You need rest whether you think you deserve it or not

This is crucial, I think. 

I was raised with a mentality of "if you're not done, you need to keep working on it until you are, and you can take a break when you're done". This is a very workaholic way of looking at things. 

The problem with this mentality is that it causes things to stretch to fill all the time you have available. If you say "I can't eat dinner until I've finished my homework", you might think that you gave yourself a super productive incentive to finish. But instead, you just guaranteed that you will complete your assignment very inefficiently. You will not finish it until 10 PM because of your declining energy, and then you will devour a bunch of crap from the vending machine. This is how I got fat in undergrad. Do NOT do this. 

Whereas if you stop at 6 no matter what and get dinner, then you'll have energy again. You will finish your assignment with sufficient time and you'll probably do better on it, too. I grew up feeling guilty about taking breaks or having fun. I don't want to do that anymore. It's how I've gotten so far behind on all the shows I want to watch and video games I want to play, etc. 

Also especially for us with ADHD -- this mentality actually is a factor in why I struggle so much with punctuality. I stay up too late doing X, so I wake up late, then I exercise late and get ready late...and then I arrive late. From now on, I will be combining my to-do items with timeboxes. I will do everything in my power to finish within those timeboxes -- but if I do not, tough. 

You need rest whether you think you deserve it or not. 

This means that you should be taking time off on a Friday night, even if your day felt unproductive. Why -- because your brain doesn't care about that, really. If your brain was working hard and you just didn't get as much done as you were hoping to regardless, tough. Your brain needs rest anyway. So take that rest. 

Cutoff times will be my bread and butter over the months to come. For the first time in my life, I hope that I can actually learn how to stick to a schedule consistently. Or at least better than what I have been doing. 

Can't be an artist if you don't keep fueling the fire with what made you yearn to be an artist in the first place. Hint, it wasn't working 24/7. Though working hard is necessary to an extent. But it was really those internet surfs where I stumbled upon amazing art that did it for me. 

Work hard, yes. But have a cutoff time. Tonight, mine is right now (8:10 PM). I have so much more things I need to do, but by pushing until 10 PM to finish more things, I will simply fizzle out. I went to work today, I got my car fixed, I walked and wrote and drew and read. And now I'm going to actually recreate a little bit. 

My timebox will probably be 9:30 PM. I want to be getting ready for bed by then, my Trello board sorted and PC booted off. But for now, time to get into some comfy clothes and just screw around online or play some games. Maybe watch a show or two. 

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