Drops, Mental Calculus, What Makes a Writer

"I think the main difference between a writer and a non-writer is that non-writers fear that their first draft is going to suck and thus they do not write, while writers know their first draft is going to suck and write it anyways."

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Oh man. It really is the final form boss battle of tidying up. Drop by drop. One day at a time. Even working half-days, there is so much to get done I find myself working straight through till bedtime and beyond. With breaks. So not straight-straight through. But just enough to keep me fresh so I can work more and work sustainably.

I'm conflicted about this cleaning and organizing I'm doing. On the one hand, it's not really top priority. On the other, having a clean and organized environment makes me work much more efficiently. I kind of think of it as an investment equation type thing:  I can invest 10 hours now, tidying, and will then work at 2X efficiency for the foreseeable future. Let's say a year. Or I can put that off, and work on my top priority things, at 0.5X efficiency. I'll get more important stuff done right now, but it will end up taking me 40 hours to do 10 hours of work.

Of course, in actuality the efficiency difference is likely less, maybe 1 to 1.5 or 1.3. And it's a calculus equation, because as the room gets cleaner, the efficiency slowly goes up.

But it get's more complicated, because in order to get the room past a certain surface level of clean, it needs to get messy for a while as I pull stuff out and thoroughly organize.

Good thing we can do calculus equivalent calculations in our head every time we catch a ball, or this would be tedious.

One day at a time.

“Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.” -Buddha, the Dharmapadha