Should we write?

It has been quite a few useless weeks, doesn’t matter why (or does it?). Moving on, I want to get my shit together for the n’th time.

PG claims that writing generates ideas. It makes sense to write. But I don’t write at my daily 9-5 job. I usually have a small problem to solve at a time, so I make drawings to think, and then present the stuff in a powerpoint. I suspect the problem I am trying to solve right now, with figuring out my career, is a hard one. It is convoluted, it is large with several subdivisions. It is completely different from work. In the current case of determining what is the action I should take for my career, I suspect it needs some decent writing (thinking and generating ideas). It is research.

So, I should write, and preferably use as much time as possible in my life doing it. Theoretically I should be writing at least 2 hrs a day and much much more on weekends. But… Youtube, chess, and general procrastination techniques are have taken precedence.

The only reason I came to the computer despite feeling so sleepy yesterday was all the guilt building up amongst other things(what will an STM think about me? What will the cousin who I promised to show my research think about me, when I have nothing to show?)

I need to work as I am running out of time. I have spent around 6 months without any impacting results. I am 26. Let’s go!

How to motivate your self to write properly

The equation of motivation is simple,

$ Motivation = Challenge-skill balance * value of feedback/delay
in feedback

The problem

Typical work at home looks like this: I set a goal of writing 1k words per hour (to keep me challenged). My feedback parameters are the number of words I write per hour, based on the goal. There is usually no closure. At the end of the essay I just run away from the keyboard and do other things. Next day I do the same thing, without much heed to continuation. On Fridays, I try to combine all the words I have written so far into a post. After several hours of procrastination on that Friday I make up my mind that this is too much and that I have to sleep, and publish what ever I have and go to sleep.

Usually I feel guilty that I didn’t work the last week and make agreements to pay money to a friend, in case I don’t deliver. This I do in an attempt to increase the value of feedback. Off-late I haven’t been doing that.

During times that I feel hopeful about myself and don’t make any agreements and allow for the inner Thej to rise to the moment, I mostly fail due to the resistance I face because of having to clock 2 hrs of god forsaken work. It appears by the way I talk that its not really motivating to write and solve problems of this nature.

No one is reading anyway?

Challenge-skill balance

Setting a goal of 1kwords/hr seems to be overchalenging me. I usually need to read, and can’t predict in advance how much reading needs to be done. I find this happening often. To meet the challenge, sometimes I stick to ranting (mostly useless), other times I say, “well, I tried” and just give up.

But wait! At work I don’t write 1000 words in a powerpoint or a word document, I just DO (solve the problem)! I work to get things done (closure perhaps!). The fact that something needs me to rack my brain for answers make it challenging enough I think. Of course this has to be within my skill level. And most times it is otherwise I get to ask help.

the goal is not to write a million words, the goal is to think with the help of writing - me to me

How about reducing the goal to 500 words (a more reasonable one)?

As I was saying above, I don’t think I can place well a goal of words/hour as I am doing research. I need something to keep me challenged and also something that improves the quality of the content.

How about writing a publishable post of publishable quality every day. A post with the 3 R’s (read, reflect and re-write). Of course we don’t have a lot of time. Lets say 300-500 words post. I could spend roughly 2 hrs doing it or I could spend more as I feel (for now). Take a small topic or write a continuation of the a previous topic.

Value and delay of feedback

I don’t think there is any closure in the way I usually perform tasks. Except on Friday, when at 4 am in the morning I just say “fuck this” and publish what ever I have written.

I have to do both reading and writing and don’t have a proper system to inform me about my progress at every instant. Finding parameters that combine both the tasks seems hard or not efficient/effective. Measuring number of words read is not so easy to do.

When I do a 1 publishable post a day, I suspect that I get closure. The power of closure seems to be strongly underestimated. I have never worked more than 2 hrs in my life ever on a fucking weekday (other than Friday), WILLINGLY. Today I stand before you suspecting that I might go as far as 3 hrs to finish this godforsaken post I have started.

With the 1 publishable post per day, I have some feedback parameters (possibly still vague). I aim to write the whole thing in 2 hrs. This would mean that I should probably have written the first draft in 45 mins and then started re-writing after keeping in mind that I have a deadline and also that I need to sleep soon. This is also something I do at work. I constantly look at the time (deadline), and keep hurrying to finish a task. I have some idea how much time each part of the task takes. Agreed, its not concrete, but there are no rock-solid parameters in my job as well, and I seem to be just fine. And sometimes, on a good day, you want to go deeper into the topic. Well, if things are going well I don’t mind staying up to do better. That will be a good day for writing.

But no one is reading anyway Well maybe we can change that?

Sometimes I make agreements with friends for money that I would finish the task by “this” time, thereby inherently increasing the value of a task. In the end that is the only thing that has kept me writing “continuously”. I will commit to writing this week 1 post a day, every day (except Friday t/m Sunday).

As a by product of the 1 publishable post per day week, we improve the quality of life on Fridays by not piling up all the work on Friday. We also improve the quality of essay by removing the “deleting-words-phobia”. We will finally have the power to delete sentences in peace.

Cut ~out~ everything unnecessary

Time management for motivation

Time is limited and spending it on 0.5 hr breaks for every hour of work is a lot. I would like to keep my breaks till the end after I have completed the work for the day. I propose not using cell phones, YouTube and chess during the time of writing, unless urgent.

Summary

It appears to be a good plan to write one publishable post a day, ~300 to 500 words in ~2hrs. I will refine the time part of the essay over the week. the “1 publishable post per day” week might seems to improve the quality of life and the quality of the essay.

As a last straw of making this work I propose to keep away from all distraction from during the time I start till I end.

Making a commitment to write everyday seems to be the one thing in the past that worked to get me to do work at home “continuously”. I guess it would be stupid to not do it (for now).

P.S

This essay took ~3 hrs to write despite excluding the spent hr yesterday. 1 hr, followed by 0.5 hr break, followed by 2 hrs straight writing till closure.