Yesterday I didn’t write a work log, because I didn’t work. I woke up at 7am, tried to get work done, found myself distracted, so I had breakfast, did some chores, and had a two hour nap. I woke up at around lunch time, prepared lunch, and surprisingly felt myself sleepy again, so I slept another two hours. Then I woke up, had a snack, felt sleepy, and went to bed again, this time feeling guilty, but I thought I’ve been working like crazy during 45 days without rest, I deserve this and promptly went back to sleep for another two hours.
Then I went to the gym, shopped for groceries, and went to bed at my usual time, expecting everything to go back to normal today. But it didn’t happen as I expected, I found great trouble concentrating today. As I was working on code, I found myself looking at code written by someone much more lucid than I am today, and I could feel aversion towards working, procrastinating much more than usual and such.
I went to the gym to clear my mind, coming back from there I thought It’s time to look under the hood. I had a day like this before, and though the cause is quite different, I see that I overcame it simply through acceptance and putting myself at the right place (the library) at the right time (the morning).
It is now clear that avoiding the I in my work logs was an evasion of writing about a degrading mood. Since moving to this new home, the biggest change has been working from home much more, so tomorrow I’ll go to the library early and see how it goes from there. I also abandoned the feature driven development plan that worked for me at the time, so I’ll come back to it.
I’ve been going to the gym on a daily basis, but I think this is more a compensation of a degrading mood, thought it’s possible that physical fatigue might have an effect on my focus. I’ll just keep it in mind moving forward. I’ll be more consistent about my meditation practice. So, in summary for myself:
- Go to the library to work.
- Meditate.
- Register all experience as it comes out.
Edit later in the night: I went to bed early, and had troubled sleep with a dream about incompetence. I couldn’t put my mind to rest, so I meditated. Through breathing I was able to get into a state of deep relaxation, full acceptance, and quieting of the mind. I got up and worked 90 minutes in deep concentration. I felt it clearly: with a quiet mind nothing needs to be changed, if I work at the library it will be because I enjoy it, not because I want to focus more.
Only until I relaxed was I able to perceive how stressed I truly was, and how things truly are. The more I put myself in the middle of what I do, the more I obstruct what wants to come through. Less of me gives way to more of this.