Day 522: Broke my streak :(
So I was sick again, what else is new
Last week Wednesday, I should have clued in to the fact something was wrong when I sat down in front of the computer and my brain felt fried even though I hadn’t gotten any work done yet. I thought it was just tiredness, and maybe half-laziness, but I decided to just get my 100 words done and then take the rest of the day off.
I felt a bit guilty, because if I’d been doing biology work, a fried brain wasn’t reason enough to take a sick day. But then again, I can do biology work with a tired brain—running an assay only requires a bit of concentration and isn’t very mentally taxing. Writing, on the other hand, requires full focus and brainpower or else it’ll turn into just an hour of me staring at the computer screen and getting nothing done.
But I had forgotten that I have to manage my low energy levels, even when I don’t necessarily feel pain from my IBS and headaches. In hindsight, I’m glad I took the day off because another sinus headache took me out that night, as well as on Thursday and Friday, and then I had a bad IBS flareup in the days after that. I only just started feeling better yesterday.
Writing streak
During the week, I broke my writing streak. I was just so tired one day that I completely forgot to do my 100 words. I think I was up to 25 or 26 days.
When I realized I broke my streak, I was SO DEPRESSED. I think it’s because my personality is very achievement-oriented, so in failing a goal, it made me feel very sad. I was really disappointed in myself for breaking the streak for such a dumb reason.
But then I remembered that the reason I forgot was because I was so tired, and that was directly related to my poor health. So I don’t think it was right to blame myself too much, because if I had been healthy, I don’t think I would have forgotten.
Which made me wonder if I should continue my writing streak or stop. I didn’t like feeling so depressed when I broke the streak.
I also didn’t like the little bit of stress every day when I had to make sure to write some new words in the book in order to keep up the streak. Since I’ve been trying to reduce my stress in order to better manage my IBS, even that little bit of stress, especially when I wasn’t feeling well, didn’t help me much.
Also, in general, when I only did 100 words a day while I was sick, those new words were not very good at all and I ended up editing them later. It made me feel like the time and energy spent on those 100 words was just wasted effort.
Another reason I wanted to not try to start up the streak again was because for most streaks, there’s some sort of reward for milestones, but I couldn’t think of anything I could use for milestones for myself. There’s nothing I particularly want to buy to treat myself with. The Bunpro.jp website gives badges to people when they make certain streak milestones, which is like a visual reminder of an accomplishment. But if I did that, I’d be making my own badges, which is actually more work for me, so that doesn’t make sense. I thought about food rewards such as allowing myself to order a buche de noel cake for Christmas, but unfortunately my IBS prevents me from eating a lot of the things I would use for food rewards (including the cake). So in essence, I don’t have any kind of reward or incentive to continue streaks.
On the other hand, when I was keeping up my streak, I did like how keeping my mind on the story, even when I didn’t get much work done on it, helped me get back into it more quickly when I felt better.
Yesterday, since I was feeling better, I did a bit of editing of the scene I had done via dictation, because it was really bothering me that it was all one long monologue. I didn’t like it at all and decided to completely rewrite it, although I did use some of the writing I’d done.
I realized that doing editing also serves to keep my mind in the story, as opposed to writing new words. Especially since the new words I write when I’m sick tend not to be very good anyway.
I was depressed about breaking the streak, but I decided to try it one more time, except this time I decided to count editing toward my streak. So I think I’ll set my minimum to be either to write 100 new words or to spend 5 minutes editing the book.
I’m still not sure if the streak will work for me. I think what I really need to do is maybe try to figure out what I could use for reward milestones. I’m out of ideas at the moment.
Editing my mess of a scene
I think I’ll continue editing the scene today, because I don’t think I’d be able to write new words until I know exactly how the scene unfolds. As it is, the scene is a mess and makes my brain feel cluttered just looking at it.
I’m still suffering a bit from IBS issues, so I’m not sure how much I’ll get done today, but I feel better than I have for several days.
***
I ended up getting a bit of work done. I didn’t work as many hours as I would have wanted, but I’m still not 100% so any amount of time is great in my book. I’m feeling kind of tired and achey, so I’ll stop here for now.
***
Writing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Total number of words: words
Writing: Overall writing speed: words/hour
Editing: Time spent: 55 minutes
Writing streak: 2 days
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 21 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: (forgot to set Toggl timer)
My takeaway for today: Not sure if the streak will work for me, but starting it again, this time including editing in addition to the writing.
