Snow Melt

War Chest Wednesday: Planning an Escape from Frustration

The May 22, 2013 prompt for "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  is
Describe your ultimate escape plan in great detail. (escape from jail, school, work, etc…)

Today the only thing I want to escape from is frustration. I think the reason I'm frustrated is that I'm practicing insanity. I've been doing the "same thing" in the same way "over and over again" and assuming the results would be different. How do I plan my escape from frustration? I suppose the first step is to list the things that frustrate me. This is a long list, so I think I'll take the main item that frustrates me and leave the rest for later. Perhaps if I deal with the main item, the rest will fall into place.

The main issues that frustrates me is the inability to consistently achieve my word count goal. Since I can't seem to achieve the goal on a consistent basis I need ti figure out why. I've came up with three things that appear to be the root of the issues. First, lack of concentration; I can concentrate on a story, poem, or blog entry for ten or fifteen minutes before my mind starts to wander. Second, time wasters; when my mind begins to wander then I get the urge to play Mahjony, Pyramid, Spider, or Open Cell Solitaire. Once I begin playing one of these games then I'm obsessed with continuing the game until I win. Third, worry and other things that have an affects my concentration.

There was a time when I didn't have a problem with concentration. Of course, I had a proper morning schedule, but that was when I had a job outside the house. At that time, I would get up, shower, eat breakfast, and get ready to go to work. Since I no longer have to be anywhere special during the week or on the weekends, I let the morning schedule slide and wait until later in the day. I'm changing that and going back to the morning schedule I had when I worked outside the house.

The next issue is the ten to fifteen minutes concentration time before my mind starts to wander. I have an oven timer that I can set for up to an hour at at time. Therefore, when I sit down to write I will set the timer to ten or fifteen minutes, write until the timer goes off, and then get up to do something else. I don't have to play games when my mind starts to wander, I can do housework, read the paper, or do something else. I would like to know exactly how long I can go without playing a game on the computer.

Next are the other things that affect my concentration. Those I'll have to deal with on an individual basis. I have to stop playing the insanity game and do things different then I have the past few months or years. This plan should help me escape from frustration and accomplish my goals. One more thing I have to do is not do a word count on any thing until after 9:00 PM, this will encourage me to write during the day without worrying about how many more words I have to write.

Thought of the Day: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein