Only The Curious

I had nothing on my schedule today. NOTHING. No work, no events, no hanging out with friends. I don’t even have things in mind that I might do. Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 was a blank slate for me. I think it’s the emptiest day I’ve had since… the last summer vacation I had when I didn’t have a job. So like, 8th grade.

It’s weird. Usually I would try to fill a day like this. Seeing my empty calendar would normally inspire one of two feelings in me: panic at the nothingness and lack of people-interaction, or a manic-like need to get as much done as humanly possible in my empty time. Or, at least, I would normally try to take advantage – go on a big hike, go to the museum, do things I wouldn’t normally do during the week because I don’t have time.

But I didn’t. I spent 5 hours meticulously cleaning the house this morning, and now I’ve been writing and doing internet-y things all afternoon. I’m probably going to go work out after I finish this post. Then I might make dinner. Exciting stuff.

Part of me feels like I totally wasted a good day. A good SUMMER day at that. I feel guilty. Like it’s a bad thing that I didn’t go lie in the sun and read, or go see something new, or get a ton of freelance work done. I think because I have so often used housework as procrastination that when I get down to just doing some chores that need doing I still feel like I’m using that as an excuse for not working.

Maybe I am. But, then, I find a cluttered house really distracting. I struggle to sit down and focus when everything around me as a mess. Dealing with that doesn’t count as procrastination, does it? What about if it takes up half of a beautiful day?

I should add here that housecleaning, like exercising, is no quick task for me. It’s one of the few realms where my perfectionist tendencies are still allowed free reign. In the process of folding my clothes and putting them away, I’ll go through my closet and organize my clothes by type and then color. And then I’ll make sure all of my shirts are facing the same way. This morning I scrubbed the coffee grounds out of the grout in the kitchen, and reorganized the cabinets for maximum efficiency. Poor Karl won’t be able to find his cereal tomorrow. Oh, I re-arranged the contents of the freezer, too, so that all of the meat is in one part, the pizzas and breads in another, and frozen veggies in a third. They each have their own place. And now there’s more room in there. And nothing falls out when you open it.

Okay, so maybe I’m a little neurotic about keeping my environment tidy. I would love it if my house were always perfectly clean and organized, so I could always find things, entertain at the drop of a hat, and never feel like I need to spend an entire day cleaning instead of doing things that earn me money. Or are fun.

But being that level of tidy isn’t really in my nature. So I let it go until it stresses me out. Then I have a freakout day and go nuts getting it all cleaned again. Rinse, repeat.

According to the MBTI, we flip to the opposite of our preference when we get stressed out. So I guess, being an ENFP, that it makes sense. The P part of me is too busy having fun and winging it to worry about cleaning. But then it stresses me out and I flip to uber J and you find me bleaching the kitchen counters or scrubbing things with a toothbrush at 2am.

Speaking of, I’m pretty sure the putty is dry enough for me to go sand down the walls in the bathroom…

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I have a long and tangled history with over-commitment. Part of this comes from being what Barbara Sher calls a “scanner” – someone who has many interests and is constantly scanning the horizon for the next interesting thing. The other part of it comes from being an over-achiever, and feeling like I “should” participate in everything that I could, and do it all well.

I’m not going to go into great detail, because this post would be thousands of words long, but suffice it to say that I spent most of high school and college doing WAY too much. I may have had a good GPA and dozens of extracurricular activities on my resume, but I was also always sleep-deprived, prone to panic attacks, and in hindsight can say that I didn’t have nearly enough fun during those years. Eventually it caught up to me, and the wheels came off. I got too scattered, I lost a job and a boyfriend, I failed a class, and I realized that instead of accomplishing everything I wanted, I wasn’t actually accomplishing anything.

So I was forced to re-evaluate, and I came to the realization that I didn’t even WANT to be doing half of the stuff I was. And I was failing at the stuff I did want to do because I was spread so thin. So I quit everything and started to re-evaluate my life. Why was I doing all of this stuff? What exactly WAS I trying to accomplish? How do I avoid falling back into this trap in the future, as I have so many times before?

Avoiding over-commitment is important, particularly for we “scanners” and those whose MBTI types end with a “P.” Having a packed schedule can make us feel productive and important, and I’m no stranger to the adrenaline rush that comes with somehow pulling off everything in an insanely busy day. But there are a lot of problems with over commitment: stress, a lack of time for self-care, relationships and friendships can fall to the wayside, and ultimately it’s easy to lose direction and find yourself doing tons of things for no reason at all.

