It gets better

If you couldn't guess by my last/first two posts, it's been tough lately. Fortunately I think that I finally got my back aligned properly. The pain is gone and all that's left is some stiffness. More importantly, my emotions are starting to balance out. Thank goodness, because I was coming unglued. I think between the experimentation with my medications, the massive workloads I've been under, and the pain I've been feeling I was more than a little off-kilter.

Part of the reason that I started this blog was so that I could think things out in writing in a free-form way and get a better handle on what I'm feeling and why. As I go I put in the information that I think will be helpful to myself (and other INTPs) in the future.

Right now I'm feeling really pretty good. That's nice because I haven't felt "right" for a few weeks now. I have a simple action plan for the next few hours now that I'm "coming out of it". This is a technique I've used for a while and really seems to get me back on the right track.

The image at right is a sketchnote from one of my notebooks showing how I do this process. Essentially it is broken into four parts:

1. Gather everything. All the papers, notebooks, files, folders, notepads, post-it notes, print-outs of digital files, receipts, budget files. Everything. 
2. Stop the distractions and just look at it all in an effort to see patterns. As I think about it all I begin to make notes or draw mind maps of the structure.
3. Then I sort it all. The goal here is not to start doing work, it's to get everything in the right place. I am not doing something with the stuff, rather I'm doing something to the stuff so that it all makes sense.
4. At this point it's starting to cohere into a reasonable system. Now I can start actually doing something with the stuff. The last panel shows different ways to begin with each item. The goal is not just to have stuff, but to make that stuff work for me and what I want. 

That last sentence is really key to the whole thing. If I am going to really get rolling on a task or project then I have to be doing it because I want to do it. I have a very hard time moving forward if I am being forced or coerced to do something - even if I am the one "forcing" or "coercing" myself. In essence, I have to find a real and interesting reason to move forward. Otherwise I see right through it all, hate the task, and put it off forever. 

Next, I have to have a way of doing the item that helps me work in the most effective way for myself and my unique INTP personality type. That will come later, but for now it's all about processing all the "stuff" I have sitting around. Why am I going to do this? 

1. Because I want to get the emotional weight of it off my back.
2. Because there are important things that I can't start until I get this broken out.
3. Because if I don't get moving I'm going to be stuck here forever. 

And that #3 item there is enough to make me get moving. The first step is to "gather everything" and sort it into piles of stuff in general categories. It doesn't matter that each pile is internally disorganized. Just put all the stuff related to project A in a pile and all the things to research topic 134 in another pile, etc.

Okay, now my office is a disaster. :-) I have piles of stuff everywhere and each pile is its own category of "stuff" which is itself disorganized. That's okay.

At that point I can prioritize a bit and pick the one pile of stuff that I feel is the most important at this point in time. Now I will begin to really go through the above process for that pile. The sub-ideas in the sketchnote become really important and what do you know, now I'm actually working again!