Or maybe that she is a he -- I've just described my husband.
Me? I'm mood-driven. I make lists and I get to the things that are on them, but I'm also likely to take a detour (or two) along the way. Is this a bad thing?
Not always. When I try to force myself to chip away at my to-do list, but am actually interested in doing something else, I tend to procrastinate and do neither. Consequently, I've learned that caving in and doing the task I want to be doing (within reason) while I have the energy to do it is sometimes a good call. Sometimes, this choice even gives me a wave of energy I can ride from the beginning of the task to its completion.
Score one for free flow.
Notice, please, that I'm comparing two tasks, like washing the dishes when I should be writing a blog post (okay, that's just procrastination) or cleaning out a drawer when I should be grading papers (too close to call). I'm not talking about binge-watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel when I should be doing something productive -- that's an entirely different post.
Right now, I'm in a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of week. I have a deadline for grading papers and calculating grades, and so I have no real option to go off-topic. (This, of course, only makes me want to go off-topic even more). At times like these, I often segment my day to get a sense of completion, breaking the day up into 30-60 minute segments in order to stay on task, assigning a task to each time block in order to get things done.
Score one for structured.
I've tried to be like this all the time -- to emulate my Type A organizer friends who follow the rules and check things off their lists, but it's just not my style. Though slipping from free-flow to structured and back again doesn't seem logical, it works for me. It gives me the best of both worlds, allowing me to tackle things when I'm in the right frame of mind to do them well and to put my nose to the grindstone when I need to.
And, in the end, isn't the point just to get things done?
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