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This week, my usual posts are suspended as I take part in the Your Turn Challenge. As a part of this challenge, those of us who participate are committing to a daily post for seven days, starting today January 19th to January 25. You can read the posts of other participants here. Why am I taking part? Because – I want to get unstuck.

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Yesterday was a very bad day productivity wise. The day started of great. But by about 10 a.m. I was caught right in the middle of my feelings.

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I didn’t feel like working. I felt guilty that I was not working because I had so much to do. I felt angry that I had to work and could not take it easy. I tried but failed miserably – to just do and not feel. Then to make myself feel better, I binge ate lots of not-so-good-stuff which made me feel even worse. And the entire day was gone in listening to the craziness of my feelings.

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Today, I was thinking about what went wrong yesterday, about how sometime sin the past I turn around such days and actually get my work done. So I decided to list the tactics I have collected from others and which I have used successfully in the past, which have worked for me use to circumvent this uselessness and procrastination caused by my feelings.

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To just ignore feelings is not an option for me. Some days I am successful in not listening to my feelings. But some other days, I fall for the same old game. Such days, when my will power is low, and my feelings are not pushing me in the right direction – those are the days these tactics are the most useful.

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So here are the tactics I use on good days:

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  1. \n

    Get my normal amount of sleep (8-9 hrs.) and wake up at my normal time (Yesterday I got up much earlier at 4.30 – I am building this new habit, and I got after 7.30 hours of interrupted sleep. Basically I woke up with 50% less will power than I generally do!)

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    2. \n
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    A predictable morning routine. Nothing more, nothing less than the usual morning routine (Yesterday, I had to write 3400 words in the morning, to make up for a lack of words / lesser number of words the previous days, plus penalties Doing this exhausted me and my will power, it seems).

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    3. \n
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    Set up my daily 5 stars – I have this habit of typing down the 5 most important things I need to do for the day, and when I do each thing, I give myself a star – a way to focus on the most important things to be done. (Yesterday, instead of writing it fresh, I just copied from the day before….Does not work. The act of retyping seems to be very powerful.)

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    When caught in the “I don’t want to do this” feeling loop, I generally tell myself “Just do it for 2 minutes. If you don’t want to do after that, you can quit”. ( I obviously didn’t do this yesterday).

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    5. \n
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    After 2 minutes, if I still don’t want to do it, I drink a glass of water, use the bathroom, and try again. Three tries, and if I don’t want to do it, then I can get up. (Nor did I do this yesterday)

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    6. \n
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    Get up and then go for a walk and drink water. A walk in the fresh air seems to clear my mind beautifully and air out my bad feelings. After that try again. (And not this either)

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    7. \n
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    Even after the walk, and the two minute tactic and a retry of the three times tactic, I can’t bring myself to work, then it is time to call it day and go do something fun.

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    8. \n
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(Yup, didn’t do this. Instead of letting go and doing something else, something fun, yesterday I wallowed in guilt and self pity and pretended to try to push through, and finally gave up and zombied to click bait on the internet))

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  1. Drink a lot of water that day. I feel like if I don’t drink enough water on a given day, my will power does not recharge to pull the following day! (Anyone else like this?)
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As you can tell, yesterday, if had paid attention, the start of the day would have told me what kind of a day I would have had, and that I would need to use all my tactics.

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The unfortunate part is, on the days I need them the most, I seem to forget all about these tactics. So I’m hoping, by writing this post, I have guidelines for the next time I need to use these tactics. And maybe it might help you who are reading this too.

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