30 Day Trial - Erasing The Barriers Between "Work" and "Play"

[Matt Willard]

After I finished my last trial in an effort to regain the habit of productivity, I was disappointed that staying on task wasn't as easy as it could be. I was still forcing myself to get started on work and dredge through certain things. It wasn't really the fulfilling workday I had set out to create.

So when I created my "vibrational to-do list" for achieving my goal of becoming a successful freelance writer, I realized that the idea vibe would mean that I wasn't filled with resentment for having to work. In fact, I would feel like the boundaries between "work" and "play" would have been shattered, creating something fulfilling and full of worthy accomplishments. With that in mind, I set up this new trial.

Thus, from Saturday, April 2nd to Sunday, May 1st, I'll be embarking on a trial to eliminate the barriers between work and play. Each day is planned to be highly fulfilling, cutting back on passive activities like surfing the internet, and instead filling them with enjoyable work and motivational boosters to keep my mood in the right place. I intend to set out and eliminate the belief that work and play have to be seperate, creating a kind of work that I look forward to every day.

I'll also be doing this over the course of two months. For the first month, I'll follow my current plan. After that month, I'll see what needs improving and fix it as I go through the second month. This should help create a more durable habit, as well as thoroughly test the preparations I've made to create a cohesive mix of productivity and fulfillment.

It all starts on Saturday, so wish me luck.

[Mynder]

"What would make me happy right now?" - Answering this question truthfully whenever you feel "in a bind", unmotivated, when you feel as if you're pressuring yourself to work, can lead to more clarity on what it is that makes you happy. Write it down, then do it.

After a week or two, review the things you wrote down, and see if there are things that show up frequently.

[Hampshire Girl]

Good luck Matt, I'll be interested to follow your progress on this one. It's an area I've been consciously working at for a long time.

One of the easiest and effective things I've done recently is to stop only using my work diary for work. Sounds crazy but it works! I add all my social activities and things I need to remember to do in a different colour and it helps keep the day more balanced and me in perspective. Managing everything in one place really helped me get organised and enabled me to weave in more pleasurable activities during the day.

[Matt Willard]

Originally Posted by Mynder

"What would make me happy right now?" - Answering this question truthfully whenever you feel "in a bind", unmotivated, when you feel as if you're pressuring yourself to work, can lead to more clarity on what it is that makes you happy. Write it down, then do it.

After a week or two, review the things you wrote down, and see if there are things that show up frequently.

Yes, this is a question I intend to be asking myself a lot - "what would make me happy/fulfilled right now?" Fulfillment is definitely going to be a key part of making this work. I'll definitely look back after I've used this journal for a bit and look for common trends.

Originally Posted by Hampshire Girl

Good luck Matt, I'll be interested to follow your progress on this one. It's an area I've been consciously working at for a long time.

One of the easiest and effective things I've done recently is to stop only using my work diary for work. Sounds crazy but it works! I add all my social activities and things I need to remember to do in a different colour and it helps keep the day more balanced and me in perspective. Managing everything in one place really helped me get organised and enabled me to weave in more pleasurable activities during the day.

I'm using Superfocus for this trial, which kinda works like that. Since it's heavily based on doing what you feel like doing at the moment, I thought it'd be a perfect fit to manage value-creating activities and personal fulfillment activities at the same time, all on one list. I did it a bit in my previous trial, but now I want to stretch it out to the whole day, instead of dividing one part of the day for work and the other for recreation.

[Porphyos]

Good luck Matt! Hope it all works out well for you.

[Matt Willard]

DAY ONE

An interesting first day. While I wasn't naturally jumping the gun to do writing and networking stuff, when I thought about them in terms of what I wanted, I got more hyped up and motivated to do them. It's only day one, of course, and the belief I'm trying to deconstruct is still strong, but perhaps what I should do is remind myself what's really pleasurable about these activities. I mean, I'm aiming to balance these activites and recreational stuff like video games, but I need to treat them all as fun, pleasurable stuff.

Day's not over yet, though - it's 8 PM over here, and I intend to go to at least 11 doing pleasurable, fulfilling stuff.

What makes me happy: I love laughing while I write, and it felt good to share something as part of a networking effort rather than try to snag favors as I used to do before. Intriguing.

[Matt Willard]

DAY TWO

At the beginning of the day, I was feeling resistance because I felt like I "should" have started by working on some writing. However, I then realized this was that "natural rhythm" thing I prepared for, and decided to fully accept my current thought. Asking myself "what do I want to do right now", I spent the first part of the day transitioning back and forth between recreation, reading motivational material, writing, and networking. I'm proud to say I sent out requests for informational interviews with three high-end people in my target clientele, and it was thanks to thinking about it going awesomely that I was able to do it.

