relaxing into the process

Tuesday 18th March

The trouble with an overview is that it magnifies the enormity of an already enormous task and can cause me to feel exhausted at the thought of all there is to be done…

This is what I’ve been thinking whilst digging just now. I spent much of last week planning where beds will be and which need to be dug first for the earliest crops. At first it helped me realise just how much I have already achieved but now I am feeling swamped by how much there is to do and I have found myself starting bits of digging in several places which just seems to turn up the pressure.

I guess it is no coincidence that I have, alongside this allotment activity, been working on a plan/timetable for the completion of my PhD. What a daunting task! I need another kind of strategy to make it all seem manageable.

The other realisation I had whilst digging and pondering all this is that whilst grand plans are necessary to a degree their essence is in fact contradictory, if not detrimental, to my methodology as a whole which is that of becoming, allowing, responding to etc. etc. So, having written the plan for my research and drawn up the plans for my beds on the allotment I now need to relax into the process again and focus on the task at hand, whether this be digging the next few feet or reading, mulling over and writing about the next few pages of philosophy.