Mañana
The 21st century human is, by nature, a lazy article. We have access to all the information that has ever existed at the touch of a button. We can order food, products and services straight to our door without ever leaving the house. It seems all we have to do these days is turn up, no effort needed. In an age where technology assists us so much in our day-to-day lives, it can be very easy and very tempting to take the foot off the pedal, to procrastinate, to become demotivated, to think ‘everything’s fine the way it is, and even if it’s not fine… meh’. Our parents and grandparents had none of that, no smartphones or computers, no central vacuum systems, no fancy kitchen appliances for spiralising or what have you; they just got shit done. And they didn’t complain about it either. Watching ‘Reeling in the Years’ and ‘The Way We Were’ with my parents these last few weeks has truly hammered it home for me how easy we have it nowadays in certain aspects of life and work. So why are we so allergic to getting up off our arses and actually doing bits? Bits we know are going to make our lives better in the long run? It’s not like we all have sheds to rake out, or turf to cut by hand. We're not talking literal back-breaking work here. Mañana means ‘in the indefinite future’. Well, folks, the future has never been more indefinite than it is now. So all bets are off.
As a former student of psychology, I could bore you to tears with various theories of motivation, but I’ll save that for another day. Right now, we need to assess motivation in the context of the world as it stands. COVID has us bate. It truly does. It has sucked the life blood out of us. Resolutions we made 12 months ago that we thought we’d get a decent shot at ended up falling to the wayside, so it is totally understandable that we couldn’t be bothered this year either, especially given that we don’t know how things will pan out. However, one thing COVID has taught me about time is that it will pass anyway. I could spend it being angry about all the things I should be doing, all the places I should be visiting, all the people I should be able to hang out with, 2-metre-rule or not (and in fairness, I did engage in a good bit of this moping, as did probably everyone else on the planet). Or, I could spend that same time doing something, anything, that is in some way productive. This can range from learning new recipes, to taking up running, to reading that book we said we’d get around to but never had the time. When I came back from Asia in August 2019, I said I would make a scrapbook of my travels. Long finger, meet scrapbook plan. It was only when lockdown was first introduced last March that I realised saying “I don’t have the time” was no longer a valid excuse for me. And what I had been subconsciously putting off on account of all the 'effort' I thought it would take ended up being a fun, challenging and engaging way to spend my time, especially when the 'summer holidays' hit in July.
For others, taking the time to stop all the running and racing is the challenge. My mother is a great one for 'not having time to sit down'. Whether it’s getting washes loaded and hung out, or doing the shopping, or the endless amount of work she puts in to perfecting the art of online teaching, the woman can’t NOT be moving and shaking. Her motivation and work ethic astound me. But it’s people who are constantly busy and don’t afford themselves the luxury of sitting and doing nothing that need that the most. There are days I wish my mother would give the webinars a break and download Candy Crush for herself or something, but alas, she is too up-the-walls. There’s a saying about meditation and busy people I came across in the last year or so and it applies here: “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you are too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.”
So as you can see, spending one’s time productively can take many forms. The idea is that the behaviour contributes in some positive way to your life or your goals. Are you tired of passing those framed photos in the hallway that need hanging up? Then grab the hammer and nails and hang the things. Will painting the kitchen a brighter colour give you that lift you need every time you walk through the door? Then get up and paint the place. Will curling up on the sofa in the evening with a blanket and cup of tea starting a new series fill you with pure unadulterated joy and excitement? Then do it and stop making yourself feel guilty about it.
As a compulsive list-maker, I get intrinsic joy out of crossing items off a to-do list, beaming at day’s end at all I achieved that day. Not everyone is like this, granted, but start small and work from there. To-do lists shouldn’t be flooded with tasks. Too many will lead to you feeling overwhelmed, and even if you achieve half of the items on the list, the half you didn’t get round to is staring you in the face calling you a loser. Keep it between 4-6 tasks depending on the context and away leat. The same goes for New Years’ Resolutions. Set a few, not loads, and pitch them just beyond your comfort zone. Not so easy that they are something you do already or do automatically, but not so difficult that it would take the motivation of a million people to get up and work towards achieving it. And if after a few weeks or months you just can’t sustain it anymore, that’s okay. The main thing is that we manage our daily lives without too much unnecessary stress mounting on us. The Duolingo Spanish course can wait.
