Progress on NHI has been disappointingly slow. I thought about taking a week off to focus on it, but I knew what would happen: I’d slack off on Monday thinking that I had plenty of time. Tuesday, too. Something would come up on Wednesday, and then Thursday is so close to the end of the week, why bother? On Friday, I’d eat a 7,000 calorie meal to console myself, so I’d get no writing done and gain weight.
Instead, I worked with my boss to schedule five consecutive Monday vacation days. I figured that Mondays would be the best day since I do all my household chores on the weekend and there would be few distractions. Today was the first day. I’d hoped to write three new pages and incorporate up to seven pages of the previous draft into the new. I exceeded my expectations by fifty percent-and I even goofed off a little in the afternoon.
For the rest of the week, ten pages of new and existing material is a reasonable goal. Next Monday, I’ll make sure I have even fewer things to distract me. (I needed a haircut and did some laundry that really could have waited.) If I stick with it, I could have this draft done by mid to late July.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Larry Gasper // Jun 8, 2010 at 8:03 pm
That’s great, Sam. Gives me some incentive to get my draft done by then too.
2 Terry Odell // Jun 13, 2010 at 12:03 pm
I’m trying to take advantage of a rainy weekend with nobody home but me to make some progress with the WIP. I think part of the procrastination mindset comes when you don’t have a legitimate deadline. Self-imposed ones teach discipline, but they’re also much easier to blow off or rationalize if there’s no real reward for meeting those goals.
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