Seven months ago, pretty much to the day, I started thinking about how to show myself that I could, in fact, work for myself. There are two major difficulties that I’ve identified in switching from the 9-5 grind to a solo work enterprise:
- Used to having structure imposed on me, by school and then work and the expectations of the people in those systems
- Being so overjoyed at having “unstructured” time that I revel more in not having to do anything than I focus on doing things for myself
So I devised some things that I could do in “my own time” (how I hate having to write that) to show myself that I could make good use of time if I were to become unstructured all the time.
Even though I couldn’t remember exactly what was on this list, it feels like I wrote this a month or two ago–I was surprised to find out it was more than 6 months–so let’s check in on my progress.
- Set up a (big) project, plan it out, and complete it within a deadline
- Not great. I have a big project in mind, and a deadline, but have made very few concrete plans and need to get my act in gear (since the deadline is July).
- Clean my room, Jordan B Peterson style
- In progress. My new apartment is not 100% in order, but it’s much more in order than my past apartments and rooms have been.
- Address my resentment of tracking time, and start using time to my advantage
- Now that I’ve identified this as a problem, I can start tackling it. I’ve been working through some of my thoughts in my morning pages.
- Stick to a consistent sleep time and wake time
- I make excuses for this like some people make excuses about changing their diets. “Oh just a little bite of this….”
- Continue to publish a blog post every day until we hit a year
- On track!
- Work out consistently
- Getting there – it’s not super regimented, but I’ve been working out 2-3 times per week.
- Get out of bed immediately upon rising, instead of languishing in the half-asleep/half-awake stage that I love so much (this will legit be a sacrifice)
- This I’ve actually made progress on. I still lie in bed for a bit waking up, because I’m not one of those people who can just bolt upright and go, but I’ve moved my phone to outside of my bedroom and bought an analog alarm clock, which has drastically cut short the time I spend in bed in the mornings. It also helps that I’m greatly enjoying writing in the mornings, so there’s incentive to get up.
- Design a daily schedule for myself that incorporates all the projects that I plan to complete, along with the self-care that my chronic illness demands, and stick to it
- This one is in the planning stages still.
- Finish the Self-Authoring suite
- On the docket for this weekend, but I’ve been kind of out of it due to my visit to the oral surgeon yesterday.
- Complete a plan for my future, with action steps and deadlines
- Before a plan must come a vision, which I’ve been developing with morning pages.
- Sell a product online that people buy on a consistent basis while still employed full time by someone else
- TBD. I did just come up with an idea that might actually have a viable market and would be credible with my past activities, which I’m excited to explore.
- Tackle the reading list that I’ve had in my mind for years
- Working on incorporating dedicated time for reading into my schedule, and have already made more strides at reading more.
- Define what success means to me
- Working on it!
Some of these are longer-term goals, some are lifestyle changes, and others are shorter-term. It’s a pretty mixed bag — like I wouldn’t expect myself to have sold an online product at this point in time.
There’s more that I could be doing, but neither have I dropped the ball on any of it. Things are still moving in a positive direction. I consider that a win.
Now, how to improve: I need to be better at setting up intermediate steps and systems for carrying those things out, and holding myself to my internal deadlines. This is where difficulty #2 comes in.
I need to work on the whole “discipline equals freedom” concept, clearly.
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