errantember (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
errantember) wrote2011-01-12 07:08 am
errantember) wrote2011-01-12 07:08 am
Entry tags:
Task Lists and the Whining of the Privileged
Today I am up at 5 AM, due to collapsing yesterday around 9 PM into bed fully clothed.
I've realized over the years how much having some kind of task list to prioritize my actions would help me accomplish what I want in life. However, I've shown this really strong aversion to using them, about the same level of aversion I have to, say, getting up at a reasonable time. There's something subtly horrible about the entire exercise of task lists and scheduling, and I'd like to better understand exactly what's going on in my subconscious.
I have a bad feeling this is going to reveal itself to be another knock-down, drag-out round with Privilege, which sounds, well...
...tedious.
Feel free to be offended by all this if you've had a tough life. :)
My best feeling at the moment for what's going on is the perceived intrusion into my internal ideal of Endless Summer. There was a feeling I developed at some point in my childhood during summer break that I could sleep as late as I wanted, do nothing but play all day, pursue whatever caught my fancy, and have precisely zero responsibility for anything, including paying for anything or worrying about food, shelter, etc. I'm guessing there was an extra element of escapism involved due to various Family Problems that occurred during the same time. An adamantium-stong association developed between this feeling and what I thought of as "normal." Anything the required any kind of unwanted effort or focus on my part, like school or homework or cleaning my room, was considered Abnormal, and something that had to be Endured, until Normalcy would eventually, and by default, restore itself. Over time, the amount of Abnormal in my life continued to increase exponentially, but my reaction stayed the same. Instead of trying to change the dynamic, or do something more active to pursue the kind of life I wanted, I instead unconsciously chose to take the victim role, Being Done To by Forces Beyond My Control. This lead to more and more depression, which was really repressed anger, about the fact that Normally was taking a very long time to re-assert it self, and I was getting just a LITTLE BIT TIRED of waiting for it to happen.
All this has probably been going on, in one form or another, for most of my life. In the meantime, I've gotten much more Zen in general, and make far fewer judgments about life and what It's Doing To Me. I've gotten better at taking some responsibility for my life and where it's going. One thing I haven't escaped, though, is the idea of Endless Summer.
During recent Four Hour Work Week-style Mini-Retirement trip going to Burning Man, Portland, Alchemy, and finally Hawaii, there was one and only one song stuck in my head. And that song was Fastball's The Way. Its portrayal of a similar Illusion of Normalcy and Endless Summer simultaneously accompanied and undermined the entire experience, celebrating the Illusion while it lasted, but also reminding me constantly that, at some point, the Illusion had to end, and that what was coming afterward wasn't My Favorite Default, but what I had always thought of as Abnormal. The message was that Abnormal, not Normal, was the default. Life not only requires work and focus, but, worse yet, the only person who's responsibility it is to provide those items is Me. And I really, REALLY don't like that message.
Few things make more more quintessentially American.
And that dislike, and the denial associated with it, is what I think is at the bottom of the Task List issue.
If I have a Task List, I have to admit I have Tasks.
If I admit I have Tasks, I have to admit there's more to life than just Cruising Through.
If I admit *that*, I might have to admit there's a lot of OTHER things in life I don't like, things I don't want to think about, or take responsibility for, or Anything Else.
If there is some need to prioritize Tasks, it means there might not be enough time in my life to finish everything I ever want to do at a slow, leisurely pace!
And if there isn't enough time to do everything, the fact that I'm sleeping until 2 PM on a regular basis might actually be affecting what I *can* accomplish in one lifetime!
And that means that, if I want to get more done in life, I might have to stop! Not because The World is Making Me, which was bad enough, but because of my conscious choice that life might be better if I did. And if there's anything worse than Being a Victim, it's Being In Control. Because Being In Control means Taking Responsibility, and that's the absolute very last thing I ever want to do. If there's a single thing I'd have as the first line of my resume it would be:
"Scott is Not Responsible."
