So, in a couple of days I’ll be going on vacation. I’m hoping that a break will help me re-focus, and I can take some time to get my priorities straight. Things have been a little hectic over the past month or so and I really just need to decompress and reorganize a little.

I’ve started using Asana for planning day-to-day tasks, and I’ve found it’s quite helpful. I think it’s the right mix of project management and simple to-do list that I need to keep myself on track and remind myself of the things that I often forget to do, even when they should be done on a daily basis. I’ve still got a long way to go before I’d consider myself completely effective at pursuing my goals, but, realistically, I don’t think I’ll ever be all the way there. I’ll just have to continue to settle for a positive delta.

I’ve started talking to myself! It’s not as bad as it sounds… What I mean is that I’ve started making an effort to label any distracting or procrastinatorial thoughts, whether they’re obviously intrusive or otherwise. Ironically (or maybe not – my definition of irony might be off), acknowledging them helps me to recognize, then dismiss them. I have to remember to slow down and question my impulses from time to time, even when they sound productive, sometimes they aren’t really. It’s easy for me to productively digress into a project that seems like a valuable use of time, while really it’s just a distraction from less savoury work that doesn’t make me feel as guilty as watching Netflix or YouTube or playing video games.

Hopefully a few days off will help.

— M