I spent the past year struggling to be an online graduate student and part-time worker on a flexible schedule, while being self-directed (or at least trying to be) in almost every aspect of my life. This has been admittedly harder than I imagined. With no one to give me lists of tasks to do or evaluate my performance, I didn’t have the fear of failure and living up to someone’s expectations to keep me productive (though admittedly this is not the healthiest motivation anyway). During this time, I was also dealing with a chronic health issue that left me fatigued even after getting a full night’s sleep. So, my tired self had to completely plan and attempt to complete each day’s workout, coursework, work hours, medical appointments, and applications to jobs or other graduate programs. As much as I loved the flexibility, it came with a ton of decision fatigue. The only decision I wanted to make was to sleep all day.
Eventually, I became so drained that even the idea of opening my laptop made me want to curl up and hide away. I wasn’t quite depressed, but it was hard to feel like any of these activities were really meaningful or worth doing. I tried scaring myself into working (“if you don’t get this assignment done you’ll fail and never get a good job!”), which didn’t work and only made me feel more paralyzed. I tried listening to productivity gurus who suggested that I multitask and see every free moment I might have working on something (stuck in a line? Take out the flashcards and study!). This only led to a discovery that I cannot multitask, and I’d be drained after one day of attempting this lifestyle. It was an endless exhausting cycle of spending an entire day working myself to the bone, then the next day recovering mentally. It wasn’t sustainable. I thought that maybe I was just hopelessly broken and lazy. But this didn’t feel right either– I was never a lazy person all my life and, in fact, I knew I love to learn and work! I could spend days working on an art project if I felt that special spark.
That’s when I realized I was missing something. That spark. But what exactly was this spark? That spark when I was working on a sewing project, where each minute I saw tangible progress…It was exciting! Pieces of cloth come together and start to take the shape of a beautiful, wearable pair of pants. It feels like this is how we were evolved to work: with the tangible, more frequent reward of a sense of progress. I had the feeling this is why any person could spend hours into the night developing completing frustrating, but rewarding tasks in video games, yet couldn’t spend a minute needed to schedule an appointment or crack open a textbook.
Activities like video games, sports, and crocheting are more immediately satisfying– the “plunk!” when you level up, the feeling of kicking the soccer ball with force, and the soft loops of yarn building and building. Many of the activities I was struggling to do– homework, studying, and working on long projects with unclear rewards– were not quite giving me that immediate satisfaction. I don’t get a jingle when I “level up” in my knowledge, and the reward of finishing my projects didn’t come until after months of work. Not to be crude, but I realized I am simply an animal that likes satisfying things.
I suddenly had an idea after coming across someone’s solution of adding one paper clip to a jar after each phone call they made in the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. While making these phone calls was at best mundane and at worst dreadful, it was a delight for this person to hear the “clink!” of the paperclip hitting the bottom of the jar and watching the paperclips build. Now, finishing each call became a satisfying mini accomplishment, and they didn’t have to wait until they were finished with all of the calls to get a sense of satisfaction or completion. I wanted to do this–but take it to another level.
Introducing: the Daily Jar. Instead of paperclips, I grabbed fun trinkets of all kinds. Marbles, crystals, wooden beads, and funky pendants from my jewelry-making collection. I adore creating a fun system to track my activities, so I had each trinket represent a different task or activity that I wanted to ensure I incorporated into most days. Blue marbles for chores, red marbles for coursework, wooden beads for self-care, pink beads for fun things like seeing a friend or baking cookies… Importantly, I made sure to break down my larger projects into smaller tasks, so that I could more frequently get the satisfying sensation of adding marbles to the jar. At the end of the day, I admired all that I accomplished and dumped out the trinkets, to start anew tomorrow.
It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I got important stuff done solely to get the chance to add another bead to my jar. But, I learned a lot from this daily jar over just a few weeks of using this system. For example, I got visual insights on how I spent my days. My jar was clear, so I could see what tasks I did each day. If I had too many red marbles (school) and not enough pink beads (fun), I knew I would get burnt out and needed to make adjustments. I also could see that my jar was of a limited size, which was a physical representation that I could only accomplish so much in one day, and so I needed to choose my tasks wisely. I also learned that I accomplish much more than I think every day, but it was hard to see before, without any tangible evidence.
It has been a few months, but I still use the Daily Jar most days, especially when things get tough. I’ve made some changes to the system depending on what I felt I struggled with the most. For example, I have a tough time saying “no” to people’s requests and find myself taking on too much. To make turning something or someone down less painful and actually feel more like a reward than a disappointment, I let myself add a huge, shiny trinket to my jar every time I said “no”. Every time I felt I was about to let myself down by taking on more than I could handle or doing something I truly didn’t want to, I thought about the Daily Jar and said “no!”.
I encourage you all to create your own version of the Daily Jar, with your own system and fun items to add to it. As childish as it may seem, it helps me get stuff done and is a harmless way to reward myself for my small wins every day. I no longer spend my days napping and feeling stuck in life. And, it helps me make sure my days are balanced, with a healthy dose of self-care and fun. I’d love to hear your ideas on how you plan to incorporate something similar into your daily routine! Bye for now– I have to go add a marble to my jar! 🙂