes you believe that almost anything apart from your main aim is important. For example, it suddenly becomes vitally important that you understand the ins and outs of the Zimbabwe situation. You must understand the history of Easter Island. You must know at all times how the credit crunch is unfolding.

In my last productive patch, in the first few weeks of March, I got loads done because I completely denied myself any of my usual indulgences. No BBC news, no news of any kind in fact. No wikipedia except for work, no finance/economics websites, none of all the things that completely distract me. The problem with that was that I was setting myself up for a fall. I did the cold turkey thing for a few weeks, but once I snapped and gave in, I gorged myself on pointless procrastination. Then you feel guilty for not making progress, and that makes you procrastinate more and more.

Anyway, the point is, I’ve beaten Procrastinor back, and I’ve been productive for 4 consecutive workdays now. I wonder how long I can keep this up? Anyway, in the hope of giving me something to work to, I’ll put in my blog posts how many consecutive days I’ve been productive without having a procrastitative breakdown.

Month 2, Day 27: A Weekend Away

A lot of ground to cover now, I’ve not blogged since Friday! On Friday, after sorting out my Cuban propaganda photos I took a walk round town, with misanthropy in mind. I started to feel a bit better about humanity when I saw the paperback bestsellers in Borders. In my memory, this is probably the least offensive set of books that have occupied the top 20 at Borders. No Coleen McLaughlin autobiographies, no “How to get rich and popular” or anything like that. Maybe we’re getting better.

An increase in affection for life and humanity then set in, which stayed with me all weekend. Friday’s spends were:

• £4.40 for coffees and teas with Jenny
• £4.24 for a range of exceptional bargains in Sainsburys, the bounty shared with Omar
• £5.20 for a couple of pints in the ever charming Deco Lounge

On Saturday, I hopped on the bike and took a ride round past Gloucester and into Wales, through the Brecon Beacons and into Snowdonia. Absolutely amazing. I’m still scared of doing long runs on the bike. When I’m sleeping the night before going out on a long run, I think about the hundreds of hazards I’m going to have to negotiate, and my untimely death seems a certainty. Once I get out though, I get on top of the fear (well, mostly) and it’s an amazing experience.

More fear conquering in Wales, as we walked into the mountains up to about 1000m in the ice, wind and snow. At night it was lots of guitar and singing and drinking on both nights, and then the run back to Bristol. Spends:

• Various petrol stops at £25.62
• Whisky and tobacco at £19.99
• Food at £8.00

The weekend was such an amazing experience, I was expecting it to be all change with the thesis progress, but unfortunately not. Still in procrastinor’s grip.

Since then it’s been:

• £5.50 that I was owed for some shopping
• £1 that my housemate Anya owed me that she used to buy me a dessert
  • These last two items happened a while back, but a change in skinto accountancy procedures means I’m setting them against the budget
• £12.92 in Lidl for supplies for a meal for Phil, Gemma and Laura who were round for dinner
• £2.20 for Latte Wednesday

Balance = £44.58 (-63.4%), about enough for a half decent weekend!

Some conflicting movements in the EAPCCI

1. Houses for sale on my street = 4 (up 1, was 2 at the start)
2. Price of petrol at the Tesco down the street = 106.9p/l (down 1p, was 103.9p at the start)
3. Price of 1kg of spaghetti in Lidl = 79p (no change, was 69p at the start)

Month 2, Day 21: A Clutch of Minor Spends

So there’s been a bunch of minor spends this week that I’ve not been taking the time to put up one by one. So here they are, in no particular order:

• I thought I had a system figured out for eBay, a system for drawing in punters with items that start the bidding at 1p, with free delivery. I do not have a system. Lost £2.40.
• 67p for enough last-minute reduced bread to do me till the end of the month.
  
• £2.20 for Latte Wednesday
• £5.50 spent on chinese takeaway in a rare outburst of self-indulgence
• £2.76 for a book. I want a book.
  
• £30 spent on accomodation in Snowdonia, where I will soon be heading. The challenge seems too easy now, why not a weekend away?

My promise of not going on t’internet to look at the news in my last post was not held to. I know it’s Procrastinor’s wicked work, but I haven’t been able to fight it. What I do know however is that I was happier living in blissful ignorance than I have been this last week wallowing in my perhaps-not-so-paranoid-anymore fear of impending economic collapse.

Maybe a day walking round in the sunshine in Bristol, followed by a lovely trip to Snowdonia will cure what ails me…

Balance = £122.65 (-26.2%)

Month 2, Day 18: Gorilla Munch and Procrastinor

Right, I’m still half convinced that my housemate put this on Waitrose’s shelves just to wind me up:

EnviroKidz? Are you kidding me? It was £2.29. Of which, as EnviroKidz proudly boast, 1 or 2p could be expected to go to wildlife. One would presume they mean that it goes to charities and activities that support endangered wildlife. However, given that I wouldn’t have supposed anyone could be water-headed enough to either buy or produce this product, I shouldn’t then be surprised if they do actually go out into the wilderness and write cheques to pandas.

Of course, you could get Tesco value cereal to the same weight for 15p, leaving you £2.14 free to donate to reputable wildlife charities if you were so inclined. That wouldn’t be organic though would it? And what a mighty shame that would be. So even if you went for organic, gluten free cereal, you could still save £1.13 to give to wildlife charities you’ve actually heard of like the WWF.

So, for the record, you are not going to make the world a better place by spending too much at Waitrose, you credulous tossers.

P.S. As you might be able to tell, I am in procrastinor’s grip