A Little Every Day - Week 9

I started this week determined to publish more than last week. I definitely hit that goal, with two posts being published in the first half of the week, but it has been a bad week overall. This week is the most disrupted and badly carried out week of the project so far. At the start of the week I had focus and knew that I wanted to get at least two posts written up and published before the end of the week. As soon as I had accomplished that goal everything else went out of the window.

There are two scenarios when it comes to taking time off of work. First, it is the getaway you needed to relax and recuperate from the stressed of day to day life. You plan to get almost nothing productive done and it feels good to do so. The second, you take time off and have a to do list of the things you want to do that you’ve been putting off until you have more time to do it, or working on those projects that have been on the back burner for a while. During this pandemic many people have told themselves that they’re going to make the most of the opportunity to do that thing they’ve been putting off or have dreamt of doing for years. Some people did, others didn’t. I was someone who felt late to the game, I only started my website during the third UK lockdown. I’ve got so many plans in my mind about what I want to do and write and make a name for myself.

I’ve just finished taking my last two weeks of holiday I had accrued last year making it a total of four weeks from mid-January to now. It was one of those use it or lose it kind of things. I had planned to get ahead and use the time productively to make it so that I was no longer skimming by on whatever I got done that week. I wanted to get ahead and barely made it to the stage where I could publish anything. These two weeks didn’t live up to the ideal I had for them and it has hit me hard, affecting my mental health badly. I am trying now not to focus on what could have been and just let it go. The time I didn’t use for the website cannot be reclaimed for other purposes now that it is spent and shedding tears over it won’t change that.

These two weeks have taught me a valuable lesson about myself and the illusion of having all the time in the world. I learnt that I work best with deadlines, solid goals in place to aim for. When I told myself, I was going to post at least twice this week, I immediately sought out concrete ideas and possibilities to work on. I got them done and published in the form of a Princes of the Apocalypse Dungeons and Dragons Campaign recap and two Mexican inspired recipes for Cinco de Mayo. After that I fell back into the trap of having too much time. Where I had nothing else to do those days, I found that I would do anything but work. I would tell myself that there was plenty of time to do the work later, until later came and I had other things to do like cook dinner and do the dishes, go shopping etc. I have learnt that in order to succeed and keep producing the content I love sharing with you all I have to instil routine for myself. I have to say that between x and y time I will work on my novel, between y and z time I will work on a blog post. I have to be much more consistent and concrete in my goals and daily aspirations.

I hope that by sharing this with you all you can learn from my mistakes and make better, more well-informed decisions than I did. Thank you for joining me for this week’s review of the A little Every Day project I will see you in the next one.