There's another angle to this that I'm seeing more now that I used to, which is that in addition to making me be less proactive in pursuing my own goals, it's also made me give myself less credit where credit was due. I didn't just magically cruise through 4 1/2 years of college, one year of co-oping, and ten years of corporate work. I worked my ass off for those things, they happened almost entirely because of my own focus and effort and, well, taking responsibility for my life. But I haven't really looked at it that way. I've almost never felt like any of those things was an accomplishment, something to be proud of, the fruits of long, difficult labor. I just looked at them as another case of Being Done To and Muddling Through. And that's not true. It's very clear from the rest of this message that I've had huge advantages over most of the rest of the human race, and my cognizance of that continues to increase. I'm happy to report that my gratitude for that fact does as well. However, I have taken that advantage and run with it, and where I'm at in life today is as much due to my own efforts as it is to the luck of my birth and circumstance. So, in addition to recognizing and taking my responsibility for my own life, I also need to give myself credit for how far I've come, which might make the first part a bit easier.
But enough denial-penetration for now.
It's time to watch some Doctor Who. :)
I've realized over the years how much having some kind of task list to prioritize my actions would help me accomplish what I want in life. However, I've shown this really strong aversion to using them, about the same level of aversion I have to, say, getting up at a reasonable time. There's something subtly horrible about the entire exercise of task lists and scheduling, and I'd like to better understand exactly what's going on in my subconscious.
I have a bad feeling this is going to reveal itself to be another knock-down, drag-out round with Privilege, which sounds, well...
...tedious.
Feel free to be offended by all this if you've had a tough life. :)
My best feeling at the moment for what's going on is the perceived intrusion into my internal ideal of Endless Summer. There was a feeling I developed at some point in my childhood during summer break that I could sleep as late as I wanted, do nothing but play all day, pursue whatever caught my fancy, and have precisely zero responsibility for anything, including paying for anything or worrying about food, shelter, etc. I'm guessing there was an extra element of escapism involved due to various Family Problems that occurred during the same time. An adamantium-stong association developed between this feeling and what I thought of as "normal." Anything the required any kind of unwanted effort or focus on my part, like school or homework or cleaning my room, was considered Abnormal, and something that had to be Endured, until Normalcy would eventually, and by default, restore itself. Over time, the amount of Abnormal in my life continued to increase exponentially, but my reaction stayed the same. Instead of trying to change the dynamic, or do something more active to pursue the kind of life I wanted, I instead unconsciously chose to take the victim role, Being Done To by Forces Beyond My Control. This lead to more and more depression, which was really repressed anger, about the fact that Normally was taking a very long time to re-assert it self, and I was getting just a LITTLE BIT TIRED of waiting for it to happen.
All this has probably been going on, in one form or another, for most of my life. In the meantime, I've gotten much more Zen in general, and make far fewer judgments about life and what It's Doing To Me. I've gotten better at taking some responsibility for my life and where it's going. One thing I haven't escaped, though, is the idea of Endless Summer.
During recent Four Hour Work Week-style Mini-Retirement trip going to Burning Man, Portland, Alchemy, and finally Hawaii, there was one and only one song stuck in my head. And that song was Fastball's The Way. Its portrayal of a similar Illusion of Normalcy and Endless Summer simultaneously accompanied and undermined the entire experience, celebrating the Illusion while it lasted, but also reminding me constantly that, at some point, the Illusion had to end, and that what was coming afterward wasn't My Favorite Default, but what I had always thought of as Abnormal. The message was that Abnormal, not Normal, was the default. Life not only requires work and focus, but, worse yet, the only person who's responsibility it is to provide those items is Me. And I really, REALLY don't like that message.
Few things make more more quintessentially American.
And that dislike, and the denial associated with it, is what I think is at the bottom of the Task List issue.
If I have a Task List, I have to admit I have Tasks.
If I admit I have Tasks, I have to admit there's more to life than just Cruising Through.
If I admit *that*, I might have to admit there's a lot of OTHER things in life I don't like, things I don't want to think about, or take responsibility for, or Anything Else.
If there is some need to prioritize Tasks, it means there might not be enough time in my life to finish everything I ever want to do at a slow, leisurely pace!
And if there isn't enough time to do everything, the fact that I'm sleeping until 2 PM on a regular basis might actually be affecting what I *can* accomplish in one lifetime!
