Trying to get to work in this office can be so hard! There are distractions, co workers, things I dont like. That and my job stretches me in so many different directions that I often feel resentment towards the lack of energy and creativity I retain towards building my own future in the mean time. Time after work is full of relationship-related spending time, living with someone new invariably obligates the people involved to give as much time to each other as is available.
The above issues have inspired a lot of thought and a possible solution - to micro recycle my time throughout the day. So far, this means to use breaks I would ordinarily spend on Facebook and Huffington Post (reading comments and rants) and use them instead as micro efforts on my website and writing (like this very article) a few minutes at a time, to eat away little by little at my to-do list but more so help me find the peace of mind I require from taking a proactive effort in my own future.
This is one habit to change that might go a long way. My 40-hr/wk work is building client websites, requiring heavy concentration and focus. Im most effective while working in spurts, (as in, think! ~rest, think! ~rest, THIIIINk, ~~rest, you get the idea.) I used to beat myself up mentally for needing such frequent relief of my work, before I learned that I was considered to be a top performer in terms of effectiveness at my office. This is good, as I love the internet, and as a web developer, its always at my disposal for research, social networking, and staying informed. Hence my frequent aforementioned breaks in those habits. But I would still go home feeling wrecked, and now my dreams have been telling me that over time Ive built up a frustration with feeling trapped and slow from not moving quickly enough, not developing carolinecblaker.com enough.
It may have taken about a year, but Ive finally hit the realization that I waste a lot of time on empty content throughout the day. Its okay to take the breaks I need, but with too much news and all of its pessimism and bitterness, and all of Facebooks who does what, I find myself wanting this time to be enlightening and restful, perhaps even balancing, like meditation, but instead it sucks the life out of me. And then I go home and theres no time to do anything about it.
While I realize this should have been fairly obvious from the beginning, I did have my reasons for going the direction I went in. Firstly, I had in mind to do only office type work while I sat at this desk under the clock of my employer. This isnt exactly wrong. Its also a darned good strategy for making good at the office for the first ... oh however long it takes for them to really get to know you. You never know which levels your employer will choose to eavesdrop and its not appropriate to ask. What would you have to hide anyway? New hires cannot afford to incur this skepticism.
Eventually I developed this breaking habit that kept me sane, but it was counterproductive on all levels. After 10Am, I almost never used it for research. Between Facebook and Huffington Post, it was almost exclusively reading the rants of strangers and off-topic news that did not affect my life, much less my job. I didnt notice immediately when I fell into this habit, but I did notice when occasionally after an hour or two of this I would have nothing accomplished. That being said, I was nearly as bored as when I had plunged into the almighty break, perhaps explaining why I had stayed so long? Counter-intuitive as it might seem, the longer I stayed, the boreder I stayed, the harder I looked for that fix, especially when I could not anticipate its arrival. Thinking about it makes it sound like a normal addiction.
There are times when the news stories are way too good to miss - like todays Washington Whodunit regarding the let-slip of the Executive Cap provision that came out with AIGs executive bonus contracts. Sometimes there is an update every 15 minutes that is jaw-dropping. With the surfacing of the corruption in Washington that has been compiling for more than 30 years, its a nailbiter to say the least. This stuff couldnt be written or imagined! Oh wait, Ayn Rand did it.
But theres an additional benefit to breaking away from this already distasteful habit - Often times the work that I do for myself and the work that I do for my office intersect - and I can use the work of my website to benefit work at the office, like copying code that I have already written or else researching tags and modules above and beyond the office for my personal website only to find that I need the knowledge in the office.
With so much coming up this summer, I can hardly imagine how Im going to get everything done. I have an out-of-town show in St. Louis and a gallery trade-out in May. I also will be going on a vacation this year. Yet I want to research generative art, get real with my website, and move along with my painting. I do think that micro-recycling my time will be one subtle yet forceful way to make a difference, especially with all of the ideas I have for my own projects during the flow of the office.
The above issues have inspired a lot of thought and a possible solution - to micro recycle my time throughout the day. So far, this means to use breaks I would ordinarily spend on Facebook and Huffington Post (reading comments and rants) and use them instead as micro efforts on my website and writing (like this very article) a few minutes at a time, to eat away little by little at my to-do list but more so help me find the peace of mind I require from taking a proactive effort in my own future.
This is one habit to change that might go a long way. My 40-hr/wk work is building client websites, requiring heavy concentration and focus. Im most effective while working in spurts, (as in, think! ~rest, think! ~rest, THIIIINk, ~~rest, you get the idea.) I used to beat myself up mentally for needing such frequent relief of my work, before I learned that I was considered to be a top performer in terms of effectiveness at my office. This is good, as I love the internet, and as a web developer, its always at my disposal for research, social networking, and staying informed. Hence my frequent aforementioned breaks in those habits. But I would still go home feeling wrecked, and now my dreams have been telling me that over time Ive built up a frustration with feeling trapped and slow from not moving quickly enough, not developing carolinecblaker.com enough.
It may have taken about a year, but Ive finally hit the realization that I waste a lot of time on empty content throughout the day. Its okay to take the breaks I need, but with too much news and all of its pessimism and bitterness, and all of Facebooks who does what, I find myself wanting this time to be enlightening and restful, perhaps even balancing, like meditation, but instead it sucks the life out of me. And then I go home and theres no time to do anything about it.
While I realize this should have been fairly obvious from the beginning, I did have my reasons for going the direction I went in. Firstly, I had in mind to do only office type work while I sat at this desk under the clock of my employer. This isnt exactly wrong. Its also a darned good strategy for making good at the office for the first ... oh however long it takes for them to really get to know you. You never know which levels your employer will choose to eavesdrop and its not appropriate to ask. What would you have to hide anyway? New hires cannot afford to incur this skepticism.
Eventually I developed this breaking habit that kept me sane, but it was counterproductive on all levels. After 10Am, I almost never used it for research. Between Facebook and Huffington Post, it was almost exclusively reading the rants of strangers and off-topic news that did not affect my life, much less my job. I didnt notice immediately when I fell into this habit, but I did notice when occasionally after an hour or two of this I would have nothing accomplished. That being said, I was nearly as bored as when I had plunged into the almighty break, perhaps explaining why I had stayed so long? Counter-intuitive as it might seem, the longer I stayed, the boreder I stayed, the harder I looked for that fix, especially when I could not anticipate its arrival. Thinking about it makes it sound like a normal addiction.
There are times when the news stories are way too good to miss - like todays Washington Whodunit regarding the let-slip of the Executive Cap provision that came out with AIGs executive bonus contracts. Sometimes there is an update every 15 minutes that is jaw-dropping. With the surfacing of the corruption in Washington that has been compiling for more than 30 years, its a nailbiter to say the least. This stuff couldnt be written or imagined! Oh wait, Ayn Rand did it.
But theres an additional benefit to breaking away from this already distasteful habit - Often times the work that I do for myself and the work that I do for my office intersect - and I can use the work of my website to benefit work at the office, like copying code that I have already written or else researching tags and modules above and beyond the office for my personal website only to find that I need the knowledge in the office.
With so much coming up this summer, I can hardly imagine how Im going to get everything done. I have an out-of-town show in St. Louis and a gallery trade-out in May. I also will be going on a vacation this year. Yet I want to research generative art, get real with my website, and move along with my painting. I do think that micro-recycling my time will be one subtle yet forceful way to make a difference, especially with all of the ideas I have for my own projects during the flow of the office.