I just wrapped up an interesting Project Management class. One thing that stuck in my mind was one little tidbit: the harder you push to finish a project, the longer it takes for you (and your team) to recover and return to norm. As a matter of fact, not only does it take you a long time to recover, you also dip further down below the productivity line.
We’ve been busting our buns at work. Late Friday night, after a particular stressful system upgrade, I noticed my DBA had put up the the following message on his IM — “post project depression.” My weekend was just starting because I had another major migration on Saturday.
Sunday, I didn’t do anything but spin and knit. Unfortunately, my spinning didn’t match what I was doing before. The yarn was too fat. Thankfully, I didn’t fill up the entire bobbin before I noticed the difference. So I switched to knitting. Since I just finished a lace scarf the weekend before, I had to paw through my stash to find something new.
I took Monday off to recharge my batteries at the spa, followed by 2 days of training. I feel ready to take anything on. Perhaps that’s the trick. Treat myself to a day at the spa after finishing a huge project at work.
Anyway, back to fiber. I was wondering if there was a corollary to the the post project depression. What happens if you have been working on something really enjoyable. So enjoyable, in fact, that you didn’t want the project to end? I think the post project depression actually comes before the actual end. You dread the final completion because it means the end has come.
That’s how I felt about the cashmere silk scarf I just finished. I dragged the last repeat out as long as I possibly could — at least until I was close enough to the opportunity to buy more of the fiber.
And now, I feel invincible. I started the flower basket shawl on Sunday, and have made quite a bit of progress. This is a big deal because I started it once and had to rip it out because I couldn’t get into the rhythm of the pattern. Of course, only knitting one row every 2 weeks will do that. At this rate, I should finish this by next weekend.
Thanks for listen to me ramble. Blame it on lack of sleep.
Joni
I knit so many things at once that I never have a problem feeling down when something is about done, but I do that with books. I have a very hard time picking up another read once I’ve finished a book or series I greatly enjoyed. There’s one book I loved so much that I never have finished it, quite. I’ve read it (mostly) 4 times, and each time I read a little closer to the end but I don’t want to ever actually finish it.