Ambitions 3
I've been trying to become more focused for the last decade. It hasn't worked. That's one of the good things about being way overwhelmed at the moment, it's made me start to think about the structure of my ambitions more.
The areas that I want to focus on are: art, business, philosophy, health, romance, adventure, politics, and religion. Eight areas of focus isn't focus at all.
All of these areas aren't as important as each other though, especially at any given time. So, I think I might have found an organizational structure that allows me to hold them in my head in a reasonable way, so that I can assess if I'm applying the appropriate amount of attention, energy, and effort to the correct things. A three-tier system.
I tried to arrange these in a strict ordinal system, one to eight, a number of times. I've tried something like that many times over my life, but it's never worked. My priorities and values just move around too much. But, with a three-tier system I think I might be able to do it.
First tier - Art, Business, Philosophy
Second tier - Health, Romance, Adventure
Third tier - Politics, Religion, Other
Most of my attention and energy should be going to the first tier. Then, the second tier. And, only last, the third tier. That means that I can be doing all of these things at once, I just need to make sure that I'm not throwing more effort at the things of less importance. Notice that this is a value scale for me, and just me.
Now, for a short period of time things will shift. For instance, if your on an adventure then all of your effort will probably be focused on that for the duration. Or, for instance, with the current political struggle that I'm in I've focused a lot on that recently.
I think that things like this have to be managed by feel, with a feeling about the current level of satisfaction. Nope! That won't work. I just realized that I'm not satisfied with any of these areas. That just becomes a confused mess. It will have to be with the level of dissatisfaction.
There seems like there might be a possible question or series of questions that would guide this focus. Maybe something like, "What am I most dissatisfied with that I can change today?" Then, start from the top and work down, because that's the order of importance. If nothing's really that dissatisfying I might get all the way to the bottom.
For instance, right now I feel okay about art because I have an article of ideas I'll probably write today or tomorrow, and I'm working on editing the "Horror Without Borders" anthology, and the illustrator is working on the "Dungeon Buddies" comic book. I'm only slightly dissatisfied with art. So, I move over to business and I'm highly dissatisfied. I'm also highly dissatisfied with philosophy. Those should be the two priorities.
On the second tier I'm mildly dissatisfied with health. I'm feeling pretty good about romance. I'm lightly dissatisfied with adventure.
On the third tier, I'm doing a ton with politics right now, but that will be for a relatively short time. And, I'm not too worried about religion, although I think Theoconceptualism is headed in a good direction. I don't even know what's in "other" right now. Maybe it's rest and recreation.
That seems like it helps somewhat. Maybe. It's still quite muddled though. There's another system that has been helping from day to day that I made and have been using on a fairly regular basis. Maybe I can integrate the two. That's for another day though.
The areas that I want to focus on are: art, business, philosophy, health, romance, adventure, politics, and religion. Eight areas of focus isn't focus at all.
All of these areas aren't as important as each other though, especially at any given time. So, I think I might have found an organizational structure that allows me to hold them in my head in a reasonable way, so that I can assess if I'm applying the appropriate amount of attention, energy, and effort to the correct things. A three-tier system.
I tried to arrange these in a strict ordinal system, one to eight, a number of times. I've tried something like that many times over my life, but it's never worked. My priorities and values just move around too much. But, with a three-tier system I think I might be able to do it.
First tier - Art, Business, Philosophy
Second tier - Health, Romance, Adventure
Third tier - Politics, Religion, Other
Most of my attention and energy should be going to the first tier. Then, the second tier. And, only last, the third tier. That means that I can be doing all of these things at once, I just need to make sure that I'm not throwing more effort at the things of less importance. Notice that this is a value scale for me, and just me.
Now, for a short period of time things will shift. For instance, if your on an adventure then all of your effort will probably be focused on that for the duration. Or, for instance, with the current political struggle that I'm in I've focused a lot on that recently.
I think that things like this have to be managed by feel, with a feeling about the current level of satisfaction. Nope! That won't work. I just realized that I'm not satisfied with any of these areas. That just becomes a confused mess. It will have to be with the level of dissatisfaction.
There seems like there might be a possible question or series of questions that would guide this focus. Maybe something like, "What am I most dissatisfied with that I can change today?" Then, start from the top and work down, because that's the order of importance. If nothing's really that dissatisfying I might get all the way to the bottom.
For instance, right now I feel okay about art because I have an article of ideas I'll probably write today or tomorrow, and I'm working on editing the "Horror Without Borders" anthology, and the illustrator is working on the "Dungeon Buddies" comic book. I'm only slightly dissatisfied with art. So, I move over to business and I'm highly dissatisfied. I'm also highly dissatisfied with philosophy. Those should be the two priorities.
On the second tier I'm mildly dissatisfied with health. I'm feeling pretty good about romance. I'm lightly dissatisfied with adventure.
On the third tier, I'm doing a ton with politics right now, but that will be for a relatively short time. And, I'm not too worried about religion, although I think Theoconceptualism is headed in a good direction. I don't even know what's in "other" right now. Maybe it's rest and recreation.
That seems like it helps somewhat. Maybe. It's still quite muddled though. There's another system that has been helping from day to day that I made and have been using on a fairly regular basis. Maybe I can integrate the two. That's for another day though.
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You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com
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