Shifting Behaviors: An Observation

If you were to compare my beautifully filled out May schedule in Excel to the sparsely noted June, you might go, "Whoa, what happened there?"

Teyr'loch Delter Pach happened, my friend, and my mind, for better or worse, switched to a different mode of operation that couldn't care less about micromanaging a strict personal schedule.

I know, I know, we're only in the second week of June, but let's go ahead and shelve that little detail.

Throughout the month of May, I was working on tasks that required a short, definitive amount of time. This Dorico video is 30 minutes; this composition section is 4 assignments; transcribing this file will take 90 minutes. In the grand scheme of things, these tasks are but raindrops next to the ocean. They are easy to schedule and easy to tick off a list of to-dos, and I could measure the correlation between time spent and progress made if I so desired.

Larger creative projects are not as easy to schedule and tick off. There's no defined time limit already in place; it's something I myself have to create, and have I ever mentioned how much I hate the Pomodoro technique and its knock-off variants? Sometimes I can shift into "creative work" mode from the moment I sit at my workstation. Other times, it takes me a solid hour or longer! If I have a timer buzzing at me every 25 minutes to take a break, I start paying more attention to the timer than I do the actual work.

I can't look at a project like Teyr'loch Delter Pach and say, "This passage will take me an hour and a half." Chances are it'll take longer, and then I'll grow frustrated at myself for not finishing the passage when I thought I would. I could say, "Well, I'll work on it for an hour and a half then move onto other tasks," but then I become so fixated on getting more of the project completed, I set those other tasks aside. You know, like the Dorico and music composition lessons I was taking on Skillshare. Oops. I acquire a single-minded focus for my project, broken only when my partner returns home from work for lunch or for the day, at which point I can then move on to other important tasks such as working out.

And sure, the night before or in the morning when I sit down to work, I could say, "Okay, this morning is dedicated to Dorico and music composition lessons, and if I have some extra time on my hands before lunch, then I'll work on Teyr'loch Delter Pach." But...really, I just want to keep working on writing the scenes for TDP and worry about the lessons once those are done.

This isn't a complaint, more a curious observation of how my work ethic changes depending on how well-defined a task is, how long it will take to complete, and how badly I want to work on it. When I develop a routine of working on a specific long-term project every day, scheduling breaks down because, 'I already know what I'm going to work on and when, so why waste time recording it?' At the end of the day, I'll still note in my physical planner the time blocks I dedicated to everything, just so I have a measurement of how many hours I spent on the project that day and then lament how little I feel I completed versus how much I wanted to complete (high expectations, hello). The preemptive planning, however, just kind of falls by the wayside.

I suppose it all boils down to good ol' sheer brazen bullheadedness. "I want to work on this performance more than I want to develop this other skill, so that's what I'm going to do. I'll get to everything else once it's done."

The Excel schedule isn't obsolete, since I easily see myself returning to the comfort of its structure once I complete Teyr'loch Delter Pach, but for now...

Viewed through a different lens, it's like wanting to play a crunchy TTRPG like Pathfinder after playing a Powered by the Apocalypse game, or it's like playing an open world video game like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and then wanting to play a straightforward tactics video game afterward like Fire Emblem.

Other Notable Accomplishments:

• Moved to a lighter resistance band for my pull-ups as promised, and it surprisingly hasn't been too difficult. I can only manage ~3 reps per set, but I did manage to finish 5 sets. 15 feels like a good number for pull-ups in a given day.

• I've made decent progress with rewriting Teyr'loch Delter Pach. I've been trying to piece together how to write a particular scene after being inspired by a piece on my Spotify's "Discover Weekly" playlist. I was stuck for a day or so on it, but have since made decent headway on a rough draft of it. Other portions of the rewrite are going well, just slow.

• Fixed parts of our wall after floating cat shelves ripped out of it. Still have a few holes to mend, and it certainly was an unexpected Wawful, but it happens.

Questions for Contemplation & Discussion:

• How do your behaviors change when you have smaller tasks to complete versus larger projects? What factors cause you to alter your approach to each new task that arises, especially larger ones? For example, personal versus professional tasks? Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation for tasks?

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Salad

"Salad, you're too high!"