Now, around five I started to slow, mostly because I normally quit for the day at five back when I was doing my "workday", so I backed off for a bit, jumped online to check forums, ate food. But now it's around 9:30, and like yesterday night, I'm concerned that I won't want to get any writing done around this time. Also, I've noticed that I'm spending more time online in the afternoon even though I'm working to cut back. I guess now is even more of a case of trusting myself about what I really want to do...just as long as it's not something passive like using the internet.

All right, I'll finish this up and do what I want to do next - motivational reading. We'll see where that takes me.

[Matt Willard]

DAY THREE

Got hit by some big fatigue today -proving once again that I should take chill showers and eat light to stay focused - so I decided to yield to my natural rhythms and get all my messing around out of the way. Did figure out that visualization should revolve around imagination using all the senses, though, and I got some good motivational reading done.

After dinner with family, I got back and, even though I got a bit of writing done (thought about writing to entertain others and the satisfaction of a job well done to get me rolling) I still find myself dropping back on the Internet a lot. I definitely need to make it tougher to get on, and to tie it to an external physical trigger. Maybe, when the urge hits me, I can simply take note of it in a list, and empty that list once or twice a day. I know it's easier and more natural for me to write and connect during the day, but this is something I want to be able to do at all hours as effortlessly as possible. It will take some thought.

[Matt Willard]

DAY FOUR

I think so far my problem has been my inability to stick to my to-do list. I like doing things based on what I feel like doing at the moment, but organization is key otherwise I'd flit all over the place. (It doesn't help that I got into a really interesting conversation online again. I tend to do an online break around 5 PM and that probably is the thing throwing off my evening.) Tomorrow I want to make a more solid effort to stick to my Superfocus list, as well as find a better way to stay off the internet and keep that motivation to use the list.

Other than that, I took care of some commentary work and got a reply back from the info interview request I sent out, so I'm pleased about that. I also deduced how to more properly do visualization to get an emotional feeling that I want across, so that's a victory.

[Matt Willard]

DAY FIVE

My plan to stay unplugged and use my list more worked great - I wrote quite a bit today by keeping in mind A) the enjoyable feeling of writing great stuff and B) the enjoyable feeling of a well-made end result. I wanted to find a gig to pitch to, however, but again I felt uneasy because I didn't have the portfolio ammo I wanted. In the past I was advised to not work pro bono in order to get the samples I needed, so I'm not sure if I should do that now. For now I've decided to keep making portfolio material and see if I can heavily repurpose any past work for the new portfolio...though, since I kinda am anxious to get some paying work, I'll gather that and apply to what I can, and at least use my stuff to try and get work in the fields I want to reach.

Got some feedback from a connection I made, though, which I am quite pleased about.

Otherwise, at this point, I believe I need to work on my energy levels more before I'm really comfortable working on writing late at night. But that's a trial for another day.

[Matt Willard]

DAY SIX

Weeee, screwing around all day~

A lengthy roleplaying game campaign online took a large chunk of the day, and a warm shower also killed my ability to produce. Gotta work on that. Tomorrow I definitely want to get some good stuff done, so when I go visit family on Saturday, I'll feel better about it.

Also got an email back from a connection I tried to reach out to. Just an ad for one of his workshops. How exceedingly dickish of him

[Matt Willard]

DAY SEVEN

Being emotionally motivated to do things is one matter, but actually having the energy to do them is another. When it comes to creative matters, it feels like I burn out too quickly. To solve that end, I'm looking into ways to introduce some energy-boosting exercise into my schedule. Of course, it has to be fun for me, but I also want the energy increase to be able to do the other fun stuff.

Day's not over yet, but I've mostly done some writing on projects, did some brainstorming, and continued to read important things. While musing over how to create more flow in my writing, I further realized how I need to treat it as a creative, recreational project in order to decrease my resistance to doing them. It's clear that, once I get into it, it's enjoyable, further proving to me that work and play don't have to be as seperate as I've made them. Really, at this point I'd probably chalk up that resistance to the lack of energy I have when handling these projects.

[Matt Willard]

DAY EIGHT - DAY TEN

Had a very nice out-of-town visit to family. Really helped me recharge. Even though I want to eliminate the barriers between work and play, going forth on a goal like the one I want to accomplish can be tiring in its own right. Anyway, back to business tomorrow.

[Matt Willard]

DAY ELEVEN

Mmmm, another bust. It was less in terms of doing what I wanted and more of getting so sidetracked that I didn't really attend to anything. I'll try again tomorrow, since I don't have any online commitments, and tonight I'll go back to more visualization and motivational reading. (Was rather tired when I tried it earlier today for some reason.)

[Matt Willard]

DAY TWELVE

All right, I'm calling it. It's been real tough to get back into it, and I've run into a bevy of other problems. Keeping them in mind, I'll rework the plan and try again at a later date.