Giving up on Medium, changing things on Graphic River, focusing more on Steemit, working on different projects - learning how to focus on making progress

Do you know that annoying feeling you get when you work on something for a long time, and while you don't make any kind of progress no matter how much time you spend doing that thing, you still don't want to stop, because you worked really hard and it feels like you fail if you just give up?

That's what's been happening to me for a while now, and I decided to stop that today. I work on all kind of things, every single day, from Monday to Friday, and in 90% of the cases that leaves me with no time left to focus on other things I enjoy, like reading, learning new things, playing video games, etc.

I post on Medium every single day, at least once, I post on Steemit twice or three times a day, I consume content and comment on other articles as well, I upload two design packages on Graphic River, mostly actions, I promote the design packages from Graphic River on social media, I write 20 ideas every single day about improving my work and about projects I could work on in the future and I also work on fantasy stories when I have the time.

Doing all that, every single day leaves me with almost no time for myself, and I don't like that at all. I wanted to spend most of the past week on Steemit, curating and creating content, yet I couldn't because of all the work I had to do. I tried to work in advance and I finished doing a few things even before the week started, but it wasn't enough. When the week ended I was burned out and all I wanted was to take a break and play video games.

One of the main reasons I started working as a freelancer was because I wanted to be able to work on the things I loved without being forced to do something I hate just for the sake of making money. However, lately I've been doing the exact opposite. I was so focused on my objectives that I started working for money, not considering if I liked doing something or not.

I enjoy writing articles for Steemit but I hate editing them, because I focus on writing things too fast in order to work on other projects, and that means I sometimes spend even an hour or more editing. I don't enjoy writing for Medium any more and while working for Graphic River was amazing until now, lately I've been extremely tired and bored of creating Photoshop Actions every single day.

I used to work in Photoshop while having a video in the background, and now it's more a matter of watching a video while doing stuff in Photoshop without even paying too much attention. I don't enjoy it any more, and that's mainly because I've spent the last months working on Actions, trying to post as many of them on Graphic River and get as much money as possible.

As some of you already know by now, my main objective is to get a computer with the money I'm making from Steemit and Graphic River. I want to be able to work without having to worry about my computer being too slow or software not working on the system I have.

However, I realized that if I don't enjoy what I do, I might as well just give up, because making money doing something you hate is not a great way of living. And this is something you should think about as well. You shouldn't do something if you don't enjoy it any more, and you should think about the reason you started doing that thing in the first place.

If you did it because you enjoyed what you were doing, and that's not the case any more, then you need to get rid of everything you hate right now, or change them and make sure you love what you do once again.

Starting from this day that's exactly what I'm gonna do, changing my schedule in order to have more time to focus on other projects and do things I love. The things that I'll change are:

1. I will stop posting on Medium. I started doing that with a purpose in mind, to write articles every single day and form a community around the content I was creating. Doing that I thought I'll be able to focus more on writing and on sharing my ideas, and maybe even get some money out of it. However, I've been posting for a while on Medium now, and while I understand that it takes time for one to succeed, I can get better results way faster with Steemit, so I'd rather focus on that. In two months of posting here I got more rewards than in around 4 months of posting there. Maybe I'll still publish from time to time on Medium, when I have an idea about an article or something like that, but the daily posting on that website is over. It takes too much time and I get nothing in return.

2. I will stop uploading two design packages a day on Graphic River. I was so focused on creating as much content as possible that I forgot about the most important element I talk about a lot in my articles - quality. While I don't think the actions I create are bad, I am sure they can be better, or that I can create better design packages. That's why I'll try to reduce the amount of packages I upload on that website from 2 a day to one a day, maybe a few a week. This gives me more time to work on other things in Photoshop and maybe even learn new software.

3. I'll stop spending hours thinking about things I can do to improve my work and get new ideas about projects I want to start working on in the future. A few months ago I started writing 20 ideas every single day in order to train my brain to come up with new things that can help me improve what I do or start doing new things, and while that was extremely useful, it takes too much from my time and it became really boring and tiring. Lately all the ideas I have are about Steemit and how I should focus more on doing certain things. I'll stop writing 20 ideas a day and just write down ideas whenever I have good ones instead of spending time writing the same things over and over again.

Giving up on all those 3 things will allow me to focus more on stuff that really matters or things I really want to do, which for me, personally, is amazing. I know it doesn't seem like I'm giving up on really hard tasks that take a lot of time, but if you do those things every single day, for a few months, you'll realize how much time you waste doing the wrong things.

All that will allow me to focus more on what really matters, things that get me the rewards I need and that offer me enough satisfaction to keep working and not be miserable or burned out at the end of each week. I'll also do my best to finish working at around 4 PM and then focus on doing things I enjoy that are out of my "working area", like learning new things, reading, playing video games, watching movies, etc.

With the free time I'll have now that I will stop working on all those things I will be able to:

1. Focus more on Steemit, on consuming and creating content, writing both long and short articles every single day.

2. Read more about subjects I'm interested in, like Cryptocurrencies, psychology, programming, and much more.

3. Learn new things that will help me in my work, especially new software like InDesign and Illustrator.

4. Work on the fantasy story I still didn't publish because of having too much work to do, and focus on writing many other fantasy stories in the future.

And much more. While I don't feel great about giving up on some of my work, I believe it's necessary for me to focus my attention on things that really matter, things that help me accomplish my goals faster.

I believe you should take a look at the things you do every single day and make sure you don't spend too much time on the wrong activities. This way you'll make sure you'll give up on what's wasting your time so you can focus on what really helps you make more progress.