And that means that, if I want to get more done in life, I might have to stop! Not because The World is Making Me, which was bad enough, but because of my conscious choice that life might be better if I did. And if there's anything worse than Being a Victim, it's Being In Control. Because Being In Control means Taking Responsibility, and that's the absolute very last thing I ever want to do. If there's a single thing I'd have as the first line of my resume it would be:
"Scott is Not Responsible."
There's another angle to this that I'm seeing more now that I used to, which is that in addition to making me be less proactive in pursuing my own goals, it's also made me give myself less credit where credit was due. I didn't just magically cruise through 4 1/2 years of college, one year of co-oping, and ten years of corporate work. I worked my ass off for those things, they happened almost entirely because of my own focus and effort and, well, taking responsibility for my life. But I haven't really looked at it that way. I've almost never felt like any of those things was an accomplishment, something to be proud of, the fruits of long, difficult labor. I just looked at them as another case of Being Done To and Muddling Through. And that's not true. It's very clear from the rest of this message that I've had huge advantages over most of the rest of the human race, and my cognizance of that continues to increase. I'm happy to report that my gratitude for that fact does as well. However, I have taken that advantage and run with it, and where I'm at in life today is as much due to my own efforts as it is to the luck of my birth and circumstance. So, in addition to recognizing and taking my responsibility for my own life, I also need to give myself credit for how far I've come, which might make the first part a bit easier.
But enough denial-penetration for now.
It's time to watch some Doctor Who. :)
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I have often heard burners refer to getting back on the playa as coming back to the real world... implying subtly or not-so-subtly that the time between burns is just something that we have to live through to get back to real life. But it's not. Burns, vacations, pilgrimages, milestones, etc. are the peaks, certainly, but all the spaces in between are just as important. This idea is one I've grasped in my head, but have a very hard time implementing. It's getting easier, though, as I get older and I see time really starting to speed up and slip away.
Wonderful post -- you really hit this on the head!
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Here's some random information from my head that may or may not help, so harvest as is useful:
One thing that seems to have been a milestone in my ability to follow tasklists -- freakishly, I had the same problem and still do to a certain extent -- was enlisting someone to be my tasklist accountability person. It was originally Charlie, before we transitioned to a different kind of working relationship. I would tell him what I was going to do, and then I would tell him that I'd done it -- and I didn't want him to think less of me, so I actually DID do the things I said I would.
This wasn't a good final solution, but it was a great transitory one. Later, the habit I developed doing this translated into a task-level accountability to myself, and a strategy-level accountability to Charlie. (Actually, we're only about halfway there, but that's the trend.) Before we did that, I just couldn't even LOOK at tasklists. I would often make them and ignore them. Sometimes I didn't ignore them. But they were a problem for me. A small part of me was offended by the idea of having to kowtow to a tasklist, or "order of things"...
Today, I have a very manageable tasklist issue: If I notice that I'm feeling the urge to ignore my tasklist, I switch gears and make a different kind of tasklist that holds my attention better for that particular moment (tasklist NRE?). These are the ones I most often cycle through, as needed:
* Evernote text lists (I'll show you my very involved organization if you want, but of course your eyes will probably start to bleed)
* Marker lists on paper with circles and checkboxes and doodles
* Marker lists on paper largely consisting of visual elements rather than mostly text (this gets a different reaction from me)
* Grids of sticky notes on the wall (I use this when I am having a hard time comprehending the scale of a project that needs to be done very quickly)
* When all else fails, I email a list to someone else and/or post it somewhere so that someone other than me has seen it. I haven't had to do this in awhile, but I've taken advantage of it when absolutely necessary.
One thing that keeps me going on the tasklist front is making sure it's pared down as far as possible into absolute essentials. If I'm ignoring my tasklist these days, it's often because there's too much sludge in there. So most times, I make an additional marker list of essentials only, follow that for the day, and then go back in and pare down my regular daily list once my brain feels recovered.
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I was right.
Your relationship with time in the here and now is much like my own, it sounds like, especially the discomfort with your task list. Thanks for sharing your process; gives me some stuff to think about.
--Free
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