Over the past few years I’ve devised and honed several strategies for how to thoughtfully decide how and where to spend my time and energy, and I’m going to share them with you, one at a time, over the next several days, so stay tuned!

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My Mom is a Myers-Briggs person. By which I mean, she’s certified to give and analyze the Type Indicator test thingy. I don’t know what the official title for such a person is. But she is one. She’s really good at it, too. I’ve learned a lot about type and how to use it in relationships and professional life. It’s really helpful in figuring out how to communicate more effectively, to understand (and therefore avoid) conflict, and why there are some people in the world you just don’t click with.

MBTI helped me make sense of not getting that interview to be a tour guide I had been hoping for. All of the guides I worked with on the Texas trip had a couple of personality traits in common with one another. Ones that I don’t share. So when they said it wasn’t a “right fit,” that’s what they were talking about. Most corporations, companies, and organizations have a certain culture. Some want diversity of types so they have different perspectives. Others want homogeneous types, I guess so that they can expect the same thing of everyone and avoid conflict. Or something. Whatever their reason is, that particular company was looking for homogeneity, and I would’ve rocked their boat.

So I had my month of being bummed out about the fact that I would not be leading cycling tours of Italy this summer. And then I got back on the bike. Or horse. Or…whatever. I kicked through it and am back to figuring out what I’m doing next. Which has meant a lot of reflection and self-evaluation, because I’ve had a lot of periods in my life where I took a job just because, well, I needed a job. The funny thing is, I’ve tended to take jobs that don’t fit with my personality type. At all.

According to the MBTI, I’m an Extrovert, iNtuitive, Feeler, Perceiver. ENFP. Yep. Basically it means I love being around people and am good at communicating with them, I’m creative, I like variety and problem-solving, and I’m very in tune with others around me and concerned with their feelings. I like thinking about the future, about possibilities, and looking at the big-picture. Because of this, I LOVE starting new projects. But I need goals and deadlines, because without them I will just keep jumping from project to project, and may never finish any of them completely. And because I’m big-picture, I need to make a checklist for details, or else I will straight up forget a step, even if it’s a process I go through every day.

One of the keys to personality type is that it can help you figure out your “weaknesses.” But then you have to come up with ways to work with them. Which is why I hate deadlines, but I need them. And why I make lists and write things down, so I don’t forget anything.

A lot of the office jobs I have done in the past loved that I was good with people, great on the phone and jumping in on planning events and running meetings. But they got super annoyed with the errors I would make in, say, a financial report. (Numbers and I are NOT friends.) As I look at job postings right now, I keep seeing the phrase “attention to detail.” I have an ambivalent* relationship with it. I’m GREAT with details when I am, say, planning a party. I will make sure that the food and the music and every last decoration and all have a coordinated theme and it will be seamless. But when I’m doing rote office stuff? Yeah, not so much.

Why do I keep applying for office jobs? Because it’s what’s on my resume. It’s what I know. But I want to do something more than office management.

So I’ve been freelancing. I love that it’s interesting, full of variety, flexible, and I can do it from anywhere. But it can be really hard to motivate, and really easy to procrastinate. Or go start another project. So I need a boss to set deadlines and help me set goals and give me a reason to finish things. Also? I HATE being alone all day. Yes, I’ve gone and worked in coffee shops. Sure, there are people around me there. But I’m not interacting with any of them. So I need co-workers and clients, too. Ones that I go see in person and not just on email and gChat. Oh, and I need an office. Someplace to go. Because if I’m home all day, there’s a guitar, and a workout room, and food I can cook and things I can clean…

I think it’s going to really just come down to finding a balance for me. Either doing some freelancing and working somewhere part-time, or finding a normal day job that still has lots of variety and a little flexibility.

Do you have these struggles? Do you know someone who would like to hire someone like me? Do you need a massage? (’cuz I do that too.)

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*The word “ambivalent” is often mistaken to mean the same thing as “indifferent.” Ambivalence actually describes more of a love-hate relationship, where you’re always passionate about it, but sometimes in a positive way and sometimes in a negative way. English lesson over.

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