It Is Alright to Progress Step by Step, Day by Day | Akp51v SMD
It is easy to be focused on an activity or goal with a single-minded approach. While there is an assured sense of quality that correlates with how much time, energy, effort and editing is put in the project, the risk of suffering from a burnout is not small either. Commitment, Dedication and Discipline are beautiful, wonderful and admirable; but neither you nor I can keep at it without any rest, relaxation and recharging.
Refreshment definitely matters. Our holidays, vacation and weekends empower as well as heal our brain. Those tiny power naps might take some minutes, but the fresh mind we both can achieve will be much more productive. Once in a while, take some juice, have some biscuits, drink some tea or coffee, or just look outside the window... breathe deeply. Such actions have helped me a gazillions of times... Days can be tiring, meetings can be draining, social gatherings are my nightmares! Maybe you have been in these situations, and maybe it was a simple action which re-energized you to keep going on. Each of us has a different stamina specific to a situation; and the mother nature loves such diversity.
There are other simpler quick tricks as well.
If nothing else, at least leave the chair and the desk for some moments; walk in your own room, open the water bottle to quench your thirst you had forgotten about, or just blink your eyes a few times, sight another object at a distance afar from your stationary position. Get your body moving; there is a huge price to pay if you let it stay in the same position beyond a safe time period. Don't trust me? Fine, go rediscover the beautiful science of Ergonomics.
What should be that safe period then? Nobody can be sure. It depends on the nature of your activity as well. If your task demands a few hours, even a few stretching actions might be enough to allow your blood circulation a better and greater efficiency. On the other hand, we both know about those jobs which can take almost entire day in the same spot. In that case, whether you would need 2 hours or 20 minutes between any two mini-recess breaks, will depend on your mood as well. I am sharing with you what I deeply believe to be a timeless truth, that won't change even if our flags differ... Your 'Mood' is the key to your endurance.
Do you like your daily routine? Of course, not all parts of it are awesome or thrilling fun! But come on, there is always one small thing at least, that all of us would find satisfying. In my case, I don't enjoy writing about everything. Despite of my best efforts, I have to admit that there are some disciplines and some activities which I like way more, than worrying about the tags, grammar, spellings or moderation. So, what about you?
Do you agree that our personal likes and dislikes can impact the chance of feeling the burnout? Or is it purely a consequence of the physical and psychological exhaustion? Exactly on what grounds, we forcefully impose such 'distinction' upon these studies!
Personally, I have found that the 'Phase 1 - Phase 2...' style approach really helpful. It is the classic idea; each tiny amount of any progress adds up in the end. Sometimes, such type of multiple phases make the work more extensive; and that may not be a bad thing. Chances are, your time management skills or to be more modern, your Priority Management skills will improve. In fact, the longer you spend exploring a single topic, the more you might grow. Isn't that's how any specialist or expert starts out.
You pick up a topic which really matters to you. And your interest in this topic will itself grant you an infinite endless supply of energy, ideas, patience and stamina. There will always be ups and downs; I am the least qualified homo sapiens human-being to saying this... I had started two blogs on WordPress ( .com, not .org ) to explain the User Interactions in my native language, especially keeping the senior citizens in the perspective. It didn't last long enough... my so called 'Passion'. In fact, if you check 'About Profile' from the top left menu; you should be able to see my another Blogger Blog... which has only 3 posts that are basically translation of my original Post in English.
Those three blogs from my earlier days are priceless to me. I am more aware what might happen if I neglected this Blog, or my YouTube Channel, or Instagram Creator Account for quite a while. This was my nonsense, what is your opinion about this? Come on, don't be shy; I was shy and that is exactly why, I can't grow fast. Put your experiences in the Comments Section. Or even better, why not start blog yourself?
As with everything in life, there is the risk of Perfectionism. While the march towards your goals is a slow but step-wise progress, each step needs to have an upper limit of time! Again, there is the risk of spending too much time on too small details. Perfectionism is not the only destroyer of the dreams either. Look who is talking. I might be a PhD in Hypocrisy. Let me assure you, chasing after the six sigma 99.73% quality 'control' is an insanity of mind. Not only your service or product won't fit in the consumer budget, but also storing or being unable to sell these outputs of yours, will cost you a great fortune.
I am all in favor of Step-by-Step Progress; but whenever a human absorbs any idea or method, without any warning signs... only the bad things happen. You can summarize this blog post as a promotion of relaxation, thinking before you act, breaking down the complex assignments into small achievable steps and being conscious about how much time all of this might take.
