An Experiment

2024 so far has a rough start. My brain feels like it’s thinking constantly but there’s no cohesiveness or through line. Last year, I had hopes of being systematic and methodical in order to clear out a backlog of “work” that has been hanging over my head. A clutter of thoughts and tasks that was “preventing” me from spending time on activities that I truly wanted to do and working toward a daily life that reflected my interests rather than others. This plan was in both my personal and professional life.

What happened was the opposite. My dad asked for help recovering from surgery and I was thrilled to spend an extended amount of time with him, but it meant that I had to drop everything that I had planned for the first six months to clear the decks for that. And that care work in the late spring and over summer, combined with complications from a internal hire gone wrong, a colleagues promotion that went right, meant that the semester started with us short handed and I was not prepared. I was physically and mentally exhausted. And in addition, for the past eighteen months the heavy hitting peri-menopause symptoms have interfered with my sleep, caused joint pain, interfered with my brain function, my weight, and have aggravated my migraines/headaches. I got to the end of 2023 just wishing for sleep and consecutive days without planned tasks.

So here I am a year later still feeling somewhat like I’m in the pandemic blur even though it’s been four years. The challenge of 2023 has been the ability to start tasks, avoid distractions, and create of maintain any type of proactive scheduling. I have actively questioned if this is my body’s response to burnout, if this is peri-menopause, if this is the consequence of a challenging year of events, or (most likely) all the above. I have also recognized and rejected productivity culture as a means to an end in either my personal or professional life. But these periods of cognitive struggle don’t feel like active rest. They are a numbing through consuming books, or video games, or the busyness of a hobby. They feel like a reactive shut down.

I’m entering 2024 still with the desire to clear out my backlog. The thought of this has caused anxiety. I have had to think a lot – and it’s been a struggle to actively strategize – on how I want to approach this work. I need to clear out the backlog for a couple of reasons. First, there are tasks that fall under general maintenance (e.g. home and finances) that didn’t get done and need attention. Second, some of the backlog that isn’t maintenance is taking potential time away from things that I would rather be doing. For example, I need to clear out the cameras that I have and scan the photos to the archive. Those are one time activities that would clear space in my work room that would make it easier for me to sew or do other projects. Third, I don’t want to have another year like last. It’s likely I will have to provide some family care again and there is a wedding in the works. I don’t want to arrive at the back end of the year exhausted again. I need to pace myself better.

Even with all of those reasons, I’m careful to not fall into the productivity trap. I spent the first two weeks of this year in higher anxiety because I know I need a better system for keeping track of all the tasks that I would like to get done. I have a broad list of categories (health in multiple dimensions, finances, relationships, social, home maintenance, pets, etc) and the time frames (daily through annually) to keep track of, and the project details itself. The problem is that these pieces are everywhere. I have documents in Drive, and notes and lists in Keep. I used to keep bookmarks and clips in EverNote, but they just increased the price and now I need to find a new solution that is more sustainable. I’m not against paying for a service, but I’m not (and won’t be) using their service in a way that justifies that price. I have things in Pinterest and Chrome bookmarks and tucked away in email. All of this needs to be simplified. And not just for the backlog, One of my goals is to apply to a doctoral degree in the coming year. I need to clear some space (mental, digital, and otherwise) to make room for that in my life.

So, some plans.

This year I don’t have goals. I have things that I want to accomplish, which isn’t necessarily the same thing.

• Keep things small. Focus on skill building and craftsmanship rather than big objectives and projects.
• Develop a simple system for tracking calendars, tasks, and projects. Track less data.
• Write more. Write more here, and play with the post structure and content more. Pay attention to my thoughts.
• Rest more. Actively rest and plan for active rest. Pay attention to the balance of rest versus non rest.

This wasn’t the post that I thought that I would write today, but it’s also more sustained than I thought I was capable of as well. I have started a commonplace book, of sorts, until I get a system worked out for capturing things on the go. The seeds for a second post exist. We’ll see where this goes this year.