Fonda at Savvy Southern Chic came through again with some work outfit inspiration featuring a red sweater.
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| From savvy-southern.blogspot.com |
Red sweater, grey tweed bottoms, and a black/grey/white scarf--got it.
Red pullover sweater (Macy's), $5.33/wear
Black/beige/grey floral stained scarf (Kohls), $3.40/wear
Grey tweed skirt (thrifted, Ann Taylor), $1.25/wear
Grey ribbon flats by Louise et Cie, $3.33/wear
Grey tights
Black moto vest (JCP), $2.83/wear
Outfit total: $16.14/wear
But I just had to add a vest to the outfit #thirdpieceaddict. A moto vest is a nice choice to toughen up an otherwise pretty much prim and proper outfit. I like the way this scarf tie turned out. It's a new one to me--it's what I get when I try the "knotted necklace" from this set of tutorials. I'm not sure what I'm doing differently from the tutorial but whatever, I like the result. Can I also just say I get a little frisson of pleasure from how the black and grey shoes finish off this outfit?
This little rabbit is all, What's up, human?
Monday. Monday, I tell you.
In other news...For your back-to-work Monday reading, an article that makes the case that you shouldn't work at your full capacity.
It's been too cold to Pokemon walk lately, so I had the bright idea on Saturday for us to go to a mall to Pokemon. It's indoors, it's an easy place to walk, there is a lot of foot traffic (which drives Pokemon availability), and I thought there might even be Pokestops inside. Robert found a suburban mall just to the north of town that had 4 Pokestops closely clustered inside (he found a site online that superimposes the location of Pokestops on a map), and so we tried it out. It worked out great! Of course the mall had quite a few mall walkers doing the rounds, so it wasn't a big deal that they got a couple of mall stalkers (of Pokemon) as well. However, next week it's supposed to warm up, with temperatures more like what people in the south think of as "really cold"--highs in the 30s, which we have determined is an acceptable level of chill for Pokemon walking--so maybe we will be able to give the mall a miss. But I really like having a backup Pokemon plan for the weekends.
We had about 2" of snow today and the traffic coming home from work was horrible. Accidents and whatnot. I asked Robert what the hell was up and he said that 2" of snow is a tough thing because it's too little snow to plow. Oh, I said, so basically what we were seeing today was that Northerners can't drive in snow either--I guess they normally get by (as I certainly do!) because the streets get plowed so quickly.
The traffic on the last mile of my drive--an unavoidable stretch that leads to my apartment--was moving so slowly today that the Pokemon app thought I was walking and hatched 3 eggs. The eggs contained 2 Ekans and 1 Weedle--boo.
4 comments:
That's interesting about not working too hard. I guess I've been doing it right all along!
But seriously, I've always had trouble working basically...at all...at work. It's been going better for me lately (since grad school), which I attribute to a combination of factors, including
* I'm more accepting of the fact that my ability/inclination to work comes in waves, so that some days I might hardly work at all, while other days I am a demon of work.
* I've finally (FINALLY) learned to focus on positive motivation ("this report is going to be really cool when it's done") instead of negative motivation ("oh my god I'm not working and if I don't work they'll eventually fire me"). This took me many, many years of my life to even start to figure out. Negative motivations don't work too well for me, possibly because most of the ones I've been threatened with, or threatened myself with, did not occur. And possibly because they just don't work in general.
* I keep an extremely detailed to-do list, which I redo every week (Monday morning if possible) and which gets more detailed the more I dread a task. It could look like
> Work on buyout model.
>> open that file
>> sort it by date
>> pick three dates to check
>> check dates
>> write email with results
>> think about next step
>> put next step below
though it's usually not quite that insane.
...and now that I don't have billable hours (thank god), it's easier to keep my anxiety at bay. Anxiety about not working does not motivate me to work at all. These days I tell myself, my bosses can see what I'm producing, and that's what they're paying me for - not "being productive" a set number of hours per day. (Let's not run this by the bosses, ok? OK.) If they're happy with what I do, that's good enough for me.
Also (and, sorry, I have a lot to say about this), my abilities, such as they are, come as a kind of package. Even though someone exists who could do what I can do for 40+ hours per week, for real, I'm not that person. I'm a person who can do certain things pretty well and can basically do a certain amount of them over time, at least without being miserable. That's what's for sale here.
The positive motivation thing makes sense, as you seem to be on the approach end of the approach-avoidance motivation continuum in general.
"Being super productive every day" is not my super power either. I mean, I don't think it's a weakness but it's not one of my defining qualities. This is part of the reason that I like taking on huge, (to some people) scary/overwhelming projects with deadlines in the distance. These projects are not "churn through the work" things but require a mix of thinking things through, planning the work, trying things out, and learning as you go as well. (The "deadline in the distance" part is important because I am NOT a pressure-prompted person. I am more likely to get something done by Friday if I'm not worried about getting done by Friday.)
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