"it always takes longer to do than you think."
Especially if you have not done the task before. I have been writing up a Health and Safety assessment and it has been months in the writing. It's for the Fish Factory. Yet were I to sit at my desk and spend the same kind of time writing it up there then no work would be done at all. It could be because I am inexperienced at it, it could be because there was no example assessment given to me, or because I've not had any training. I have been given no expectation of how big such an assessment might be. How many words, how much effort, or a time frame in which it should be done. All of these things were absent. Part of me didn't want to write the thing up and just kick it into the long grass. Procrastinate. However, I then found out via another source if anything happened and I had not written the thing out then I would be personally responsible. So to some extent the pressure is on. I could of course give a defence there was no time for me to write it. Or my own work is so pressurise it should be me who is having an assessment. But I haven't. I have to an extent the feeling I'm on my own. The big fish above me hasn't asked or engaged with me to see how it is going. To an extent I prefer this because big fish seem to get in the way of a lot of things in my mind, on account of them being big fish anyway. So this weekend I have been putting an extra concerted effort to do as much of this assessment as I can. Unfortunately the need for food got in the way and stopped me. Then there was the need for a laugh. So once again procrastination has taken over. I will get into it again, I just need a little bit of a push.
The rate I am going at the final result will be in the region of 15 to 30 pages long. I've probably overdone it. I've spent way too much of my own time on the thing and want it to be out of the way. Touch typing helps but as my thoughts are not as fast as my fingers there can and often is a delay between what I think and what is written down. Consequently, it is taking longer than anticipated. Everything takes longer than anticipated when it is done for the first time. When the action is also a learning experience. When there is poor guidance. My belly however, knows when something has taken too long because it cries out to be fed, like my mouth has been cemented. Inevitably there are interruptions which stretches the time out even longer. But the interruptions are necessary because it is very difficult to concentrate on one thing for hours on end and not move from one position. Unless you're a couch potato and enjoy TV. I do, but this is passive compared to actually doing something. Thinking and writing involves more than sitting on your backside eating biscuits and drinking tea. It's a shame because, eating biscuits and drinking tea sound like a good use of time. Except when you should be doing something and everything stops.
OK so for the moment I'm not getting anywhere. But the report is on my mind, in my eyesight and is popping up constantly to be done. It is wasting effort by not being done. However, even not doing it is useful because they say the mind can think of things unconsciously. When I go back to doing some more writing it will be with a bit more vigour. I hope so, or the biscuits will be out and the tea put on. No wonder things take so much longer to do.
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