When you're working on a project, it's easy to get distracted... and even procrastinate. It's important to keep yourself honest along the way. There will always be bad days and time will slip away, but it's important to know where you are and make realistic plans. Conversely, don't try to fool yourself.
For instance, If I was a field hand and I needed to shovel 50 pounds of grain per week, I might look at it this way: If the week started out rough, Monday might be a wash. Tuesday and Wednesday might also suffer... But on Thursday, I might kick it into high gear and finish out the day ahead. For this, I feel really good about myself and the overall scope of work — and I worked hard, so there should be some satisfaction there. On Friday, still feeling good, I treat myself to a slight break... hey, it's Friday, right? I finish out the week feeling pretty good and enjoying the break I gave to myself. Sound familiar? Of course, it does... we all do it. Of course, we also fail to go back and look at the reality of the math and see that we're nearly a day behind schedule.
What to do?
It's important not to fool yourself. Many people maintain false mechanisms to force behaviors — like the habit of setting clocks five minutes ahead. However, those same folks know that the clocks are set ahead and work that variance into the overall scheme and end up being late in the end.
In the same way, it's important not to lull yourself into the haze of this fallacy. You can get traction on a slow week, but not by fooling yourself.
Take stock of what you have to do. Make priorities. Do what you can do while you can and make the work that you do as efficient as possible. Squeeze in some make-up where possible. You still have slack time on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but how much — and what happens after that — truly determines where you end up.
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