Tag: distraction

Avoidance

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have lots of university work to do, and as usual, I am skipping around the bits that I am struggling with. Which, with JavaScript, happens quite a lot. I end up doing things that are not the most productive activities. They are normally tasks that need to be done, but ones that are not so important in the grand scheme of things. So what are these things?

  1. Cleaning up my email inbox. I get so many junk emails, every website these days wants your email dress for you to use their service. I have different email addresses, all from different stages of my life. One that I have from when I was younger and created ones with stupid music related names, one a name when I wanted to started my own business, and then one when I needed to have a ‘proper’ email address for work applications. One of my inboxes had over 40,000 emails in it. So in the true spirit of avoidance, I went through deleting them all.
  2. Going through all the guides on how to do things on my new MacBook. As much as I have always wanted an Apple computer, and have used one before, I don’t know all the ins and outs of the system. So, I have been reading the manuals and information so that I actually know how to work it properly. Including all the hacks and shortcuts. I have always owned windows computers, so it is a lot more challenging that I originally believed.
  3. Scrolling through TikTok. As much as it gets flack for being a bad influence on kids, it really is the only social media that makes me laugh. The problem is that the timeline on the app is never ending, so you can be scrolling fGor a long period of time, without really noticing how much time has passed.
  4. Google stupid stuff. Do you know that if you google any of the Friends main character names, you get a wee secret picture or animation? Yeah, looking up random stuff is a thing that can be great fun. Look up a TV show you like, and you click on one thing, then another. I always end up finding out something random and interesting, and it’s quite fun falling down a rabbit hole.
  5. Write a blog post. That is normally what I do when I am stuck, write about something. Distract myself for a wee bit, as writing has always helped me feel a little bit better. It is really therapeutic when things are getting on top of me. And at least that distraction is kind of productive, for once.

When I talk to people I know, avoidance seems to be a problem that everyone deals with. But some people seem to have a bigger problem with it, that others. I, for example, get completely rerouted when I find a distraction, and sometimes find it difficult to get back to the task that I actually need to do. I end up just getting annoyed by myself.

Struggling

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

This week, so far, has been very difficult, productivity wise. Like, I set out these plans, and some of them aren’t working. Forming new habits are really hard, and I think it is easy to forget that, when you set yourself tasks.

I have posted every day, so far. And, whilst I was ahead of myself last week, this week, I am ‘putting it off’. It’s not that I don’t want to do anything, I do, it’s just I can’t stay focused long enough to do anything substantial. So this wee gap, between spending time with family and going to bed, has been used to write. It’s not so much a writer’s block, more of just pure procrastination.

I. Hate. That. Word.

Procrastination.

It’s the idea that people have this programme in their minds, that simply ‘puts things off’. As an adult, I have had enough experience to know that putting stuff off never works. The number of sleepless nights I had because I didn’t do work for school or college, and it was deadline time. It was not good. But still, all these years later, I leave everything to the last minute. It is one thing that annoys me about myself.

But, when I think about it, or chat to friends about it, they procrastinate too. No matter what it is, people can feel like they can’t be bothered. It made me think, that maybe procrastination is natural. That, if people had the choice, they would love to just watch funny videos on YouTube all day. But they can’t. People have to function, and sometimes trying to function knowing those funny videos are out there is hard. You have to show discipline. You have to make effort. And sometimes, no one wants to make effort.

Maybe we need to be easier on ourselves. Understand that everyone gets to where they can’t be bothered. And we need to either push through it, or decide it is not important enough. I think that is what I want to come of trying to commit more. That if there is something, that isn’t worth ‘pushing through’ the distractions, then I shouldn’t do it. Quite hard to know when to let something go though.

Sometimes it would be nice if life had a guidebook like the Computer Games do.

Productivity Eliminated!!

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am always complaining about how unproductive I am. People scoff, as if it is pure laziness causing the problem. But it really is an issue. I am not unproductive in the manner that I sit and do nothing. I am unproductive in the state that I do other things rather than what I am supposed to do. It is like my mind distracts me to do something other than what I have to do. This is a wee list of the stuff that are the main culprits of my distractions.

*Twitter/Tumblr/Youtube: I have lumped these three together because they are all similar as to how they soak up my time. I log on to the site in question, so see if I have any messages, or anything of interest pops up. Which is fine. Except that ‘one thing’ ends up with me checking something else, and then another. And before I know it, I have lost my whole evening. Because social networks are constantly updating, the new influx of information coming constantly, can make it difficult to tear yourself away from the site.

*Finding Things: Tidying up is the worst for me to get distracted from, and it happens all the time. Usually, it comes as I find a magazine, book or newspaper, and I decide to check through it to see if there is anything worth keeping in it. However, rather than skimming, I sit and read the whole thing. I lose my motivation, as I get myself comfortable, and read through everything I can find. And that seems to take priority in my mind, over the washing that is sitting in the piles on my floor. Yeah, not efficient at all.

*’Just One More’: Computer games, TV shows, chapters of a book, it is very easy to say, I’ll do it after this one. I do it, because I seem to think that it will give me motivation. That because I want to play the next fight on Street Fighter, that I’d give myself 10 minutes to clean a bit, play another fight, another 10 minutes. The problem here is one of two things. I either become too involved in what I am doing, that I ‘forget’ to stop. The other is that I am so shit at what I am doing, I don’t actually get to the checkpoint that I have in mind. So never actually clean up.

Reading this back, I think my main problem is making excuses. Ooops!

Constant Struggle

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

These last few days have been greeted with tears of frustration and over-thinking. I feel like I am always a prisioner within my depressed state of mind, with a sentence which has no timescale. Without an end in sight, it is difficult to be productive at all. And it seems to come as a downward spiral. I feel bad about something, then feel bad for feeling bad, and even worse for crying about it. It’s never ending. Or so you can believe.

By filling my time with distractions, I have been given a good sense of perspective. I have watched movies, read books and listened to music, to help get me out of my depressed state. Sometime’s all you need is something to take your mind on to something different. Such as planning a ‘big adventure’ or achieving something on your ‘bucket list’. Something that helps give life meaning, and put the control back into your hands.

There is a serenity that comes from not being so depressed. When low, my mind seems to go into overdrive, set on making me feel worse with every passing second. So, when I have been distracted successfully, my mind slows down. I calm down and relax. Unfortunately it always seems to be a short term thing, and soon the self-doubt comes back. But by working on how to get out of my states of depression, I can control it better myself.

But this is a work in progress. It isn’t easy. In fact, there are times where it is so hard, that I find myself so close to the edge, that I could end it all in a second. And when you get to that stage, it can seem impossible to imagine any way out. But, I honestly believe that if you give your mind something else to focus on, you will slowly step away from the edge.

If you are still reading to this point, and this ramble seems familiar to you and what you go through, then I have a message for you. You are alive today, and that makes you a successful person, no matter what anyone says. So anything that you do today, will just make you even better. Hold your head up high.

Little Things

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes little things are what makes a difference. Sometimes it can feel that life is throwing you a tidbit, that it knows that something so insignificant can make you happier. Today that’s what it feels like, anyway.
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I rent movies and games through a site called LoveFilm. It is primarily there to rent DVDs and stream them online. But I use it to rent games. I don’t buy a lot of games, because I am so awful. I don’t have the patience to play a game for hours and hours. I get bored. So I get 2 or 3 games at a time, and can send them back when done.

It’s simple, and I think it’s a worthy distraction from my current life. Lose myself in a game, and forget what is happening. That’s why movies, music, books and games are so popular, in my opinion, because they provide a distraction. And distraction, is sometimes all we need.