Jason Murphy

Brain Waves Suck (Damn You, Apathy!)

Jun 7, 2006 Blog General

It seems that I have productivity cycles spanning 3-4 months at a time. I’ll be at a peak of productivity, completing lots of writing projects and uncompleted tasks, for three or four months. Then I’ll burn out. Hard. I’ll want nothing to do with writing or creating content, building sites, promoting pages, or even making money. I’ll stay in this cycle for a couple of months. I’m in that cycle now. Sad part is, whenever I’m away from my desk I can come up with many reasons of what I could be doing if I were at my desk. Then, once I do sit back down at the computer, I blank out and lose an hour by means of a staring contest with my monitor.

I’ve heard about blogger burnout before and I think this goes beyond it. Information Workers Burnout perhaps? Maybe what I’m experiencing is a result of having the same hobby as my profession. Seems to make sense to me. I’m not experiencing enough “breaks” to remain satisfied with my works. I love online marketing and diving into social networks to see how I can break/use the system. But when I do it all day long I can lose perspective quickly.

I also noticed I’m watching a lot more TV. I justify TV time as “brainless entertainment” and that I need it. I need the “break”. I’ll schedule a TV show (like LOST) with as much priority as I would a conference call with a client, even though I have a DVR and recorded [insert almost any hit show here] each week (just in case). I don’t know when I’ll realize that all I’m doing is having another staring contest with yet another glowing screen.

I have too much information coming in and too little going out. I started writing this post just because I couldn’t think about what subject to write about. And I didn’t even really care if my site was updated. I just decided to force myself to start writing. Any creative output is a good thing at this point. And if I can use this as an excercise, I will probably find that I can write two or three pieces of content for all my sites. I know when I write, I usually write in groups of content instead of one single post. Any writing session I have creates a lot more output than originally planned. Thus, the force. I’m watching over my own shoulder making sure this set amount of writing time gets done. I’m my own micromanager. Brilliant!

I know what my problem is. I lack balance. I work with information all day long. Then for entertainment, I seek more information. I’m in a vicious cycle. I did get to the lake a few weekends ago, and take my dog on walks frequently. But, I’m calling for more time at the gym and on the courts or in the pool. More time away from my desk and the TV. And on a daily basis. Doing a quick retreat once or twice to get it out of my system won’t work. I need balance on a regular basis or I’ll keep cycling. I’ll be trying to keep a schedule (and not just dream of one). Maybe I can knock this apathy out of me just yet.

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