Let me preface this post by stating that I’m not complaining. I love writing. I love to play with words, to mold them like clay to create a mood or a feeling, to make my readers think or dream. I think words are powerful and hold endless possibilities. But at the moment I feel like I’m in the middle of a sea of words and swimming hard to stay afloat.
It’s a problem of my own creation. And “problem” isn’t really the best word. It’s just that I have put myself in the position of having several projects going at the same time and it’s somewhat overwhelming. For many years I preferred to work on one project at a time. Projects would overlap, but I was very compartmentalized about it all. Work on one project for a few days, then set is aside and pick up another one. After a few more days, move on to another one. Then eventually come back around to the first one. Round and round we go.
Thing is, it wasn’t exactly productive. I made progress on the individual projects, but it was slow going. There were many occasions when I felt as if I wasn’t actually completing anything. So recently I decided the hell with that and threw myself into the deep end of the pool. Now I’m working on multiple projects at the same time, jumping from one to another throughout the course of the day. Extreme Multi-Tasking. Sounds like an Olympic event.
Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m not unhappy about it. It’s a problem of my own making. And really, it’s fun. In a masochistic sort of way.
To give you an example, on any given day I’m: Writing in my personal journal, writing a blog post, working on a short story (one of many in progress), working on my novel, and/or writing outlines for my podcast. Then there’s actually the recording process for the podcast, and editing, and the posting process. Keep in mind this doesn’t include my day job managing a government website, keeping up with things around the house, and maintaining relationships with my partner and friends.
There aren’t enough hours in the day.
But it’s all good. It’s challenging. It’s fun (in that “stop hitting yourself” sort of way), and it’s productive. I know, that sounds counterintuitive, but I find that it’s working for me. I’m getting a lot accomplished. The only thing that’s really suffered is the amount of time I spend on social media. Although, is that really a bad thing? Seriously, I found that trying to interact and respond to every single person on social media is more overwhelming than juggling multiple projects.
Too many projects is a good thing. It keeps me out of trouble.
RB