Last week Wednesday, I should have clued in to the fact something was wrong when I sat down in front of the computer and my brain felt fried even though I hadn’t gotten any work done yet. I thought it was just tiredness, and maybe half-laziness, but I decided to just get my 100 words done and then take the rest of the day off.
I felt a bit guilty, because if I’d been doing biology work, a fried brain wasn’t reason enough to take a sick day. But then again, I can do biology work with a tired brain—running an assay only requires a bit of concentration and isn’t very mentally taxing. Writing, on the other hand, requires full focus and brainpower or else it’ll turn into just an hour of me staring at the computer screen and getting nothing done.
But I had forgotten that I have to manage my low energy levels, even when I don’t necessarily feel pain from my IBS and headaches. In hindsight, I’m glad I took the day off because another sinus headache took me out that night, as well as on Thursday and Friday, and then I had a bad IBS flareup in the days after that. I only just started feeling better yesterday.
Writing streak
During the week, I broke my writing streak. I was just so tired one day that I completely forgot to do my 100 words. I think I was up to 25 or 26 days.
When I realized I broke my streak, I was SO DEPRESSED. I think it’s because my personality is very achievement-oriented, so in failing a goal, it made me feel very sad. I was really disappointed in myself for breaking the streak for such a dumb reason.
But then I remembered that the reason I forgot was because I was so tired, and that was directly related to my poor health. So I don’t think it was right to blame myself too much, because if I had been healthy, I don’t think I would have forgotten.
Which made me wonder if I should continue my writing streak or stop. I didn’t like feeling so depressed when I broke the streak.
I also didn’t like the little bit of stress every day when I had to make sure to write some new words in the book in order to keep up the streak. Since I’ve been trying to reduce my stress in order to better manage my IBS, even that little bit of stress, especially when I wasn’t feeling well, didn’t help me much.
Also, in general, when I only did 100 words a day while I was sick, those new words were not very good at all and I ended up editing them later. It made me feel like the time and energy spent on those 100 words was just wasted effort.
Another reason I wanted to not try to start up the streak again was because for most streaks, there’s some sort of reward for milestones, but I couldn’t think of anything I could use for milestones for myself. There’s nothing I particularly want to buy to treat myself with. The Bunpro.jp website gives badges to people when they make certain streak milestones, which is like a visual reminder of an accomplishment. But if I did that, I’d be making my own badges, which is actually more work for me, so that doesn’t make sense. I thought about food rewards such as allowing myself to order a buche de noel cake for Christmas, but unfortunately my IBS prevents me from eating a lot of the things I would use for food rewards (including the cake). So in essence, I don’t have any kind of reward or incentive to continue streaks.
On the other hand, when I was keeping up my streak, I did like how keeping my mind on the story, even when I didn’t get much work done on it, helped me get back into it more quickly when I felt better.
Yesterday, since I was feeling better, I did a bit of editing of the scene I had done via dictation, because it was really bothering me that it was all one long monologue. I didn’t like it at all and decided to completely rewrite it, although I did use some of the writing I’d done.
I realized that doing editing also serves to keep my mind in the story, as opposed to writing new words. Especially since the new words I write when I’m sick tend not to be very good anyway.
I was depressed about breaking the streak, but I decided to try it one more time, except this time I decided to count editing toward my streak. So I think I’ll set my minimum to be either to write 100 new words or to spend 5 minutes editing the book.
I’m still not sure if the streak will work for me. I think what I really need to do is maybe try to figure out what I could use for reward milestones. I’m out of ideas at the moment.
Editing my mess of a scene
I think I’ll continue editing the scene today, because I don’t think I’d be able to write new words until I know exactly how the scene unfolds. As it is, the scene is a mess and makes my brain feel cluttered just looking at it.
I’m still suffering a bit from IBS issues, so I’m not sure how much I’ll get done today, but I feel better than I have for several days.
***
I ended up getting a bit of work done. I didn’t work as many hours as I would have wanted, but I’m still not 100% so any amount of time is great in my book. I’m feeling kind of tired and achey, so I’ll stop here for now.
***
Writing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Total number of words: words
Writing: Overall writing speed: words/hour
Editing: Time spent: 55 minutes
Writing streak: 2 days
Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 21 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: (forgot to set Toggl timer)
My takeaway for today: Not sure if the streak will work for me, but starting it again, this time including editing in addition to the writing.
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