The inevitability of bad days (#SFWApro)

Today was less than productive.

My sister and I are sorting out some financial stuff for Mum and this morning the questions consumed quite a bit of time. And when I was done, my concentration was too sliced-and-diced to focus on writing.

So I didn’t. I watched time-travel movies rather than struggle futilely (which as I’ve mentioned before, I utterly hate). But I still wasn’t pleased with myself (in the short term, the movies don’t pay the bills). And this evening I dropped out of the writer’s group given the probability of snow on the roads by the time I get out (around 30 percent. For a former Floridian, that’s risky enough).

All of which put in mind of Nicholas Taleeb’s Fooled by Randomness, a nonfiction book about the difficulties we have understanding randomness and chance. One of the points he made in passing was that it’s often a mistake to check your stocks or your weight every day. Suppose, for example, you’re exercising every day, eat sensibly, but once in a while you go out to a big event and pig out. Next daily weighing, you see an uptick in your weight and you freak out—all your good work, ruined! Whereas if you checked every week or so, the regular weight loss effect would probably neutralize the pig-out, and you wouldn’t feel bad. And whatever you’re doing, some sort of misstep is inevitable, because nobody gets it right every single time.

Which is a roundabout way of saying I shouldn’t kick myself about having one crappy day. Much like returning to the mean, it’s probably inevitable. And if I do a good job the rest of the week, shouldn’t be a problem. More of a problem, unfortunately, than it was pre-puppies when I could do more paying articles a day, but still, not a disaster.

I shall take that to heart, relax and enjoy the evening.