I'm...still kinda headfucked from Season 8, NGL. Okay, I joke about Season 8 all the time, because I joke about everything all the time and it's kind of impossible for me not to, but I'm still warily side-eying the multiple topics, even though it's just two and we got plenty of time to do them. So right now, my approach is "alternate between eyeballing the topics with jittery mistrust and eyeballing self with jittery mistrust." *pokes topics with a stick to see if they bite*
I think my approach is going to need to be "come up with an idea for a topic, and if it's reasonably workable, stick with it and make it work." I've been trying to push myself in that direction this season and away from my natural inclination of "start randomly trying five different ideas for each topic and wait for one to show some vague signs of sticking, then run with it, but the minute it starts to fight back, scrap it and try something else" because while it may be possible to get through a regular week that way, such shenanigans will. not. fly. when there are multiple topics going on. I also need to remind myself of the golden rule: "Don't Panic" (in large friendly letters if possible). The first time in Season 8 when we had 6 topics at once, I did them all on the deadline day (st00pid) but I also had an immunity I could invoke, and I knew I had an immunity, so the pressure was off, and I had a "just get something remotely passable on the page, and if it sucks, the worst case scenario is you burn your immunity and you're fine" mindset. I spit all 6 out in one sitting, didn't second guess myself, was actually happy with four of them, and wasn't completely ashamed of any of them. Ask me to do the same thing a month and a half later though, sans the safety net, and I flip out and choke. The psyching myself out gets me way worse than topics and deadlines.
Theoretical approach this time: see which topics spark an idea, decide from the getgo if the idea is workable, make workable ideas work, kick non-workable ideas to the curb form the get-go, do not psych self out, always know where your towel is, etc. And when there are multiple topics, my preference is to just do one at a time, but time permitting, finish one, work on another one, then come back and give the first one a once-over with fresh eyes to see if anything sticks out as being in need of polish before it's unleashed upon the world to decide my fate in the polls. My natural inclination is usually to try and work on all parts of a project at once and just completely skip around, but that doesn't work for me with writing for some reason.
no subject
I think my approach is going to need to be "come up with an idea for a topic, and if it's reasonably workable, stick with it and make it work." I've been trying to push myself in that direction this season and away from my natural inclination of "start randomly trying five different ideas for each topic and wait for one to show some vague signs of sticking, then run with it, but the minute it starts to fight back, scrap it and try something else" because while it may be possible to get through a regular week that way, such shenanigans will. not. fly. when there are multiple topics going on. I also need to remind myself of the golden rule: "Don't Panic" (in large friendly letters if possible). The first time in Season 8 when we had 6 topics at once, I did them all on the deadline day (st00pid) but I also had an immunity I could invoke, and I knew I had an immunity, so the pressure was off, and I had a "just get something remotely passable on the page, and if it sucks, the worst case scenario is you burn your immunity and you're fine" mindset. I spit all 6 out in one sitting, didn't second guess myself, was actually happy with four of them, and wasn't completely ashamed of any of them. Ask me to do the same thing a month and a half later though, sans the safety net, and I flip out and choke. The psyching myself out gets me way worse than topics and deadlines.
Theoretical approach this time: see which topics spark an idea, decide from the getgo if the idea is workable, make workable ideas work, kick non-workable ideas to the curb form the get-go, do not psych self out, always know where your towel is, etc. And when there are multiple topics, my preference is to just do one at a time, but time permitting, finish one, work on another one, then come back and give the first one a once-over with fresh eyes to see if anything sticks out as being in need of polish before it's unleashed upon the world to decide my fate in the polls. My natural inclination is usually to try and work on all parts of a project at once and just completely skip around, but that doesn't work for me with writing for some reason.