Demands of Time and Task I

How should I allocate my time?

I am faced with a dilemma.  The workload I now balance is becoming increasingly precarious due to the fact of increased activities and acting in the place of two positions at once.  As a result of this I am confronted with the issue that in order to do the work that needs to be done I  have to increase my time spent at work by approximately 10-15 hours a week.   Where would this extra time be drawn from?  From working on my own projects, on those things I hope can someday sustain me beyond what I now do.

This frustrates me on two levels.  The first one is obvious: whenever a position requires significantly more time and effort than what is typical for a position, frustration mounts because the expectation is that the work will get done, no matter where the effort comes from.  The fact that there tends to be disinterest where that effort comes from detracts somewhat from the drive to see the things accomplished.

But the deeper frustration, the one which haunts me, is the assumption by myself that this is what I will do.

This is a recurring theme in my life.  When required to do so by outside influences, I inevitably seem to "dig deep" and get the task accomplished.  When confronted by the same concept in my own life - tasks which need significant amounts of time and effort to accomplish - I often cannot muster the same amount of drive.  Worse, I  am willing to sacrifice them for the demands of the tasks generated from the outside.

Why is this?  Is is that I do not value what I am trying to do?  I should - after all, what I am working on is ultimately designed to benefit my life (in theory anyway). Effort spent in that arena will, with the appropriate time spent, result in direct benefits to my physical and psychic health.  Effort spent in the first arena will at best remove a monkey from my back which will be quickly replaced by another one requiring similar demands.

In the first scenario - demands generated by outside influences -  I can legitimately say that the ultimate accomplishment of the tasks resulted in nothing significant or lasting in my life.  Those from the second scenario I have taken through to conclusion have almost always done so.

Which leads me back to my question:  Why do I easily do one and refuse to do the other?