It’s 12:30 am on a Saturday night (Sunday morning) and here I am typing on my laptop. I am trying to write. I forget how to. It’s pretty tough.
I spent the day trying to deploy the latest web app I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. It was as I expected – disaster. You know that law, Murphy’s. Damn you. It was the command line tool that I was supposed to install not installing. Then it was the bundle tool not working with the extremely useful error message…. “Error”. Then it was git acting up. Then the virtual instance. Then the internet connection. Shoot me now.
I’ve been trying to chunk my time. Four hours for some deep work. An hour to read. A half hour nap. An hour to write. And so on. It’s hard when shit doesn’t work. When things break and go bad. It’s hard to get into the habits when all I feel like doing is taking a sledge hammer to my computer. So I tinker, wait for the computer terminal to spit back some venomous error, and I tinker again. Rinse. Repeat. Next thing I know 6 hours have passed and I haven’t eaten. I haven’t progressed much, either. More time passes. More tinkering. More suckage. Screw it. White flag. Live to see another day. And now I’m here, trying to salvage my day.
I’ve been doing alright for the most part for the past 6 months. I’d give myself a B. I start the day strong, but post dinner I don’t have much juice left in me to write. I don’t have much juice to do anything. Not tired enough to sleep, too tired to think. Wah, I don’t want to do this. Everything is telling me to stop. Then I just start. And bam, here I am.
Damn, I’m at 300 words already. Then I remember how the pros do it. They just do. Screw motivation, they just do it. Then I remember how I am supposed to do it. Screw motivation, just do it already. It’s that simple. Simple, yes. Easy, hell no. But that’s why the pros are pros and the amateurs are not. Do I want to be an amateur or a pro? I know my answer. What’s yours?
Hey, what do you know. I have words, real words. Not bad. I’ll do this again tomorrow. Because I know habits take time. And consistency. I know processes and systems are better than willpower. But willpower can be strengthened anyway. Pros know this. Then they do it, even when they don’t want to. Need some sleep. Got to recover from the day’s beating. Tomorrow, I put on the gloves and get back in the ring. Rinse. Repeat.