Booby Prizes, Chickens, Eggs

What gets in your way first? Distractions? That sense of being overwhelmed? Laziness? Non-clinical depression? Which of those four elements (and the host of unnamed others) are chickens vs. eggs for you when it comes to diminished productivity? Or (GASP!), is productivity of little or no concern to you?

On a sliding scale of positive to neutral (?) to unflattering, people have variously described me as actualized, goal-oriented, driven, intense, inflexible. Each of those descriptions has probably held some grain of truth at different points in my life.

So, when this actualized/goal-oriented/driven/intense/inflexible blogger feels unmotivated, leading toward unproductive, it's usually difficult to identify which of the four elements above (and the host of unnamed others) came first. You? It probably doesn't matter a great deal, but this particular chicken/egg question is on my mind and I'd like to know your thoughts.

Actually, asking these questions/this post stands at the nexus of this day of meandering productivity. Early this a.m., I had occasion to read a journal entry from a few weeks back chastising myself for lack of progress on my next long form writing project. So, was the distraction of my journal entry the chicken followed by the egg of laziness? Or, was feeling overwhelmed about the project the egg that came before a short dip in mood (aka non-clinical depression) chicken? Or was one of that host of unnamed other elements the chicken? The egg?

Werner Erhard: "Why is the booby prize".