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For the last few days I've been feeling distracted, uneasy, and any time I'd think about doing something "productive" I would say "nah I just want to lay down" and I'd lay and doomscroll. Tonight I recognized it - my body was overwhelmed by large, nebulous tasks again.
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In the past week I've found out that (a) my wife and I are going to Spain in a few weeks, (b) I'm spending a week in Berlin to work at the Artsy office afterward, and (c) I'm giving two new talks at CodeMash in January. All great things!!! But all very large.
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I keep this thing I call "my life playbook" which is really just a single doc of frequently-felt-emotions, and tonight was the biggest ROI I've had from it -- I noticed how much I've been laying & doom-scrolling, and scanned my notes for what it means when I feel like this:
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Am I feeling general dread and 'meh'-ness?: ✅ When I don't work out in the morning, my mood is depressed ✅ Do I have large, nebulous things looming over me? I should break them down into small, workable tasks. When I don't have tasks to check off, I feel lost/overwhelmed. ...
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✅ Am I avoiding something because it involves uncertainty? Make a list of small steps I can take to move it forward. Identify the uncertainty as much as possible and make a list of things I can research to become more comfortable.
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I checked literally all the boxes I had previously written down. This moment helped me realize that I did, in fact, need to break down a bunch of large, uncertain things down into smaller tasks I could take action on. And two hours later I feel 8000 times better.
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In summary: 1. Keep track of when you feel shitty. 2. When you figure out what's contributing to you feeling shitty, keep track of that too. 3. Re-read your notes when you're feeling shitty.