iccky

I’ve dealt with the same problems since middle school. And I don't have a lot of answers. But for me I think being "smart" in the intellectual sort of way that gets you through school and helps you do good at standardized tests is part of the problem. It both has allowed me to get by without working hard for a long time and gives me the ability to rationalize away my unwillingness to do work. "I can write a page an hour, so I don't really need to start that paper until 8." "After I beat this level, I'll feel better, and then I can really get cracking on that homework." Pure sophistry, but it works in the moment.

I told my girlfriend, who is probably less "smart" then me but works her ass off and does a lot better, that my biggest problem in life was knowing so often exactly what I should do to make things go right but being unable to do it. She asked me, "how can you live with yourself." not exactly the most reaffirming comment, but it made me think.

I realize too that I am happier when I work hard and get stuff done. When I’m fucking around, playing games or whatever, I think that that's what I need to do to make me happy. but really, if I look at it objectively, I know that I'm happiest at the end of those few long days when I can lie in bed and know I really did do everything I could have that day. Tired, but wonderfully so.

Yet on some level I think that maybe this is just how I operate. I tried on two occasions to get organized. I got a Palm Pilot and set up a schedule. And strangely, while I got more done, it destroyed my creativity. Previously I had known what I needed to do and been unable to do it. When organized, I know longer know what to do to make things work.

So, yeah, not a lot of answers, but I feel you man. The two things I have found works is changing scenery (realize you're just fucking around and getting nothing done? go work in a coffee shop, or just take a short walk and think), and not getting too absorbed in the problem. That goes back to <b>aberkok's</b> breaking things down approach. If you let the problem overwhelm you, you'll never do anything.

And, dude, that was both incredibly rude and unhelpful at the same time.