Steps and Phase-wise growth... I love them. You would benefit from them as well. Yes, there is another possibility in all this: you might become too slow in the eyes of the world. What we both would say about this?
See, unlike those who grew up literally with a linear thinking mind, not everyone is going to appreciate your work. Your steps or mini-projects are valuable only to you. If you compare yourself with others without accepting the differences in the aptitudes, culture or general SWOTs; only self-esteem will be dissolved in the acid of envy, insecurity and anxiety for tomorrow. Why am I so pessimistic about this idea? Why do I care to tell you about this? Because I have been there! I cannot lead you or anyone else; but I can equip you with the knowledge of my mistakes or ignorance.
Let's ask this question: who is going to spend their time for such comparisons? Answer - Someone who is not fast.
Going slow, or step-by-step, will blind you towards your own potential. For fast approach, you stay focused on a single objective and there is simply not enough time for getting distracted. In a slow-go approach, there is enough time for experimenting with various alternatives. This is actually strength of step-wise progress. There is a pretty good chance that you as well as I will find something quite interesting during those time-windows between the two steps. This being clarified, just like you can find interesting and productive ideas to enhance your original objective... you can find the unproductive but 'superficially interesting' ideas as well! Yes, I am seeing it as well. Red Flag. Sirens now sing, and your efforts start sinking.
I am not even sure why some books and articles are not being open about such possible downfalls. Especially when both of us have experienced mathematics at some point in our life, one would expect these publishers to be really assertive about the 'Disadvantages' section.
Finally, let's talk about the effect our 'Moods' on our productivity.
At least, the Constant Comparison, Perfectionism and Interesting-but-Unproductive ideas can be identified. What about that, which we both cannot detect, identify or rectify using logic alone?
Our emotions are huge puzzles. You might be already familiar with the social stigma attached to seeking the psychiatric assistance... within our communities. Somehow our strength or gender stereotypes related to the 'norms' for strength... all expect us to take tremendous pride in hiding our problems! Are you being uncomfortable with this mention? Here's a simple fact: Just like this machine, that we call a human body, can malfunction in many ways; the brain can malfunction as well. Nothing is wrong, unethical or shameful about it! Especially in this twenty first century, where all of us are always connected with the global noise, news channels and questionable topics of their choice... we are destined to neglect, ignore, suppress and avoid our own beautifully ugly inner voice.
My grandparents used to give an example of a pressure cooker, you know. There is a pressure built up over time, consisting of water vapours, that pushes the container walls away from the centre of the vessel. That pressure cooker can be this author, you or someone we care about. If you don't let it cool down or if you open it up just when it is extremely hot, your ceiling of roofing becomes a masterpiece of food art! Any pent up pressure will be released today or tomorrow, one way or the other. The same can be very much of a truth in case of our emotions, opinions, inner sustained traumas, or simply put - the bittersweet memories of our past; those ghosts of complex feelings which have the power to irreversibly change our behaviour and our interactions with the others. You already knew this, right?
Though our communities from the different parts of the world may embrace the stigma towards the Brain Mind Health assistance for the sake of protecting the superficial reputation based on the external indulgences; privately, almost each of us seeks some type of stress, anxiety and depression coping advice on the web. You simply ask the search engines, and get a plethora of studies, articles and 'hopefully reliable' news about the same.
As we have talked about the pressure cooker already, you can easily guess where this is going. It is all about pausing and slowing down. We both must have heard or read somewhere how the so called "Multi-tasking" or FoMO (Fear of Missing Out 'some important online updates') might result in the 'fragmentation of our Attention Spans'. Simple language: Our focus and memory abilities might decrease. So far, I can tell you that no statistics or analytics can ever be perfect; however, such studies and the resultant theories are supposed to warn us about the harmful potential only. Statistics is not about predicting the future with 99.73% accuracy; it is about trying to detect the long-term troubles in advance using the technology available in our time. That's why, I would still use the word 'might' in such type of statements which overly glorify or demonize something. You will benefit a lot, if you read more about the difference between a statistical correlation and the actual on-ground causation, that't verified only after simulations and in-situ (on site) experiments. You have the search engine; make time for it! Even news channels are getting confused about Correlation and Causation once in a while.
Such is our life; every solution of one problem might cause another problem. Ha ha. We humans, you and me, are experts in the art of making our life more complicated with our own two hands. Our intelligence will confuse us more, if we don't pause, think and harness wisdom. I wonder what real wisdom might look like.
Tip: PayPal
Written by Akshay KP
Tweets on @akp51v
Explore Other Posts on SummaryMaster51v Dark by Akp51v
Keep reading, keep writing. :)
← →
