This week has been a very scaled-back week for me in terms of work and productivity. My mom’s health has taken some turns over the past few weeks and there’s a lot of uncertainty about her. The heaviness of all the emotions, plus the general stress of being a parent during a pandemic has really made me aware of how much stress can impact my motivation, energy, and focus.
I’m not a productivity expert (though I did write show notes for The Productive Woman podcast and that may have been one of the best experiences I could have had as someone with ADHD and who also wants to get a lot accomplished in her lifetime. One thing I learned from the host, Laura McClellan, is that different seasons in life require different forms of productivity and planning.
This week, for example, I wrote out my weekly schedule on Sundays as I always do, but I haven’t been writing my usual thorough daily to-do lists. In fact, when I'm under stress, the daily task lists I usually make as a fun way to gamify productivity becomes a source of stress and overwhelm. For this week at least, my goal is to keep my day as simple as possible to accommodate any unexpected phone calls and simply to avoid mental overwhelm.
My daily quick list for the day. Instead of my usual daily to-do list with every single thing listed, I keep it as simple as possible. Don’t mind the chicken scratch, as my teachers used to call it. I could have re-written it a bit nicer for the photo, but in times of stress, it’s more about progress than perfectionism. This entry was my fun and play for the day and I’d much rather post the real deal than what would make the image-algorithms happy.
Instead of my usual list of self-care, house chores, work tasks, and little tasks that would be great to do if I have time is replaced by a single sticky note with 4 to 5 things on it. Those 4 or 5 things are the things that I know if I can check off, I will have had a good day and it’s progress. If it doesn’t fit on the sticky note, it’s not a priority. At least for the time being.
By the way, it’s important to also have a system of capturing the things that need to be done so even when I need to simplify my daily routine, I know things won’t get left by the wayside. I set reminders in my calendar for the next week of things that aren’t time-sensitive but eventually need to get done. On my weekly Sunday planning sessions, I can figure out if that fits with my time then. Basically, I’m tasking Future-Emily with deciding what to do with the task so Present-Emily doesn’t have to continuously try to keep it in my head to do later.
Checking In & Self-Care
I also try to check in with myself more often and try to give myself plenty of self-care and comfort during weeks like this.
Some of my go-to self-care things I like to do more of lately are long showers, scenic drives listening to music or podcasts, dancing and movement, and wearing super comfy clothes (my husband's big gray sweatpants are my go-tos — I'll never grow out of that college phase of stealing his sweats I think 😂). I basically count anything that relaxes me and makes me feel like I’m fully enjoying life as self-care, though I know everyone has their own definition.
Checking in with myself is as simple as taking at least 3 deep breaths and asking myself the question, "How are YOU?" Sometimes I just need the mental pause to assess how I’m feeling physically and mentally, and I scan my body to find where I’m holding stress (spoiler: it’s always my jaw). Other times I journal the answers, which helps keep me on track more, especially when I go off on a tangent about someone else or an outside problem and have to bring myself back with the prompt, "Yes, but how are YOU? Really?"
It's amazing how when we're stressed about the things we can't control, it's so easy to get lost in all the details, looking for some solution that maybe we do have some control over and we can end up in analysis paralysis where we’re so overwhelmed with information that we essentially freeze, on top of the original stress.
Checking in helps me from staying in that Freeze state for too long and can also jump-start me into moving on to something else.
Keeping it Simple & Staying Focused
For me, keeping things as simple and nourishing as possible has been what I think has kept me going. Previously, I may have tried to convince myself that working kept me going. But that was a temporary solution and, more often than not, would lead to burnout and actually set me back in the long run.
This method keeps me moving forward, even if it is at a snail's pace. I'm learning to be OK with that.
There's also a balance between "Done is better than Perfect" and worrying about distractions taking my head too far out of my work that simple mistakes happen more frequently.
These are the days I use my Forest app + the Pomodoro Technique to keep me off my phone and focus on just one task at a time from my sticky-note.
I don't get the usual dopamine rush when I check things off, which usually propels me with excitement into the next task, but I'm OK with it. I know I don’t necessarily have the energy to bounce from one thing to the next right now. Instead I get a sense of satisfaction checking off these few items because I know as soon as they're all done, I can go to bed without the extra weight of "oh, I didn't do this today, I'm such a failure."
An important lesson I’ve actively had to force myself to accept is that no one's productivity is a measure of their worth. And some days just getting out of bed can be a huge accomplishment. Not everyone knows how hard those days can be, but rest assured, I get it. I truly do.
The only things that go on my sticky note are what I consider Urgent, Important things that absolutely need to get done. If I have something that’s Urgent but not Important, I decide if it’s really something that can get done reasonably. And if a task if Important but not Urgent, I find a way to capture it for another time so it doesn’t completely fall by the wayside. Having a mind that’s amazing at coming up with ideas, I never have trouble filling a to-do list, but for times like this, I have to really edit those lists, almost ruthlessly.
I keep these lists simple in order to preserve mental space for the inevitable heaviness of dealing with the stressors of life right now — parenting two school-aged kids during an ongoing pandemic, my mom being sick, my uterine condition giving me both expected and unexpected pain.
Gratitude & Self-Compassion
On days like this when it seems like the perfect storm of all these things intensifying at once, I find it helps to find the things I'm grateful for. I don’t do this in a Toxic Positivity way (“how can you be upset when you have so much you should be grateful for” was a common phrase growing up and I’m glad there’s finally a label like Toxic Positivity for it)
But I find gratitude — real gratitude, not forced — isn’t a replacement for unpleasant thoughts, but I now look at gratitude as a way to practice leaning into the duality of life. There can be awful moments AND ALSO things that bring us joy. There can be sadness AND goodness.
I can't tell you how many days I felt so low, like nothing would ever be good again. And then I go for a walk on a local hiking trail and smell the crisp autumn air hit my nostrils and hear the crinkle of leaves under my feet and I remember there is such joy in simplicity. I need the reminder that my anxious neurodivergent mind can distort thoughts and overthink to the point of complete overwhelm.
Giving myself grace and compassion is another tool I have truly found to be a game changer. Believe it or not, beating myself up when I didn't get things done made me less productive. You can't bully yourself into being someone you love and admire. You just can't. I've found this to be true when it comes to health and body positivity, and I find it to be true about my productivity.
As much as we would like others to be compassionate and understanding when it comes to us and our needs, sometimes I think we have some trouble extending it to ourselves — especially in situations when it seem like we should be able to handle more.
I have a sticky note on my desk currently that says "It'll all get done eventually." It's a reminder that I can take things one step at a time if I need to. Sometimes "done" might even look like deciding not to do something. Making that decision, itself, is actually a way of being "done" with it.
Some things fall by the wayside. And for those things, I adopt the motto "if it is meant to get done, it would have," and I try to learn from the experience. That's the best I can do, on top of apologize of course if I've let someone down. This rarely happens because I’m still a People-Pleaser in some respects — a deadline for someone else usually weighs more on me than self-imposed deadlines, though I’m working on giving my own projects their time and place as much as I can.
Maybe this is actually an anti-productivity post 😂 but, really, I'm just writing what I've found to work for me, knowing this is just a temporary chapter.
Another sticky note I have says "it won't always be like this" and no matter what is happening, that statement is always true. The only thing constant is change. And one day, I hope I'll get back into my fun productivity mode again, knocking off item after item on my to-do list I’ve lovingly put together that morning.
But for now I'm in Self-Care Survival Mode and I'm ok with it 🙂
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