Turns out conscientiousness is harder in the midst of schedule upheavals. Who woulda thunk?
I picked up an overnight shift Sunday night and decided Monday (an off day from work) would be a good off day from caffeine, being devoted to sleeping anyway. I could have managed a Music Monday thing, but I was a caffeine-free zombie, and only woke up for about 6 hours anyway.
This raises a question I’ve been turning over in my head lately. How much adherence to The Plan is too much, and when do you know, and can we manage this without spending any willpower? A common problem for low conscientiousness folks is the inability to stick to a plan in the face of small obstacles and setbacks: such a person cannot complete large tasks because life can’t be so easy as they require. But the reverse problem is perhaps more harmful (to the doer, anyway), whereby high conscientiousness (to the point of neurosis) prevents a person from letting small, unimportant details go unattended even in the face of large obstacles: neither can such a perfectionist complete large tasks because they can’t adapt to changing situations.
An example of the neurotic type might be a perfectionist who never turns in homework on time because it is never quite as flawless enough to ease his anxiety.
My way of handling this problem has been to include it in the general bio leveling program. (I don’t think this is general enough.) If a habit is proven to be effective at level 2, and I’ve entered a failure cycle, then the habit is dropped until I’ve re-established level 2. This way, only habits which can be sustained at the current level are practiced. A double-shift almost always induces a small failure cycle (almost always I’m trading favors with someone), so I should account for that when I’m making such promises as “I’ll respond to this tomorrow”.
Anyway, here’s some late music for ya. This is my favorite bit from Angel Vivaldi so far; it’s part of his homage to the Red Priest’s “Four Seasons”.
He is doing a swell job of living up to the tradition of his eponymous forebear. I haven’t gotten deeply into Angel’s repertoire yet, but I already know he and I agree on what is best in life :-).
Aeoli Pera 