what is a good balance of exciting work vs boring work?

[Marund]

lately i feel kinda bored because i worked on nothing but everything i wanted to get out of the way.

writing is probably the most important thing i should be working on a little, helps me let off steam, finish ideas. but i haven't made myself do it in such a long time because i got distracted by other things i had on my plate; which seemed equally important. dont ask what i was thinking to make myself avoid writing; i dont even know.

my goals:
(for 3dfx modeling i want to learn)
advanced rigging
to texture environments in a certain way
more python language so i can program my own shaders
make animations <-- so terribly vague. but at the end of the day there's so much to do before i can even get there. welp fine.

i dont think about it. the weakly goals work mostly. i guess the most important things are rigging and texturing.

when i do nothing but gruntwork (loads of rigging all day or for a whole week) switching gears is tricky, since i've been running the left-brain so long.

back on-topic though; if you've found a way to get exciting stuff in and finished, for excitement/momentum's sake, how do YOU balance in grunt-work?

switching in and out of left-brained/right-brained mode?

all feedback is terribly terribly appreciated!

[Neobian]

One thing that worked for me, i never burden myself to learn more than 1 new thing at a time. Concentrate on one task and finish (or stop) it with a deadline and move to next.

If someone is paying you for that boring job and you cannt switch it for something else, then just do it out of gratitude..

[Jchappell]

I actually just wrote something about this. Rather than explain and rewrite the whole thing. The link in my signature goes to an article which might help you combine work and fun.

[Clint Cora]

I try to schedule in any grunt work for first thing in the morning while I'm fresh. I figure that I might be able to get things done faster. As for being stuck with a boring job, Gary Vaynerchuk said that in this day and age, there's no reason why anybody should have to wake up Monday morning and go to a job he or she hates. You can start training for a better job while you are working on one you hate. Then in time, you will be in a position to make a move. But the decision to take action towards such a goal is up to you.