One Shift Throws Everything Off
Being in your 30s, having to multi-task can sometimes feel like a given. So when we are forced to focus on just one aspect, we wonder how much of time and energy am I capable of?
My routine steadily allows me two valuable times of brainstorming: my 35 minute drive to work, my 1 hour drive home. Then when I come home, I’m able to write down my thoughts to organize the 1 hour after eating dinner but before bed. I work part time and so you would think that I could do as much brainstorming that I wanted when I’m at home. Turns out I’m one of those people who can only think of solutions when I’m panicked for time because the urgency creates a creative environment encapsulated by my own pressure of “okay stupid brain, why don’t we focus for once in our lives.”
Writing down my thoughts after thinking for only 1 hour and 35 minutes is both empowering and humiliating. In my brain, I create entire ecosystems of new projects and their impacts because a full 1 hour and 35 minutes trapped on one subject makes me feel like an expert. Then I look at my journal, see my two incoherent sentences and promise myself, “I’ll start the next brainstorming session in a positive and encouraging atmosphere next time” or “wow it is amazing how I can think of one thing all day but the ideas just get exponentially stupider.”
This process repeats mostly every week and I’ve now accumulated a backlog of multiple ideas and processes thus making my time at home a smidge more efficient. I say a smidge because sometimes the backlog is so immense, I end up reading all day on my Kindle inwardly chanting, ‘crap, crap, craaaaap I should be doing x, y, or z right now’. But I digress.
So back to this one extra shift that changed everything.
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I had to work one more extra day from my part time job and I could not keep up with the physical energy that my job demanded of me. The twice daily brainstorming session that happened three times a week depleted to zero. I thought of no ideas and only birthed new fears of my lack of originality.
I slept (somehow) more and less than I needed but the traffic was great. Only a 45 minute drive home. Score.
Having to work this weekend and having today off, I am now rushing to get something done so that I can check something off of my to do list.
This is that. I promised an update and my update is that I did nothing this week.
Nothing for the three side hustles that I mentioned from last week are done. But! Extra money is pretty great. Pretty amazing to spend all of that extra cash on my never ending student loans. (not)
What I learned is that I have no self — motivation this week, but I’m telling myself it’s okay?
Over and out.
