Tuesday 20 March 2018

My procrastination cycle (Or why I go absent for ages at a time)

As I'm sure none of you are surprised to hear, I have a big problem with procrastination. It's not just a problem of not getting things done. I could overcome that with determination. Rather, it's a problem where I put pressure on myself to get things done. And when they don't get done, I don't just say "Okay, I'll do them soon." Instead I say "Okay I'll do them soon and then do even more to make up for it." You can see how this might lead to some problems. Because when the time comes to do them again, now there's even more work to do, and so I extra don't want to try and deal with it. So I don't, and then I tell myself I have to make up for it EVEN MORE.

That's why a single missed update will usually start to snowball out of control. Because I want what I give to be worth the wait, but that's almost impossible to deliver. And the longer I put it off, the harder it becomes to deliver. So the longer I put it off because of the self-imposed pressure. This current absence isn't actually caused by that. But it's being made worse by it. Since moving, I've not been legally able to work. That includes self-employed work like Patreon. I could get Patreon money, but it'd have to be taxed in Australia, which is just...an ungodly hassle to work out. So the plan was simply to not update until I could work.

Good plan so far right? Except I told myself I'd put in work during that absence. And I have! Just...not nearly as much as I'd like. I've even scaled back my expectations and I'm still not working towards them. So now that I'm less than a month away from getting the work authorization, I don't have anything remotely resembling an update, let alone one worthy of the time I made everyone wait for it. And because of that...I continue to not update it because not updating means not having to deal with the problem right now. It's a rather vicious cycle all things considered. One that I would like to get better about.

That having been said, there was a comment on the last blog post I made saying they wanted to see my work resumed. I'm going to assume that's referring to Shield High specifically, however in case it doesn't, I am...actually working on other things. I've posted about them before, but there was no engagement and no sign of interest at the time, so I haven't really bothered giving updates on that. If I'm wrong there, and people are just interested in my work broadly rather than Shield High specifically, let me know, and I'll start posting updates on anything else I'm doing.

Anyway, that's just where the situation is at right now. I'm gonna try and pull myself out of this slump and get something going, but I'm not offering any promises. I've made that mistake enough times as it is.

Pudding Earl.

P.S. On a quick side tangent I do think about Shield High quite often. It's not like it's been forgotten, just neglected.