For most of my life I thought - I am great on a crisis / hard problems, and performing well under pressure, bad at consistently doing small things without anyone looking.
Like all such self identification, it's a bullshit excuse.
Then I thought that I am just adrenaline driven. What excites me gets crushed. What just needs to get done sometime, doesn't.
(I am "high functioning" - manager in FAANG, multiple graduate degrees, father of 2)
Lately a coach helped me realize. What I don't have is a deliberate practice of giving myself time to sort out the urgent from important. Literally reserving uninterrupted time on the calendar to prioritize and think about what to do (vs, do)
The outcome is this allows me to get excited about things I would have previously been dreading.
Eg - "man, I gotta call X contractor to get a quote" is a drag. Giving myself a chance to reframe it like "I am really excited about upgrading our backyard so the kids can play there better. Calling X is the first step to that, can't wait to do it"
It changes it from annoying task to a part of an exciting project. Because if I wasn't excited about the project then the phone call isn't necessary anyway.
Becoming more religious and developing gratitude has helped.
Waking up every morning and recognizing that my children, wife, home, career are all an incredible gift. And all that work around them is a blessing too - to become a better person etc. Really changes your perspective. I am working on it!
As someone who is also manager as well, this last year i've allocated myself 30 minutes a week for myself to go through jira and notes from meetings throughout the week and really prioritize and scrutinize what's in motion and what's in the near term hopper and it has saved me countless hours of scrambling and rushing around to clarify things now that I have them clarified in my head every week.
I mention this because as someone who loves writing code and building solutions who migrated into management roles, this was the thing I would actively procrastinate doing in lieu of "fun" stuff like writing code and collaborating with the team on various problems. This may be more directed to developers who move into management, but the advice itself is good for everyone - dedicate time to organize, prioritize and really clarify to yourself what is going on - weekly/monthly/whatever your schedules look like.
Forcing myself to have time away from devices in general every single day and not do anything is very, very productive. I can use this time to think about whatever I want, and it often helps motivate me to get off my ass and be productive after I get tired of sitting there and feeling bored.
For most of my life I thought - I am great on a crisis / hard problems, and performing well under pressure, bad at consistently doing small things without anyone looking.
Like all such self identification, it's a bullshit excuse.
Then I thought that I am just adrenaline driven. What excites me gets crushed. What just needs to get done sometime, doesn't.
(I am "high functioning" - manager in FAANG, multiple graduate degrees, father of 2)
Lately a coach helped me realize. What I don't have is a deliberate practice of giving myself time to sort out the urgent from important. Literally reserving uninterrupted time on the calendar to prioritize and think about what to do (vs, do)
The outcome is this allows me to get excited about things I would have previously been dreading.
Eg - "man, I gotta call X contractor to get a quote" is a drag. Giving myself a chance to reframe it like "I am really excited about upgrading our backyard so the kids can play there better. Calling X is the first step to that, can't wait to do it"
It changes it from annoying task to a part of an exciting project. Because if I wasn't excited about the project then the phone call isn't necessary anyway.
Becoming more religious and developing gratitude has helped.
Waking up every morning and recognizing that my children, wife, home, career are all an incredible gift. And all that work around them is a blessing too - to become a better person etc. Really changes your perspective. I am working on it!