DonationCoder.com Software > The Getting Organized Experiment of 2007

Here is my problem

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app103:
I had thought that I would pass on the whole GOE idea this year, after the disaster it was for me last year.

Getting organized isn't my problem. I am quite organized naturally. Other people's cookie cutter systems aren't going to help with the problem I have. It's possible other people's cookie cutter systems contributed to the problem I have and made it much worse than it was before.

For most people, the things they need to get done have deadlines, consequences if they don't get done. Their real procrastination is putting everything off till the last moment and then going nuts and stressing themselves out trying to make the deadline. Then they need to have it all organized in order to not forget what it is they have to do because of all the stress they have caused themselves.

My problem is that all the things on my todo list that aren't getting done are personal projects that are a labor of love and I have to love it while I am doing it or I just can't.

There is no real deadlines....no real consequences if it never gets done. At the worst, I just disappoint people or let them down. And I don't really care what people think. Other people's opinions about me don't hold any water. I am used to letting people down and disappointing them my whole life. I don't live to live up to other people's expectations of me. I never did. My father even called me the biggest waste of potential he ever met...and he doesn't understand why I never did all the things with my life that I could have, the things he thought that should have mattered.

My personal projects...I really do want to work on them, but at the same time I really don't. And I care, but I don't care.

It's like going out and buying all the ingredients to make a dinner, in cans, and putting everything away all organized in the cabinet and closing it. Then never making the dinner because there is no real need to hurry up and cook it before the ingredients spoil, and you really don't feel like cooking today, and even if you did you don't feel like having that for dinner.

I have tried setting artificial deadlines, but they don't work because I know they are artificial and I just keep pushing it to tomorrow. I can't fool myself. Same thing with setting a personal project with an artificially higher priority, pretending it is more important than it really is. I know it isn't so it won't work.

I have to love it while I am doing it or I just can't do it and I don't know how to do that any more. There is no real reward if I do it, at least none that really matters enough to me to be a motivating incentive to get me moving. And nothing bad will happen if I don't, so it all just sits and collects dust.

I have a lot of creative energy. I always did. I used to have a need to take what was in my head and make it real. This is where the art came from, the applications, the websites, the jewelery, clothing designs, everything & anything that popped into my mind's eye that I could find a way to make it.

The energy is still there, I am still creating things in my head, but I seem to be content to let it all stay as a vision in my head now. I don't feel the need to make it all real, that I once had.

I am lacking a reason that matters. Where or how do I get one?

Carol Haynes:
Sounds like me too ... lots of good ideas but no umph to get them done!

Darwin:
Yes, this rings true for me, too. Unfortunately, the only thing I have much enthusiasm for these days (that's not paid work!) is noodling. I probably SHOULD take part in the GOE 2007 Experiment but last year was a complete failure from my end and I completely agree with app that some of my lack of accomplishment may in fact be attributed to trying to use other people's cookie cutters!

I'll cut my own cookies, thanks. Actually, I just need to get bloodyminded and get on with whatever I need to be getting on with.

app103:
After making this post, I went & checked my email. I found a google alert for another blog mentioning one of my applications and decided to check it out.

It was serendipity.

All the thoughts & feelings I am having that are holding me back are all over his blog...over & over...and some possible answers as to why I am feeling like this and what to do about it.

My suggestion is that if my original post sounds at all familiar to you in any way shape or form, start with this guy's first post and take it slow and really try to absorb what he is saying, as you move forward to his more recent posts.

http://odinkirk.com/2007/04/12/first-post-system-requirements/

Last year's GOE may have been a complete failure for me for a lot of reasons, among them being my inner self didn't meet the 'minimum system requirements'.  ;)

Darwin:
Cool - thanks app (I think - his blog is proving a nice diversion from what I really need to get done, but for which I lack enthusiasm. Oh well. This will arm me for the future - the present is just collateral damage in the war on apathy!).

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