I'm currently working on an article about over-planning and future anxiety, and I'm not making much headway. This is ironic because I'm a constant over-planner. I like to have my week mapped out, which is necessary given I work remotely. But somehow, after years of being self-directed, I'm still over-planning.
I'm actually banging my head on my desk about this topic because I have too much on my plate. I can't seem to flesh out my article even with abundant resources because I'm thinking about the next thing. Which is therapy. In 20 minutes. Then I start my hours for my regular gig until I leave to pick up my wife from work after which I have a meeting.
Are you getting the gist?
So I stopped working on that article. The truth is I can hammer out four of these pieces in a day, so not getting one finished today isn't going to put me too far behind.
You're probably saying, "Shawna, you're two days into your new work schedule and you're already stuck?" You'd be right. I'm doing too much. I'm feeling like I've taken on too much and it's impacting everything else in my day.
I abbreviated my gym time to get this article done. I abbreviated my article time to make sure I relax so that I can go into the next segment of my day with some sense of self. Will that happen? My therapist is good about keeping me on track, but I'm feeling right now like I want to get it over with so I can tick that box. You know?
The truth is I do have time in my day to do all of this. My real struggle is prioritizing. What I do at the gym needs to be top of my list. I tried getting up early this morning so I'd be awake enough to keep myself going. But I needed sleep. I need gym and sleep. And then income. Because I can't consistently keep an income if I don't go to the gym and get good sleep. My mental health fails me.
Great. This is helping. 1. Sleep. 2. Gym. 3. Regular Gig. 4. Writing Gig.
Except I forgot the writing I do for myself. I try to write by hand every morning. So that needs to be number 1 and everything else can get bumped.
Sigh.
What am I doing to myself? Looking at this I think I need to be doing less for my side gig. I'm trying so hard to keep this focused on today, but I'm already freaking about about the work I need to do for Side Gig 2.
It's great to have the work, but I don't want to be hustling at this level. I need to take care of myself. And that means upping personal writing time and gym time, which means I need to scale back somewhere else.
Thanks for hearing me out, LOL. I appreciate it. It was good to get this off my chest. Now maybe I can take a few minutes to meditate.
