Notes From the Home Front: Anticipation Fatigue

Posted on 27. Aug, 2009 by Steph in Trip Planning

Creative Commons License photo credit: bachmont

Now that I no long benefit from school breaks and spend my summer days in a gray windowless cubicle summer really doesn’t
appeal to me very much. In Washington DC these oppressive sticky days seem to stretch on indefinitely. I’m fairly certain it’s been August for at least five, maybe six months by now.

The truth is I’ve become a victim of entropy. I returned home from my last extended trip a year ago in July, and I won’t be leaving for my next one for another year yet (my tentative departure is September 1, 2010). Aside from two thrilling weeks in Iceland I haven’t gone anywhere interesting in ages. When you are stuck in that long desert between trips it can be hard to keep up your momentum; I call this Anticipation Fatigue.

Last week I realized it was time to pull myself together and combat this creeping disease! Luckily I know a few tricks. Here are my suggestions for how to keep going when your departure date is nowhere in sight:

1. Plan small milestones- Instead of visualizing the next year as an endless desert of time stretched before me, I’ve been trying to chop time up into smaller, manageable increments. By giving myself things to look forward to: a local Oktoberfest in September, Karaoke on my birthday, a trip to London in November, I find it much easier to stay positive about the future (and not die of boredom). I find it’s best to have at least one or two exciting things written in big block letters on my calendar every month.

2. Keep busy- Another sneaky time manipulation trick. Of course time flies when you are having fun. By that same token it tends to whiz by much faster when you aren’t paying attention. This blog and various writing projects are keeping me quite busy of late. The feeling of having a million things to get done definitely makes time go quicker. If blogging is not your thing why not take a class, start a new hobby or just ramp up your social life. Whatever it takes.

Creative Commons License photo credit: torisan3500

3. Stay directed- When you are looking forward to something very far in the distance, it is easy to lost your focus. Every day I
try to read a little bit about the places I would like to go, or find a way to save a little extra money towards the trip. Planning and saving gives me an extra boost and makes the trip seem more like a concrete reality and not some far off abstract concept.

Although I love to plan and anticipate my trips beforehand, waiting can be extremely difficult, especially for months and months. If you try to use your time constructively you will benefit both in the short and the long run.

Please post any other suggestions for combating anticipation fatigue in the comments…

Tags: inspiration