My reply is similar to other replies, but I think of it a little bit differently. Many times people mistake wanting to have done something with wanting to do something. They have a big list of things they wish they had already: some achievement, some knowledge, some social standing, etc. Then they make a plan for achieving those things. What they leave out is whether or not they actually want to do those things.
I think you may be suffering from this. You life becomes this treadmill of trying to prioritise what you want to have accomplished coupled with statuses of where you are now. You are always fighting against the clock because you are wondering if you are making "enough" progress and worrying if you might be missing out because you made the wrong priority call. In the end you basically chase your tail going from one thing that seems important to the next thing that seems important and eventually circling back to the original thing. (Note: many people have probably worked for companies that waste huge amounts of money doing this very same thing).
IMHO, the best thing to do is to throw away all of your "I want to have done" goals and replace them with "I want to do" goals. Then, don't prioritise by what's most important to have done. Instead prioritise by how much you are enjoying it. Don't mark the end point of the exercise by how useful it will be for the next thing, but by how much you want to continue.
Which is not to say that you should just do whatever you feel like every day: even in the most enjoyable of tasks there are things that you need to do when you don't feel like doing them. However, on average you should be asking yourself, "Do I want to continue with this? Am I enjoying it? Does it feel like a me thing to do?"
Last, but not least I will also leave you with my "Rule of 3". You can do 3 things in your life well, give or take. One should probably be your day job. One should probably be your relationships. That leaves you with one thing left. You can dabble with things here and there, but if you want to really make an achievement, you really only have room for that one thing.
I think you may be suffering from this. You life becomes this treadmill of trying to prioritise what you want to have accomplished coupled with statuses of where you are now. You are always fighting against the clock because you are wondering if you are making "enough" progress and worrying if you might be missing out because you made the wrong priority call. In the end you basically chase your tail going from one thing that seems important to the next thing that seems important and eventually circling back to the original thing. (Note: many people have probably worked for companies that waste huge amounts of money doing this very same thing).
IMHO, the best thing to do is to throw away all of your "I want to have done" goals and replace them with "I want to do" goals. Then, don't prioritise by what's most important to have done. Instead prioritise by how much you are enjoying it. Don't mark the end point of the exercise by how useful it will be for the next thing, but by how much you want to continue.
Which is not to say that you should just do whatever you feel like every day: even in the most enjoyable of tasks there are things that you need to do when you don't feel like doing them. However, on average you should be asking yourself, "Do I want to continue with this? Am I enjoying it? Does it feel like a me thing to do?"
Last, but not least I will also leave you with my "Rule of 3". You can do 3 things in your life well, give or take. One should probably be your day job. One should probably be your relationships. That leaves you with one thing left. You can dabble with things here and there, but if you want to really make an achievement, you really only have room for that one thing.
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