What to do, what to do

[outsidetheparty]

Two work projects have wrapped up much earlier than expected, and the guy running the third keeps talking about all the great things he wants me to do just as soon as he has the budget for it -- which leaves me with absolutely nothing to do, work-wise, for the time being. This is a state of affairs which I usually find exciting and even liberating, and I make all sorts of plans for the various self-directed projects I'm constantly wishing I had time and brain space to devote to, and now finally can actually sit down and do.

This state of affairs generally lasts about a week, after which I sink into a sluggish, bored torpor in which even rebooting the computer into Windows so I can play a videogame literally seems like too much effort to be worthwhile, and simple tasks like successfully navigating a hardware store and then screwing some shelf brackets to the wall count as a major accomplishment for the day.

I'm not sure if it's
a) left to my own devices I come up with too many different ideas of things to do, and dither so much between which one to get started on that I end up doing none of them; or
b) client requests act as creative constraints, getting me past the what-do-I-do-with-this-blank-page by giving me some parameters to work with; or
c) I'm intrinsically lazy, and need an externally-imposed deadline to force me to get off my ass and do something already.

Probably some combination of the three.

Does anybody else do this? How do you get past it? (My usual strategy is to become progressively more sluggish and self-critical until somebody offers me some work, at which point I start wishing I had free time to devote to my own projects again. Not ideal.)

Comments

[sylvantechie.livejournal.com]

And along these lines, would this then be a good time to try to recruit you to one of a couple of projects...?

[outsidetheparty.livejournal.com]

Heh, well I've blown the "can't, too busy" excuse, haven't I? :)