Pros and Cons to Goal Setting

These are my personal pros and cons to goal setting and strict scheduling as someone who can't live with or without them--

Doing literally anything has always been an almost insurmountable task for me. Since I was quite little, I would never know what to do with myself. I had so many toys and coloring books and movies and books and other things that I could do but I would get decision paralysis and just end up laying on my floor staring at my ceiling doing nothing for hours at a time. (essentially bedrotting before it was cool)

I still have this problem today, except it's even worse now. Between devices, books, art goals, my insane amount of art mediums, my dream to sell my art, and specifically social media, i constantly feel burnt out :(

So here's what I do - I come up with some minimum requirements for myself for a month (maybe 5 drawings, 4 crochet pieces, etc.) than I determine how much time I need to accomplish a goal and divide that evenly across a number of days that I think I need (i.e. a project takes around 7 hours so that's 1 hour minimum every day for a week)

This was making it even worse though. I want to do so much that my amount of "minimum requirement" time for hobbies surpassed the amount of time I spent at work, and even though these were all thing that I wanted to do and I wanted to get done, it didn't feel like I ever got to choose what I wanted to do. 

My art and my hobbies were beginning to drain me and feel like work. There are a few things that DO need deadlines - a gift for someones birthday, my webcomic that comes out on the same day every month - but not everything needs deadlines or minimum requirements. I was also planning out things WAY in advance. Maybe you would plan out one month at a time, but in January i had 18 months worth of "monthly requirements" planned out; i was super stuck in a rut !! 

I've started to tone down the goals this month though. My "monthly requirements" included 2 things, and I've added on so many extra projects, it still feels like I'm running out of time sometimes, but at least I have my artistic freedom back <3

to sum up all that ::

PROS - prevents decision paralysis, prevents doomscrolling, helps me get things done, helps me feel productive, makes sure I always have an ongoing project (in case i need to go somewhere and pack a project), keeps my hobbies balanced, prevents my brain from getting stuck on a loop, keeps me on track for long term dreams

CONS - steals creative freedom because I always have to worry about what I'm already decided on doing versus brainstorming new things, makes hobbies draining, too many deadlines, art is no longer relaxing, I accidently set goals without relaizing that they are impossible A LOT, i'm obsessive and was planned out too far into the future 

bonus : guess my neurdivergency flavor from reading that. I'm undiagnosed so your guess is as good as mine ...