Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Burnout from Overstudying: How do I decide I've done enough?

brutalmusic · 06-19-2009, 12:16 AM

funchy:

Boundaries have something to do with it, though for me it's fairly easy to say no to people -- it's saying no to myself that I haven't been doing. I want to do a huge long list of studying, and it's hard for me to figure out what stuff on my study list is good to do and what stuff just exhausts me needlessly. But I am getting better at that one.

I've been relabeling anything that actually earns me a grade (homework, papers, cramming for exams) studying, and all else is just a hobby called learning. Then I'm not allowed to play with my hobby and pretend that I'm actually accomplishing something beyond relaxation. I'm starting to see a difference in my mindset and behavior, in that I don't harass myself for neglecting to read things that I really didn't need to read, and I also attend to the studying first (instead of playing with the unnecessary reading first).

Here's something else I've stumbled upon, which looks quite valuable to someone like myself, who tends to trade sleep time for learning time... The Now Habit: Chapters 4 - 6. The author of the page, who is reviewing a book on procrastination, says "By scheduling all the non-work activities that you have you overcome the false notion that you have twenty-four hours a day to work on your projects."

Well, I disagree with the idea that I have twenty-four hours a day to work. I need at least four hours to sleep, you see. So the unschedule is my next idea for fixing this problem of disallowing myself down time. Maybe it's hard for me to decide how much work is enough, but I'm betting I can decide how much play time is enough.

06-19-2009, 12:16 AM	#20 (permalink)
brutalmusic Junior Member Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 6	funchy: Boundaries have something to do with it, though for me it's fairly easy to say no to people -- it's saying no to myself that I haven't been doing. I want to do a huge long list of studying, and it's hard for me to figure out what stuff on my study list is good to do and what stuff just exhausts me needlessly. But I am getting better at that one. I've been relabeling anything that actually earns me a grade (homework, papers, cramming for exams) studying, and all else is just a hobby called learning. Then I'm not allowed to play with my hobby and pretend that I'm actually accomplishing something beyond relaxation. I'm starting to see a difference in my mindset and behavior, in that I don't harass myself for neglecting to read things that I really didn't need to read, and I also attend to the studying first (instead of playing with the unnecessary reading first). Here's something else I've stumbled upon, which looks quite valuable to someone like myself, who tends to trade sleep time for learning time... The Now Habit: Chapters 4 - 6. The author of the page, who is reviewing a book on procrastination, says "By scheduling all the non-work activities that you have you overcome the false notion that you have twenty-four hours a day to work on your projects." Well, I disagree with the idea that I have twenty-four hours a day to work. I need at least four hours to sleep, you see. So the unschedule is my next idea for fixing this problem of disallowing myself down time. Maybe it's hard for me to decide how much work is enough, but I'm betting I can decide how much play time is enough.