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Inertia

posted by [personal profile] emperor at 04:30pm on 06/12/2006 under
This article really does describe the way I seem to work. I feel rather bad admitting that (which might be why it's on this blog...).
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There are 12 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

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posted by [identity profile] yrieithydd.livejournal.com at 04:38pm on 06/12/2006
Mmm, I know the failure to get going!
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posted by [identity profile] pellegrina.livejournal.com at 04:46pm on 06/12/2006
Me too! When doing my DPhil I would have entire weeks of never getting past 8 and feeling perpetually guilty.
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posted by [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com at 04:51pm on 06/12/2006
Yup. I felt a lot better that some successful respected people were the same. I try to make it not be *every* day, and to admit that's what tends to happen, rather than ignoring it.
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posted by [identity profile] j4.livejournal.com at 04:52pm on 06/12/2006
It sounds entirely plausible that in order to do serious coding/research you have to be "in the zone", and that that's something which is difficult or even impossible to kick-start deliberately. (Fortunately as a lowly admin monkey I don't need to wait for my muse in order to get things done, I just have to push buttons!) But IME there are usually other work-related things you can do (even just tidying/admin stuff, or reading vaguely-work-related articles) rather than just sitting there hitting reload on LJ/email/etc.

(She said, hitting reload on LJ. ;-)

But getting started is always the hardest bit. Do you read [livejournal.com profile] 43folders? There's lots of useful tips on there about Getting Things Done. At the end of the day though a lot of it comes down to taking the first step from "thinking about doing stuff" to "doing stuff", and that's something that you just have to do.

NB I'm not arguing that people should be Doing Work from 9-5 if they don't have to -- and you're probably giving your employers better value for your salary if you're doing good work for 5 hours a day or even 2 hours a day than if you're sitting at your desk doing nothing & feeling miserable and resentful for 8 hours a day. But if you have to be in work from 9-5 anyway then there are usually some minor productive things to be done with the time even if you're not feeling inspired to do Great Things.
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posted by [identity profile] nja.livejournal.com at 05:26pm on 06/12/2006
That's me too. I get the great majority of my productive work done in short bursts when I feel inspired. I like to think that the rest of the time my subconscious is working hard while I'm drifting around on the web, but I suspect that may be wishful thinking.
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posted by [identity profile] mtbc100.livejournal.com at 05:32pm on 06/12/2006
That's me too for non-programming/sysadmin. For programming/sysadmin I'm easily in the zone. Unfortunately most of what work needs from me for the meantime, and has for quite some time, is non-programming/sysadmin. Which is why I'm here posting this now.
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posted by [identity profile] enismirdal.livejournal.com at 06:10pm on 06/12/2006
I am not a programmer, but I've been trying to argue (mostly to myself) for about 2 years that I work like that too...

My optimum working hours seem to be just slightly more than I'd choose to work if I could choose completely...
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ext_27570: Richard in tricorn hat (Default)

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posted by [identity profile] sigisgrim.livejournal.com at 08:55pm on 06/12/2006
That was a damn good article. I think I'll point a few people (including the boss) at it at work.

It describes me quite well, though I think I have longer periods of either in or out of the zone. I'm a bit out of the zone at the moment having drawn lots of blanks trying to sort out various problems with insufficient information and insufficient resources. :-(
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pm215: (Default)

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posted by [personal profile] pm215 at 10:17pm on 06/12/2006
I usually feel too guilty to just do nothing. I do wish that I was employed to get X,Y and Z done by time T, because then I could just do that and know that I'd fulfilled my half of the employer-employee bargain, and I'm sure I'd feel generally happier and less stressed.
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posted by [identity profile] sashajwolf.livejournal.com at 11:05pm on 06/12/2006
I work quite a bit like that, too. I've felt a lot better about it since one of my friends, who is working on her PhD, suggested thinking of the unproductive time as "Part of the Work", since evidently our brains need it to get to the point of being productive. I have the feeling that a lot of subconscious stuff gets sorted out during those fallow times.
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posted by [identity profile] sain-bano.livejournal.com at 09:28am on 07/12/2006
I found it very hard to move from the student situation of 'you need to do this assignment by this time' to the work situation of 'you need to work a 36 hour week'. Although I have flexible working hours, I still wish that when the servers crash and I can't do anything productive I could just leave work at 11am and come back tomorrow, but it's not the done thing.
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posted by [identity profile] romancinger.livejournal.com at 06:30pm on 08/12/2006
Yes, I work this way too, and so does my family - we just have to accept it and do the best we can!
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