My questions for those of you who work with your head (even for those who don't, but I guess my experience is mostly comparable with IT people, those doing office work,... )
1. How do you keep your everyday motivation up?
Honestly, the best way is to schedule things that I like to do outside of work, shortly after work. That puts a fire under my ass because my procrastination and ADD-type problems will often allow work to expand to fill the space available. If I cut down on that space, then I get things done faster.
2. Do your moodswings affect your work?
Yes! I get way less work done when I am hormonal right before my period because I get distracted by emotions. It's tough but I can't think of a way around it yet, other than perhaps going on hormonal birth control.
3. Have you feared that you are not good enough for this job? How do you manage anxiety?
I don't know that I've feared that I'm not good enough for it, but I definitely do beat myself up a TON if I ever make a mistake, especially if that mistake was made because I was rushing due to procrastination. Honestly (and this sounds weird) but I manage anxiety through the use of Wunderlist, with separate lists for short-, medium-, and long-term tasks.
If all my tasks for the day are in one place and I can actually see how much I need to do then a) I procrastinate less, and b) I have less of that swirling anxiety of "did I forget something" and trying to keep it all in my head.
4. How many hours a day do you actually manage to
concentrate, not just be at work?
Depending on the amount of urgent work I have to absolutely finish by today or tomorrow, anywhere from all day to about half. I am super guilty of putting off longer-term tasks when they are not yet urgent.
5. What do you need to be most productive
in the long run? (I don't want to be productive but stressed, so that I crash into depression afterwards.)
- Force myself to get my required 8 hours of sleep per night.
- Don't drink very much, if at all, during the week.
- Make sure I take some "me time" away from my partner in the evening to get my compulsive writing done, otherwise I end up doing it at work.
- Limit the number of relationships I'm having to as many as can be supported with minimal IMing during the workday (10-15 minutes total).
- Don't eat too much carbs during the day leading to being shaky before lunch (if they are eaten in the morning) or sluggish after lunch (if they are eaten at lunch).
- Bike to work: exercise wakes my brain up.
- Have music/podcasts on during tedious tasks so that my brain is half-occupied by it and therefore I am not tempted to click away from them.
6. How do you organize your workday? What's an effective break for you?
I usually allow myself little internet breaks to check Facebook or these forums, but if I am really jamming on something, I don't always do that. Sometimes I work through lunch if I'm super busy. TBH, a lot of times if I don't get my work done at work, I "trade off" by finishing it at home while Rider watches TV or plays music. Yes, I even procrastinate from fun things with work, too. I always want to be doing the opposite of what I should be, it seems.
7. What helps you being your own boss in time and project managemnt? (I have some work asighned, but it is also expected that I distribute my time between work and study, choose my own topics, acquire a broader overview in my subject...)
When I was in grad school and had to deal with this a lot, I usually would force myself to do the most urgent thing and then some pre-set chunk of a further away thing. I would also designate certain days of the week where I would not schedule anything fun or social so that they could be morning-till-night makeup days to cushion me if I'd failed at the first part.
8. Do you procrastinate the difficult subjects? Or is it rather the routine tasks that has to be done? Any tips there?
I procrastinate worst on the things I
dislike. Sometimes that may be the difficult thing, sometimes just the routine thing that I am sick of doing. When I am getting really bad about it, I ask myself, forcefully, in my head, "What are you afraid of? What are you dreading about this?" and then I listen to myself. And I respond based on what the answer is. If, as it often is, it's just pure laziness, I try to remind myself how much better I'll feel when it is done and the source of the dread is removed. If it's some other kind of thing, like I am afraid of the boredom of it, I'll negotiate with myself to break it up into chunks where I get a "reward" of doing something fun for a timed period to break up the monotony.
I hope this helps! It's a problem I haven't fully solved yet, but these are my jerry-rigged workarounds that work at least some of the time. Which is better than nothing...