Catherine Caine, the great guru of awesome, wrote this post on respecting your weird-ass rhythm
This is a rhythm I am becoming better at incorporating into my work. I had to get good at it, because for me everything is either in flow – bam bam ba-dam wahoo I am brilliant at this – or not in flow – what.ever. I don’t know. This is hard. – and I don’t think that’s ever really going to change.
I wanted to post a comment, that is, one of my monsters wanted to post a comment, but her comments are powered by Discus and that doesn’t work where I work (yes, I read blog posts in work).
So I’ll let the monster say its piece here, and then I’ll try to talk to it. Ready? Here we are:
BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU WON’T JUST PLAY FINAL FANTASY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WHAT IF YOU’LL NEVER FEEL LIKE WORKING AGAIN YOU MUST DO SOME WORK RIGHT NOW!!!
OK. That sounds pretty scary, monster. Final Fantasy for the rest of my life, huh? I do hope it’s not FF8.
AAAAAAH!!!
Right, so let’s see if we can calm down about this a little. It’s true that I have been in a state of not-feeling-like-doing-work for the last two weeks or so. That does seem like a long time.
YES, AND YOU TOOK TWO WHOLE DAYS OFF AND IT WASN’T EVEN YOUR DESIGNATED TAKE-A-DAY-OFF TIME! THIS IS WHY YOU FAIL!
Uh-huh.
…!
So the theory is that if I take days off when I need days off, rather than at designated take-a-day-off times, my breaks and activity will be more in sync with what’s going on internally, and I’ll be more productive when I’m productive, and won’t waste any TEA* by taking time off when I’d like to be working.
*Note: TEA means Time, Energy and Attention, a concept my monster and I borrowed from Charlie Gilkey.
Yeah, well, that might work for Catherine Caine the amazing queen of awesome, but it won’t work for you. You’ll just sit on your bum all day and feel like crap, like you did over Christmas.
I didn’t sleep over Christmas. That probably had more to do with it. But, anyway, why would it work for Catherine but not for me?
BECAUSE SHE’S BETTER THAN YOU! HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE TO TELL YOU?
Oh, that’s you, is it?
OBVIOUSLY!!!
Should have been able to tell by the capslock.
YES! NOW GO DO SOME WORK!
I will, in a moment. I don’t think we’re done here.
Why not? I’ve told you everything you need to know.
Yes, but you haven’t heard everything I want to say.
… Well, what then?
It would be nice if you could trust that my TEA will come back. That, if I don’t have it right now, I can rest a bit, and get back to doing stuff later.
Yes, and it would be nice if it rained chocolate milk every Friday! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
Why? Why can’t you try a little faith here?
I don’t do faith. I have no reason to believe this wishful nonsense. I require evidence.
OK, that’s not unreasonable. But how are we going to gather evidence without running experiments?
Well, you have had an experiment. You sat on your fat butt for two days. And what do you have to show for it? Ooh, look, pretty yarn. FEEL BETTER YET?!
Actually, kind of. I had some creative ideas about my February thing yesterday. I did my full hour of drawing this morning. And I’m writing something that could be a blog post right now.
What? Hey? When did this happen?
So, maybe resting works?
No, it’s just a coincidence. Or, wait, it’s because you went for a swim. And you didn’t do a full hour at all, you sipped tea for like twenty minutes!
Let’s not argue. Could I ask you to entertain the possibility that taking a break when I needed one was the right thing to do?
You can’t “take a break” two weeks out of every month. You can’t build a business that way. You won’t get any momentum. You’ll be like try, try, ugh, can’t be arsed. You will never tip because the [expletive deleted] boulder will roll right back down the [another expletive deleted] hill every time you “need a break”.
Huh. That’s pretty serious.
THIS IS WHY YOU NEED ME! TO YELL AT YOU! GO BACK TO WORK!
But, and I’m sorry for repeating myself, Catherine Caine says this is how it is for her, too. And you’re always on about how the sun shines out of her behind…
CATHERINE CAINE IS A HARLOT! You must not listen to her! Listen to Naomi! Listen to Havi, it took her a year to take half a day off, THAT’S WHAT YOU SHOULD BE LIKE!
But Havi counts that as one of the things she is working on. She’s not recommending this as a business building strategy.
But it’s how she got to be Havi, isn’t it?
I think there are many reasons Havi got to be Havi. There’s no reason to declare the inability to take time off as the sole reason for her success. You might as well blame it on the duck.
I don’t like it when you’re all reasonable like that.
Hm-hm.
What happened, man? You used to be all about the rules! Sleep at this hour, yoga at this hour, no twitter before lunch, you want to throw all that out and just do as you please? This is madness! MADNESS!
Listen, rules are good, but only as long as they serve me. I’m thinking maybe my monthly rhythm requires a different approach than my daily rhythm. Because it’s a different rhythm.
You saying this is a hormonal thing?
I’m saying it’s a different scale. My micro productivity hackery is good, but my macro is leaky like a wooden spoon with holes. We tried having one weekend off at the end of each month. That works OK, but it doesn’t work great. Let’s try something else.
Like what?
Like… Trying to assess at the start of the day whether it’s an on day or an off day. And if it’s an off day, to respect that.
I lack words to tell you how hard you’ll fail if you try this. Just saying.
You believe I won’t do any work ever unless I have a rule in place saying it’s a work day? Or you yelling at me to do work?
I am your last line of defence against a world of failure and self-loathing. Again, just saying.
I want you to know I respect everything you’ve done for me. You are my defence against failure and self loathing. Thank you.
I don’t like the tone in your voice here.
But we’re going to have to do things differently.
NO WE DO NOT! YOU JUST NEED TO GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR!
Uh-huh. And how come my butt was out of gear? Why did that happen?
Because…!!!
Because this system isn’t working. See? We need to change it up.
OK, but I’m setting a limit on the number of “off” days you’re allowed to have in a month. Otherwise you’ll just sit there and do nothing. Two days a month of doing nothing, no more!
Four.
Heck to the no! Two!
Monster…
Dammit!
Normal people get four days a month off. Eight if you also count Saturdays. And a bit.
I knew you were gonna say that! You’re not a normal person, you’re a freelancer! Freelancers don’t get weekends! That’s the whole point! That you work in the weekends to make up for the fact you’re a lazy bum working in your pyjamas and expecting your clients to pay for the time you spend watching kitten videos! FREELANCERS ARE BAD PEOPLE! THIS IS WHY THEY NEVER GET TIME OFF!
I can put proper clothes on if that makes you feel better.
Fine! Three days a month, and we’ll review come March. Oh, will we ever review. You better be ready for this reviewing, lady.
Deal.
Evidence. I will need evidence.
Sure thing.
And I need you to produce a list of things you can do on off days so you won’t be completely idle.
Wait, when did you become my boss?
ON MY DESK BY MONDAY!
Right. Sure thing. Yes boss.
That’s better.
And we should probably discuss this “freelancers are bad people” thing at some point, you know that, right?
Shut up. Who are you, Dr Phil? Just shut up.
Cool.
…
Are you doing any work yet?
Whew, thanks for reading the whole thing! So, yeah, that’s my work monster. He’s a very active little friend. I hope the little emoticons added to the conversation, I might use them again if I’ve got more monster talks to post. Sorry the blog’s been a bit quiet lately, we’re back now! Thanks for reading!
I (Willie) have been working on a new book with pre-historic monsters, that is to say, dinosaurs. It’s about the end of the world and facing endings of all kinds. The main characters are all different dinosaurs who react to the news that they’re about to go extinct in different ways. It has some humour, bits of philosophy and bits of sadness.