Barriers to work

[snousle]

I cannot believe it is already the 18th. Planning for the Guards and Badger runs is like staring down an oncoming freight train.



God knows I'm not lazy, but my work remains backed up in irrational and unnecessary ways. I have no problem with external commitments; it's no trouble giving my clients exactly what I promise, perfectly, every time. It's just that lack of planning makes it much harder than necessary to do so.

The trouble lies with a long list of business-development goals that are all jockeying for priority. Right now that's where I should be spending a lot of time. But I have a very specific problem that impedes progress: my sense of the relative priority of these goals is constantly shifting. There are too many of them, and it's really hard to figure out which ones are worthwhile and which are a waste of time. Their priority is determined not only by the value of the result, but by how much of a pain in the ass it is to achieve it. Most tasks end up being more of a pain in the ass than one might think, thus lowering the priority of tasks while they are already in progress - exactly the worst time. It's a bad cycle of negative reinforcement that makes getting things done much more difficult.

The other thing is that the deadlines for events are so unforgiving that when they aren't there, the sheer luxury of their absence makes everything else seem unimportant. Leisure time has never been so pleasurable.

The database is a sticking point. I can save quite a bit of stress and money by centralizing all the information I use in my work - consolidating prices, recipes, et cetra so as to generate automated shopping lists and even picking the cheapest place to get things. It is eminently doable, I know exactly how to approach it, and for certain events I've done it, but when I open it up on the screen, I get a sick feeling in my stomach and reflexively turn away from it. I caught myself doing this and thought, whoa, there is something wrong here.

I'm no sucker for instant gratification, but these negative responses to necessary, useful, and seemingly easy things are kind of a problem. I wonder if I'm much more burned out on computers than I had realized.

Sigh. I have a week to get this together, wish me luck!

Comments

[bigredpaul.livejournal.com]

I remember when I first left IT. Part of it was because of that sick to the stomach feeling. Perhaps you should farm out the database to some high school computer geek in the area?

[urso.livejournal.com]

For years, I've said I should go to Badger, but never could.

I'm thinking about finally going this year.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

one wonders whether on some level you feel you don't NEED a database to manage an artisanal kitchen.

[dhpbear.livejournal.com]

http://satyrsmc.org/BadgerFlat2009.html

[dhpbear.livejournal.com]

Maybe not for the kitchen, but for the recipes!

[snousle.livejournal.com]

One does not NEED it but once assembled there is no doubt that it helps maintain sanity. Between shopping, prep, and equipment a typical event has about 300 items to deal with.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

no, I mean like ... artisanal is supposed to be about handmade, lovingly individually crafted etc etc and at some level it feels wrong to be number crunching it? I know logically it makes sense, I mean not-logically.

[bikerbearmark.livejournal.com]

I often have that reaction to coding. There are so many other things to do - oooh, shiny! - until I actually sit down and start banging something out. But then the reinforcement of having something that works sorta but I can fix that bug and do that better and cool I didn't think of that and I'm in the zone 'til 3:00 am or my husband is pissed. Is it any wonder I have that reaction to a task I can lose myself so totally for so long?