I sometimes go through very unproductive phases. Phases where I’m procrastinating entire days away.

I’m delving into why I do this and what I can do to improve it.

First, I’m making a spreadsheet that divides an entire week into 15 minute periods, and filling in what I’m doing in each of those periods. I want to see how I’m actually spending my time right now.

In starting that exercise I’m aware of a feeling of anxiety at the prospect of the whole week being filled with productive tasks. So there’s definitely some resistance to being productive.

When I break down where that’s coming from, it’s something like:

• If I try, and succeed, then I’m threatening my identity. Who am I to be up high? And when will i fall?
• Whereas if I try, and fail, then I’m no good
• Logical conclusion: don’t try

Digging further, the resistance is specifically to tasks that I am worried on some level aren’t the “right” task to be working on? If a task is prescribed by someone else or is clearly a reasonable one (let’s say a customer experiences a bug, and I can see how to fix it) I can generally get on with that without resistance. So there’s something to unpack in fear of working on something that will turn out to not be the optimal thing (per my own definition, or others’?)