A Slave To Inspiration
I’m the type of person who, when inspiration strikes, can hack away at a project for hours on end, losing all sense of time until my task is completed. Since I was homeschooled all my life, my schedule was always flexible enough that I could rely on two or three of these energy-bursts to get enough work done for the whole week, leaving the rest of my days free to do what I pleased. I loved it.
The problems with this sporadic system quickly became apparent, though, when I began my gap year. Not only was I setting my own pace, now I also had to set all of my own goals. And with no immediate repercussions for getting off track (as well as no immediate reward for getting ahead), I found that those random sprints of inspiration were not nearly enough to keep me motivated.
So, over my gap year I have experimented a lot with different ways to keep myself going without relying on something so erratic as inspiration.
The most straightforward technique that I discovered was daily habits. I kept a notebook documenting my streaks, so that if I missed a day I had visual evidence. I’ve gotten into such a routine with my daily habits that doing them feels exactly the same as doing nothing. Where before I would sometimes have days where I literally did nothing, at least now I always do my habits, no matter how lazy I feel. A habit won’t necessarily give you energy to create, but the more you work on that habit, the less energy it will take to do.
Habits alone will not help you to achieve every one of your goals, however they are a good first step to take when attempting to free yourself from relying on inspiration. I would love to hear your thoughts, both on forming habits and on other techniques that have helped you to be productive.
Ps. I really want this blog to be more of a community, rather than me just posting once or twice a year. So, I am attempting to make my posts a bit shorter and more casual so that I can post more regularly. I have so many things that I can’t wait to talk to you guys about!
