I need a work-in-progress

I’ve come to a realization about myself. I am happier and more driven when I have a work-in-progress. And not just any work-in-progress—it has to be a “work” that I actually care about. School papers, for example, are work that I definitely do NOT give a shit about. Oh, I care about doing well on them, but aside from that, I don’t enjoy writing papers. Unless it’s on a topic that I am passionate about.

Web design projects—now that’s something I do enjoy. It often takes me awhile to really get started (I need lots of music and lots of good listening material), but once I’m going, I’m going. In the past, it used to be fiction writing (something I sadly don’t do much of these days).

When I have a work-in-progress, that’s all I think about. It becomes my main purpose in life. The sole reason I get up in the morning and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night. It rules my dreams. I’ll even sacrifice sleep to work on some projects. I’m suddenly unaware of anything else. I suddenly have endless energy. Little things that would normally distract me may as well not exist.

One important thing has to be present though to drive all of this intensity—a DUE DATE. If there’s no due date set in stone (that actually has consequences upon failure to meet it), then I’ll be less motivated to work on it. Instead, I’ll revert to my default mode of being—one that involves procrastination, spontaneous and direction-less mindless squandering of time. Nothing gets done.

Finally, when (if) the work-in-progress becomes a work-that-is-completed, I suddenly lose interest in it and don’t care about it as much as I did when I was actually working on it. That was the case when I was working on the redesign of open-orbit.com. Now that the design is essentially finished, I’m already bored with it a way. It’s no fun unless it’s under construction. The anticipation, the picture in my mind of what it will look like when it’s finished—that’s what’s exciting to me. In reality, once it IS finished I’m just bored. Ha.

I’m in the midst of reading for tomorrow’s archives class when this realization suddenly popped into my mind and I had to write it down.