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polymathwannabe comments on Open thread, Apr. 18 - Apr. 24, 2016 - Less Wrong
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This past week gave me an example of my bipolar disorder in action.
A TV company announced they were open to story proposals. After a few weeks without ideas, I managed to come up with a story that sounded interesting to me. I spent the better part of a weekend at home writing the beginning of a plot outline, and felt extremely excited.
Then the week started and normal life resumed, and after the commute back home I didn't feel like writing anything. A few days later I deleted the folder I had created. I no longer saw any potential in it.
Part of the reason I did it was because I estimated I wouldn't make the deadline for submittal, but part of the reason I can't make the deadline is that I had already promised to prepare a lecture for the local atheist group next month.
Then a disturbing idea came to me. Why am I sacrificing big projects for the small ones? My dreams will come to nothing if I keep standing in my own way like this.
Now I want to know what to do with this revelation.
Three thoughts.
First, evaluate your broader activities, and see where you have the right balance of big projects and small ones. If you're unsatisfied with the balance, do more big projects.
Second, explore collaborations with others. You can often go further together with others, and it would help address the bipolar swings through others providing more stability during down swings. Of course, make sure the "other" in this case is pretty stable.
Third, create a trigger action plan of noticing when you're about to sacrifice projects. Stop and evaluate whether you're doing the right move for your long-term goals.
If you just deleted it it might still be in your trash can, ready to be brought back.
I always delete permanently. But every detail is still in my head.
I also delete permanently, but I back up with CrashPlan, so anything on my computer for a few days would be backed up automatically.
I've recovered small things occasionally using it, and one occasion even a 1TB hard drive that failed.
Oh well, that's rough. Still, at least since you remember it you can get it back up and on track again next weekend, if you want to.
Maybe because big projects mean big risk since 1) lots of effort might lead nowhere and 2) you don't have time to do other small risk small reward projects. Maybe your level of risk aversion fluctuates?