Mixed success

“Mixed success” is a term that can be applied to anything that is not a total failure. On the line between total failure and total success, everything in between those two endpoints is, by definition, a mixed success.

FAIL _______________mixed success ________________ SUCCEED

I’ve had some mixed success with my plan to write fiction this month. I’ve spent less time online and have stepped away from my daily YouTube habit. I’m reading more, and thinking more about fiction. I have lots of ideas stemming from my work with AI-images. And I am writing some days. Only some days.

I’m getting better at completing tasks.

• Noticing “affordances” that trigger tasks.
• Not dismissing tasks after noticing them.
• Returning my space to a ready state by finishing tasks.
• Staging next actions to reduce friction.

But I feel like I have another stage to clear: Stop avoiding looming tasks.

I’m going through my day like a dung beetle. Certain tasks feel too big to handle in the moment when I think of them, and I push the task ahead of me like a giant ball of dung.

The dung beetle is being productive. I am not. I’m just kicking the can down the road.