I guess the moral of this blog post is to exercise motivation when it comes. Some people are just focusing on getting through the day or the week and that is completely fine given the circumstances in which we find ourselves. But if something is worth doing, no matter what it is, if it will benefit you or others in the long run, then stop putting it off and just get it done. The time is going to pass anyway. It would be nice to look back on it and say “well aren’t I glad I got those shelves put up in the end”.
As a former student of psychology, I could bore you to tears with various theories of motivation, but I’ll save that for another day. Right now, we need to assess motivation in the context of the world as it stands. COVID has us bate. It truly does. It has sucked the life blood out of us. Resolutions we made 12 months ago that we thought we’d get a decent shot at ended up falling to the wayside, so it is totally understandable that we couldn’t be bothered this year either, especially given that we don’t know how things will pan out. However, one thing COVID has taught me about time is that it will pass anyway. I could spend it being angry about all the things I should be doing, all the places I should be visiting, all the people I should be able to hang out with, 2-metre-rule or not (and in fairness, I did engage in a good bit of this moping, as did probably everyone else on the planet). Or, I could spend that same time doing something, anything, that is in some way productive. This can range from learning new recipes, to taking up running, to reading that book we said we’d get around to but never had the time. When I came back from Asia in August 2019, I said I would make a scrapbook of my travels. Long finger, meet scrapbook plan. It was only when lockdown was first introduced last March that I realised saying “I don’t have the time” was no longer a valid excuse for me. And what I had been subconsciously putting off on account of all the 'effort' I thought it would take ended up being a fun, challenging and engaging way to spend my time, especially when the 'summer holidays' hit in July.
For others, taking the time to stop all the running and racing is the challenge. My mother is a great one for 'not having time to sit down'. Whether it’s getting washes loaded and hung out, or doing the shopping, or the endless amount of work she puts in to perfecting the art of online teaching, the woman can’t NOT be moving and shaking. Her motivation and work ethic astound me. But it’s people who are constantly busy and don’t afford themselves the luxury of sitting and doing nothing that need that the most. There are days I wish my mother would give the webinars a break and download Candy Crush for herself or something, but alas, she is too up-the-walls. There’s a saying about meditation and busy people I came across in the last year or so and it applies here: “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you are too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.”
So as you can see, spending one’s time productively can take many forms. The idea is that the behaviour contributes in some positive way to your life or your goals. Are you tired of passing those framed photos in the hallway that need hanging up? Then grab the hammer and nails and hang the things. Will painting the kitchen a brighter colour give you that lift you need every time you walk through the door? Then get up and paint the place. Will curling up on the sofa in the evening with a blanket and cup of tea starting a new series fill you with pure unadulterated joy and excitement? Then do it and stop making yourself feel guilty about it.
As a compulsive list-maker, I get intrinsic joy out of crossing items off a to-do list, beaming at day’s end at all I achieved that day. Not everyone is like this, granted, but start small and work from there. To-do lists shouldn’t be flooded with tasks. Too many will lead to you feeling overwhelmed, and even if you achieve half of the items on the list, the half you didn’t get round to is staring you in the face calling you a loser. Keep it between 4-6 tasks depending on the context and away leat. The same goes for New Years’ Resolutions. Set a few, not loads, and pitch them just beyond your comfort zone. Not so easy that they are something you do already or do automatically, but not so difficult that it would take the motivation of a million people to get up and work towards achieving it. And if after a few weeks or months you just can’t sustain it anymore, that’s okay. The main thing is that we manage our daily lives without too much unnecessary stress mounting on us. The Duolingo Spanish course can wait.
I guess the moral of this blog post is to exercise motivation when it comes. Some people are just focusing on getting through the day or the week and that is completely fine given the circumstances in which we find ourselves. But if something is worth doing, no matter what it is, if it will benefit you or others in the long run, then stop putting it off and just get it done. The time is going to pass anyway. It would be nice to look back on it and say “well aren’t I glad I got those shelves put up in the end”.
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