Excitement and getting things done

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Like a lot of us I seemed to struggle doing things unless I was under the gun. More recently it progressed to the point that even being under the gun didn't reliably help. But this week it actually did help me make progress again.

One factor, of course, is that an approaching deadline forces you to give up perfectionism... it makes clear to you that perfection is impossible and leads you to switch to a "best outcome given time constraints" way of thinking (which it would have been good to use all along, but anyway...)

Another one I just noticed today. In a school or office setting, you are strongly encouraged to have a calm demeanor most of the time... if you don't, you get in trouble, you get ostracized, you get corrected or punished or whatever, depending on severity and circumstances. But when everyone in the vicinity is facing a deadline, that rule sort of flies out the window... everyone switches to "crunch time" mode where the excitement of a "race" is in the air. Which means that I don't have to spend very much effort at all "dialing it down" and can focus all my effort on getting work done! And it feels good! Addictive, in a way.

Hehe...under pressure!

I kind of like the looming deadline. Doesn't make me give up perfectionism though, just makes me move very very fast. And then either I pull of some amazing feat, or wind up with absolute catastrophe. Not much of a middle ground for my projects.

The nice thing about cooking for a living is that being a spazz is typically expected and encouraged.

I still procrastinate frequently. Either the work is simply so boring that I need the pressure to do it, or else it's borderline overwhelming and I'm worried I won't get it right... until I'm not sure if I'm going to have enough time to do it and I'm forced to get SOMETHING out - fast. Most of the time I get a better grade than I thought I was going to get. (What I thought would be C's have frequently been B's and B+'s.)

I've hit my lowest point on Monday, where I ended up staying up until 4:30 before I got everything done, and at that point I figured I'd be less tired if I just stayed up the rest of the night since I had to be ready by 6:30. I need help, I think I'm at an all time low in productivity.

I can relate to this all. As I got older, I've found more and more difficult to get things done. Maintaining routine and getting excited and somewhat obsessed about things is the way I can manage to do. In most of my life I used to rely on someone to nag/tease me to do stuff, but as I'm nearing 40, I guess I don't need it any more... At least not so badly.

I just can't get anything done. I'm at the moment in my office wrinting this post on Wrongplanet because I don't don't want to work. Working gives me a bad feeling, when I get stated, I can also enjoy it, but it's just impossible to motivate myself. I kindof step back in front of anything related with productivity. I think I'm work phobic. And it's not that I'm not able to work. I know that I have the abitlity to understand stuffs deeply throught reading and listening, I can convey ideas and feeling in powerfull manners, I can concetrate for a long time, I have a great memory. But when it comes to work, my brain get stuck, all my skills drop dramatically. I think that one of the reason is that in my childhood, I associated this word with very negative feelings. Working in school was always a source of conflict, anxiety and frustration for me and for my parents.
I can tell you for sure: you don't want to be work phobic.

Yes! I am a perfectionist and a procrastinator, too, and the only way I can get something done is to start is slowly and then finish it quickly days before it is due. The adrenaline of having something due soon gives you a major push, but the downside (or upside?) is that you're not checking things again and again and again. By the time the deadline is looming, most of the checking is already done, and you just need to finish it so that you can put it away and stop looking at it.