Slow Progress
I’m experiencing a new freedom - positivity and progress
So, the muttering about the shitty committee last week hinged on a valuable turning point in how I see internal criticism. While it’s sometimes valid - trying to rescue me from eating yet another biscuit - most of the time it’s an incessant barrage of white noise that both distracts me from what I need to be doing, while also stopping me doing what I feel I should be.
The distinction between what I feel I should be doing, and what I’m actually doing, constitutes a big gulf in my personal progress.
Sure - I could get into the weeds here. We all have things we want to do, things we should be doing, and things that we don’t want to do - and the latter is the confusing part.
How do you work out the difference between what we don’t want to do and what we should be doing? Should is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
When I’m coming up with a list of tasks for any given day, they’re usually split up into:
- Work that needs to be done. Non-negotiable work or personal stuff that absolutely has to be done today - either to keep progress on work projects on track, or keep my life moving on.
- Work that should be done. Non urgent progress tasks; daily maintenance, sanity checks - the things that cause fires later on if they aren’t done - metaphorically or physically
- Work that shouldn’t be done - the things that negatively impact my day or week, simply aren’t necessary, or drive worry that doesn’t help at all.
Of those three categories, the second and third are grey areas. Should I really do something, or not? It’s incredibly hard for me to define how any given ’thing’ sits in either of those two buckets, and that drives most of the internal criticism - doing something that I later decide is a waste of time, or actively avoiding something that is for the greater good, but a part of me is hiding from.
So, what’s the positivity then?
I’ve started just doing things.
Avoiding the mental pressure of tasks that should or shouldn’t be done, and completely sidestepping any overthinking about the relative merit. Instead, if I can do a thing, and think in the moment that it’s a good thing to do - then I do it.
To hell with the consequences.
It’s already resulted in a tattoo that I love, some decisions that I can unwind later if I really regret them, and a much greater sense of accomplishment in every day.
Because alongside the relief of avoiding overthinking, that lower mental overhead gives me more capacity to do the important stuff faster.
I would try and present that as a new life strategy, but instead I’m just doing it. I have no idea if this will still be the path I follow in two weeks time (the standard ADHD measure of my interest in anything), and more importantly, I’m not thinking about that.
I’m just doing it, instead.
And that - that - is progress.
back next week.