[unintentional irony warning: I started this post in December 2005.]
Re: Stop fighting your distractions
I considered just tossing this one into my link list (delicious/snapping links/whatever), but I think I have more to say. I haven’t really thought it all the way through, though, in the time-honored traditions of the blog genre, I’m still going to forge ahead, internal contradictions and all.
I’ll start by saying that I read, and loved, The Midnight Disease. (I am almost certainly hyperlexic. I can’t not read, which is why presentations with handouts are deadly for me; I don’t hear a word the presenter says.) I know I procrastinate. I’m probably procrastinating on doing something important RIGHT NOW.
On the other hand, I’ve been into such wells of procrastination that I didn’t think I would ever get anything done ever again. Curiously enough, those correlate very strongly with my rolling bouts of depression.
I started reading the lifehacking-esque blogs around the same time I started therapy. The therapy I’ve been in mostly recently is of the cognitive-behavioral variety, which means that a big part of it is thinking about my motivations and my thought process. And then reworking things to make meaningful changes.
A lot like lifehacking, as it turns out. So little lifehacker tidbits have been making their way into my daily life, and damned if they don’t make me feel calmer, happier, and better able to focus on the rest of my life.
The classic example, for me, is Inbox Zero. I’ve seen various permutations of the concept over the last couple of years, and this winter I tried to get and keep my email inbox at work absolutely empty at the end of every day. And with a couple of exceptions (post-SXSW, post-sinus infection), I’ve done it for six months.
What does it mean?
When I’m depressed, I can’t focus on anything. I can’t do anything. And the sight of clutter just bogs my mind down more and more until the universe seems a vast army of detritus targeted against me.
Keeping my email inbox empty doesn’t stop that feeling. Keeping a mood log (as per my therapist’s suggestion) doesn’t stop that feeling. I am a procrastinator and a person who tends towards depression.
The tricks of lifehacking don’t change the underlying tendencies of procrastination or depression. On the other hand, knowing my patterns makes it possible for me to keep from falling all the way over the edge. I’m beginning to think of “lifehacking” in its essence to be treating oneself as a biological machine. There is an initial state or natural condition of the machine; but it can be run well or badly. This goes not only for the body but for the mind — as if they were two separate things! — tracking the inputs and outputs makes it possible to increase the productivity of the machine as a whole.
…where productivity doesn’t just mean work, but also pleasure in being.
(I think I have other things to say, or could be saying these things differently, but it’s past time for me to let this out into the world.)