Procrastinate Much?? From Overwhelm to Clarity
My strategy for the first day back at my desk after being sick.
The day after getting back to my desk after I’ve been sick is always such a transition.
I want to make a list of things I need to get to. But somehow the words in my minds are just jumbled and floating around in an amorphous cloud, instead of lined up on the blank sheet of paper in front of me.
There is no sense of “first things first”- as my mom always used to say. There’s just a question back at that suggestion: “how do I know what I should do first?!”
While I was sick, there was a week of nothing getting done- let alone “first things first”. My brain now feels out of practice- it doesn’t know what’s most important because after a week not doing anything, now it ALL needs to get done!
And for the whole time I was sick- the idea of “first things first” was completely just about “getting better” which pretty much meant rest, AKA, NOT doing anything besides taking the meds, drinking the water, taking the vitamins, sleeping and trying to eat as healthy as possible.
…Actually, I just realized, it’s also an interesting phenomenon for my whole list of to-do’s to be completely centered on myself- and NOT my outer world. Focusing just on myself almost feels like a foreign concept!
And now that I’m back at my desk- the list of to-do’s is faced outwards again. In the overwhelm I sit in a state of procrastination, except it’s not that I don’t have a willingness or desire to actually do something. It’s that I feel blocked and overwhelmed with decision making. It’s as if I’m at a busy intersection with cars coming and going from all directions and I don’t know how to just cross the street!
Part of the issue, I acknowledge, is the finite time I have. Which in the moment of what feels like a million things to do, I know that I just don’t have enough hours to get it ALL done before needing to get my kids at school.
When I was sick, it felt like I had ALL the time in the world. I pretty much put out a general social, professional and family announcement that all things were a no-go for me. And so I didn’t have the meetings, the outings, the chores, or even decisions really…All I kept track of was when did I take the last dose of ibuprofen, tylenol, sudafed, or mucinex? And I put a timer on my watch so at least I wouldn’t sleep through kid pick-up time from school.
Wow, as frustrated as I was last week that every.day I felt so sick and annoyed that I was sick and just wanted the sickness to go away- I realize in some ways what a luxury- what a gift to have only have one main goal- “get well”, on that list!
But golly, we get so focused on a list of to-do’s to “feel productive”! I think our biggest resistance to allowing the healing when we are sick, is because we are just so wired and trained to “do” all the time!
I do think sometimes, it seems that people will get sick just so they can rest! Before getting sick, often there’s some inner voice that says, “hey, slow down. You’ve got too much on your plate.” And we hear it all the time from our friends and family members, “I’m sooooo busy…I’m too busy…” But we just do.not.listen!
So then even though our bodies have been saying, “take a break!” We don’t.
And then more often than not, our bodies break over the stress. We hurt ourselves rushing around or we just get sick.
And then there’s no choice but to rest! And goodbye to the to-do list…
But anyways- I digressed! Back to that overwhelm of a bunch of words swirling in my head….
Continuing to feel lost staring at that blank sheet of paper, I gaze out of the window. Mmmm, I think to myself, it’s kinda sunny and warm out even on this December day. And even though I don’t have my full energy back, I decide to go for a short walk around the block. Sometimes moving my body has a way of untangling mangled thoughts and feelings.
With a bit of fresh air in me, I dutifully return to my desk. This time without deciding what goes first, I just start writing all the things down that are on my mind.
Without realizing it, I’m doing what I’ve recently learned is a “brain dump.” This brain dump is really just that- it’s writing down a bunch of words that includes things I feel like I need to do. But also, I list anything and everything I’m worried about or mulling over.
This sort of “unprioritized” accounting of what’s going on in my brain somehow relieves the anxiousness I was feeling. Sort of like turning on water—the water, or in this case, the words flow out. The pressure within the pipe, or the swirling around of words and feelings in my mind has now gone out and onto the paper. It feels like progress! Yes!
And now that the words are on the paper, somehow my eyes tune in to what seems like a visual highlighter. I get another sheet of paper, and then amazingly a vertical list of things to do take shape. And then- an actual numbered list of “first things first” starts sprouting out, as if from a recipe of what I should do next! Yes!
Success! Now I know what “to do”! AND now I feel productive!
Right before jumping in though, something inside nudges me. I take a deep breath and feel a gentle reminder, “don’t forget you’re still recovering. Be kind to yourself if you don’t get everything done.”