July 1st, 2025
- #2tweet Basically I think I've fucked myself over by setting out to do what I feel like doing, and I start cleaning. After some amount of cleaning, I conclude this can't possibly be me doing what I feel like doing; this has got to be some sort of avoidant behavior. Then I inhibit my cleaning, and I don't know what to do.
But I think that actually, if my spaces are not clean, then I just want to clean them—that's like the thing I most feel like doing. The Flow checklists that I've been using recently (like this checklist for getting into flow states and working on stuff) have been really good. One of the things presented by the article that explains this checklist is "clean your desk." When I tried to follow what I remembered of the advice in the article without actually rereading it (I'd read it days earlier), I was like, "Cool, I'm gonna do a little ritual and then get into flow." But then I ended up cleaning my desk instead of working on the thing I set out to work on. Then I looked at the article, and it was like, "Yeah, one of the things on your pre-flow ritual checklist should be clean your desk." I was like, "Makes sense."
I think there's something funny to that where it's like you have a concept of what sorts of things you think you would do for fun, but like, no actually, if things are dirty you want them clean. And it's not just like, if it's a really nice day and your house is messy, maybe you just want to go for a walk and deal with it later. But yeah, so um yep.- Basically I think I've fucked myself over by setting out to do what I feel like doing, and I start cleaning. After some amount of cleaning, I conclude this can't possibly be me doing what I feel like doing; this has got to be some sort of avoidant behavior. Then I inhibit my cleaning, and I don't know what to do.
But I think that actually, if my spaces are not clean, then I just want to clean them—that's like the thing I most feel like doing. The Flow checklists that I've been using recently (like this checklist for getting into flow states and working on stuff) have been really good. One of the things presented by the article that explains this checklist is "clean your desk." When I tried to follow what I remembered of the advice in the article without actually rereading it (I'd read it days earlier), I was like, "Cool, I'm gonna do a little ritual and then get into flow." But then I ended up cleaning my desk instead of working on the thing I set out to work on. Then I looked at the article, and it was like, "Yeah, one of the things on your pre-flow ritual checklist should be clean your desk." I was like, "Makes sense."
I think there's something funny to that where it's like you have a concept of what sorts of things you think you would do for fun, but like, no actually, if things are dirty you want them clean. And it's not just like, if it's a really nice day and your house is messy, maybe you just want to go for a walk and deal with it later. But yeah, so um yep.