I’ve written elsewhere about how the biggest factor in my personal productivity is aversions, and skillfully engaging with aversions. It’s maybe not unsurprising that having an aversion to task is relevant to effectively executing on that task. But it is a bit more surprising that having an aversion to some task or consideration, makes it much much less likely that I’ll effectively execute on anything.
The key insight, I think, is engaging deeply in a task entails clearing some mental space.
Aversion to something increases my compulsiveness / distractibility. I’m more likely to take a bathroom break, or to make food for myself, or to rereard old blog posts on my phone (without jotting down my thoughts in the way that makes reading more productive / creative), or to go check twitter and then get stuck in the twitter loop.[1]
I think this is because I’m feeling some small constant pain, and part of me is compulsively seeking positive stimulation to distract from the pain. Basically holding an aversion makes me more reactive to stray thoughts and affordances of the environment. My immediate actions are driven by a (subtle, but nevertheless dominating) clawing, grasping, drive for positive sensation, instead of flowing from “my deep values”, my sense of what seems cool or alive.
Most, but not all, forms of creative work, involve making mental space, quieting those distractions so that I can give my full attention to the thing that I’m trying to do. The reason why aversions kill my productivity is that my compulsive stimulation-hunger is too graspy to settle down into any long-threaded thought. That part of me doesn’t want to be still, because it is seeking distraction from the sensation in me.
(The exception is some forms of work that “fit” this compulsiveness, where I can get sucked into compulsively doing some task as a way to distract from the sensation in my body. Sometimes an essay is of the right shape that it can be a hook in just the right way, but most of my work is not like this.)
Generally, when I notice an aversion, I’ll engage with it directly, either by sitting down and meditating, feeling into the sensation in a non semantic way, or by doing focusing / journaling, which is more of a semantic “dialogue”, or something that is a mix of both approaches.
In doing this, I’m first just trying to make space for the sensation, to feel it without distraction, while also being welcoming towards the part of me that is doing the dissociation, and secondly hoping to get more understanding and context, so that I can start planning and taking action regarding the underlying concern of the aversion.
[1] I found myself doing all of these except the last one today, all the while vaguely / liminally aware of the agitation clench in my belly, before I sat down to engage with it directly.
musings and rough drafts 