Hi Dagnytaggart

I’m pleased that these articles have a user name because otherwise I might have been worried that I absent-mindedly wrote this myself after a bottle of red…

Having lived with the same feeling for (probably) at least twice as long as you, here’s how I deal with it.

The first shortcut I would offer is, forget the idea that this happens because you are not talented enough or intelligent enough. In fact, the reverse is true – because you are intelligent and talented, you try to take on too much. As you state, you are ambitious and create pressure for yourself because you can’t reach your own standards. You reach for the stars and feel a failure for only reaching the moon. Someone less intelligent would feel happy for reaching the top of the stairs.

So the chaos arises because there is so much going on in your head, and because you feel you should achieve more. As a result, you lose focus, and end up either overwhelmed and achieving nothing, or at best doing a little bit of everything but with little to show for it. The fact is that you are working hard, but not producing all you are capable of. Being told to work harder is like being told to struggle in quicksand – it makes things worse, not better.

The way I deal with it is firstly to write down everything that I need or want to do on a list. I know it sounds basic, but just getting it out of your head and onto paper saves an awful lot of “RAM” in the brain. The bible on doing this effectively is GTD by David Allen, but even just a single list is far better than nothing.

Then, the secret is focus. As you say, you manage to complete your assignments, because they take on huge importance as the due date looms and you have to. So tonight, from your list, select just one task as the thing that you really want to achieve tomorrow. Promise yourself that once that task is done, you will do something pleasurable (this is important). Then, tomorrow, focus on just that one task until it’s done. If you’re like me, you will try to procrastinate on it even then. Tell yourself that you will do it for 5 minutes and give yourself permission to stop then if you want (you won’t).

Do this daily, and you will find that you can build up to (maybe) 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) of the day. Don’t build this up too quickly, or be tempted to exceed this, as you will end up back where you started. You want a pattern of success, not failure. There is nothing to stop you doing another task once your MITs are done – you just don’t have to.

Will doing all this quieten down your creative mind? Probably not. But you will be more productive and a much greater proportion of the stuff that you think about will end up happening. And it will at least be the stuff that is most important to you. Will you reach the stars? Who knows? But you will be making your ideas real and not fantasy, and that benefits everyone.

Good luck!