The Staring Contest
Open document, cursor blinking, four hours gone.
You know exactly how good it should be, and starting badly is unbearable
No second task gets done either. The hours simply leave
Nothing moves until the consequence is close enough to touch
Who you are
You do not avoid the task by doing other things. You sit directly in front of it, fully aware of it, producing nothing. The file is open. You are looking right at it. Nothing comes out, because everything that would come out is not good enough yet.
This is the most exhausting form of delay there is, and it gets the least sympathy. From outside it looks like sitting around. From inside you have been working the whole time — running versions, rejecting them, and paying the full emotional cost with no output to show.
Then the deadline arrives and you write it in one pass, and it is fine, and that is almost worse. All that proves is the four hours were not required. They were a tax the standard collected on the way in.
Write the worst possible version on purpose, out loud, in one go. You cannot edit a blank page but you can edit garbage.
You know it's you when…
- Four hours at the desk with nothing to show for them
- You wrote it in one pass once the time ran out
- Someone assumed you had been relaxing all afternoon
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