Post-thesis 2013 Achievement and Self-Development Log

I have been doing well recently although there is anxiety which I am still trying to overcome. But procrastination is a lot better. I enjoy working in the chatbox when there are people around.

Weekends I tend to put off things (which I somehow think I must do during the weekend because of limited time). That makes me a bit stressed. However, it's probbaly just a sign that I should really take the weekend off and just return to things on Monday. So Sunday was crap, although Monday morning has been really good.

 Here is a quote which I need to remember as much as possible when faced with procrastionation:

 It makes no sense to leave the Dark Woods in favor of the Dark
Playground—they’re both dark. They both suck to be in, but the big difference
is the Dark Woods leads to happiness and the Dark Playground leads only to more
misery.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.html

26 Monday - 7 pomodoros

27 May - 3  pomodoros Boohoo. I forgive myself and will move on and start afresh tomorrow.  

I will come back to this list periodically to update:

 1. What sort of person do I want to be? How will that person in me deal with this?

2. What am I feeling right now? Where in my body am I feeling it? Can I be courageous enough, to stay with the feeling with compassion, instead of run from it by engrossing myself in meaningless stategies that offer no solution.

3. What I resist, persist. Is this statement true? If so, what will you do now?

4. What will this cost me if I continue to indulge in procrastionation? How will this behaviour affect me emotionally, financially, health-wise, relationshipwise? Where will I be in 10 years as opposed to where I could be? Do I want to head down that path?

5. When I procrastinate, I continue to feel terrible. When I actually do work, I feel calm and accomplished and happy. What do you choose? Feel happy or feel terrible?

6. Think of the face of your little one; how can you bring youself to deny him a wonderful future, because you were too weak to overcome this one lousy habit? What sort of things will he wear, what sort of school will he go to, what sort of friends will he have, what sort of holiday will he never get to go to, because you spent your time reading news or blogs or watching videos in an impossible effort to run away and feel better?

7. How will this behaviour affect my relationship with my spouse? How much less time will I have to spend with my family? How much stress will I carry into those relationships? Do you really want that? Will it one day lead to a dead end, where I find myself alone and miserable because I could not make a simple effort each day, right now?

8. How will this affect my spiritual life and connection to Life? If I am caught up fighting and avoiding and stressing, what sort of spiritual connection will I have?

9-11 (To write - questions about the pleasures of overcoming procrastination). 

13 May - 7 pomodoros (1 class)

14 May - 7 pomodoros.

Fair bit of running away, but doing the incantation that I said below is helping me somewhat I think. I will do the incantation daily for a month and see how it helps.  

I am doing much better today compared to the weekend. I have devised two simple incantations/affirmatoins for myself which is to help me cut through the difficult emotions which can hold me back at times. 

When I get worried , I get stronger

When I am unsure, I get more determined. 

I think while being mindful of difficult emotions and staying with it is reallly useful, I really believe that we can add to the courage and confidence to be mindful by using our body and mind in powerful ways through affirmations. Pema Chodron the Buddhist teacher talks about developing the courage to stay (instead of fleeing difficult emotions). Staying is important, however developing the courage and confidence to stay comes first. 

180mts = 7.2 pomodoros

This morning stress got to me and I ran away for a bit. Need courage to deal with uncomfortable feelings and sensations in body-mind that precedes and accompanies procrastionation.  

28 April - 5 x1 hour =  300mins (that is 12 crazy pomodoros).

I am doing well with my new work habit of working longer periods than 25min slots (pomodoros). I work one hour slots now starting yesterday. While the 25min slots were useful at that time (to chunk down large tasks at a time where I was intensely anxious and had little ability to focus more than 25mts or even earlier, even 10mts), the frequent stopping was an impediment now. I didnt realise this until I was reading about the "flow" again recently.

http://www.myrkothum...-into-the-zone/

http://zenhabits.net...s-in-your-work/

Apart from that my morning exercise routine and meditation is going well. I am really appreciating the motivation which comes from stacking mindfulness practice/reading with motivational literature. I think this is the goldilocks zone for me. If I deviate and lose momentum at some point, it would be very useful to remember or be reminded that this is the magic formula that works for me:

-Brush teeth immediately upon waking up

-Run

-Meditate

-Read/listen to motivational literature 

-Listen to mindfulness stuff when possible

-Come back to the present when mind runs to worrying/excessive planning/obsessing. Stay in the body with acceptance of mind-body sensations.

-Remember what kind of person I want to be; anticipate negative emotions and deciding early on what I will do about them; remind myself of the pain (past present and future) of negative habits.

Wow I didnt realise I haven't posted in here in so long. I actually have been doing well with some days being a disaster. However, most days I think I have gotten in at least 5 pomodoros of work, some more.

1. Waking up on time (and sleeping on time). This was going well but lately been sleeping past the 11 and so been only waking up at 7am. Will try to make sure I am in bed by 11pm.

2. The main thing I have been working on and having some success this week (after a terribly stressful last week where I put myself under so much pressure and nervous tension), is the decision to incorporate more calmness and stability into my life. I am potentially having a stress-related illness right now and it just doesnt make sense to get anxious/worried about things, which I just need to do calmly.I did the following:

a) I told myself that I am fully committed to working calmly instead of being anxious, for the sake of my health.

b) Everytime I noted my mind running into the future (usually thinking there is not enough time, or how the class is going to be, or how the things will get done etc) or into the past, I made sure I let go of it and came back to the present, with my breathing and the task at hand. Keep repeating. Chanting also helps. The mind is obsessed with the future and the past. But important thing is to stay with what's real.

c) Making sure, I have a proper meditation session every morning.  

16 February (Sunday) - No pomodoros

17 February (Monday) - Start fresh, forget past day. 15 pomodoros. I had to work till late at night to put in a job application that I wanted to apply for. 

18 February -  7 pomdoros. Meetings have a way of taking over time. I have to be watchful to make sure I get solid writing time each day.

So overall, since Monday, I have started waking up a bit more earlier.  From December 29th onwards I've been waking up at 7.30 or 7.15. This waking up at a particular, precise time each day, alone made a big difference in how I approached my life.

Now  I have moved that even earlier to 6.40am, over the past 3 days. It started off inadvertently but it feels really good to wake up and get 2 pomodoros done before I go off to work. It makes me feel like a productive person. I will try and continue with it. Must get to bed earlier. 

8 February (Sat) - No pomodoro. Was stressing all day about a job application. In the end, I didnt even do that one pomodoro I was supposed to do.

9 February (Sunday) - 2 pomodoros. In the end I did not apply for the job over the weekend when the deadline was. I chose not to.

10 February - 6 pomodoros. Work was sporadic and intermittent. At night I figured it was more important to sleep and be fresh for next day than try to get to 9. I wake up at 7,30everyday since Jan.

11 February - 10 pomodoros by end of the day at 11.30pm. Technically 10 pomodoros could have been finished by 5.30pm. But I had a deadline for a job application and because oif the deadline stress (and some uncertainty about casual teaching opportunity whcih has come up) I kept putting it off. But when I actually started doing it full on, it came easy.  In the end I submitted the application before the end of the day, which was when the due date was. Note to self - I must write more about this thing about opprtunity and uncertainty scaring me. 

9 pomodoros. I really should get it done earlier in the day, rather than crawling through to the finish line. 

I am reading The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness by Pema Chodron. It's about the mindfulness required to learn to stay with uncomfortable sensations. As someone said, procrastination is a mindfuless/mindlessness problem. It revels in the unexamined mind, the more we pay attention to our feelings and sensations that preceed and go on during the act of procrastination, the more we can learn to stay and ride it out.