Motivation crumble

The painful thing of it is, when energy is already low, and motivation only comes in short, unpredictable bursts that can crumble under the light brush of frustration, you need to be ready to go when inspiration strikes.  

When you get an idea for something small and simple that could help you make real progress and you actually manage to immediately launch into action, well, discovering that your computer suddenly won't connect to the internet until after you complete a Windows Update is like cold water on the fading embers of your inner fire. 

I'm grateful that many tech companies are willing to handle necessary updates without too much intercession for me. But when I need to send a message, make a call, look up a term, find contact information, or take a note, later isn't good enough. Are all the updates absolutely necessary right when I'm ready to use my device? I really would like for the companies to find a way for their products to be ready when they're needed, every time. This would go a long way to making them as accessible for those who need the support to manage their regular day-to-day as it is for those who use the support to get ahead of the pack.

Methods in madness

Documenting some things that I think work well for me, including the act of documenting itself, and the data it brings. I need to be careful with documenting because it's one of the trickier culprits that contribute to overwhelm for me -- but its lack is one of the reasons I frequently find myself unable to figure out what's empirical data and what's assumption or confirmation bias. Without trying too hard to change anything else, I want to try and document what I already do, and I'm starting with my self care as the most important thing to document. I also have a documentation space for home care and maintenance tasks, but if both get to be too much, I have them separate so I can narrow it down to one. 

My goal is to understand my self-care patterns -- how often I tend to be able to do which kinds of self care, what other factors influence it, and eventually, which elements of routine and ritual will help me solidify some of the things that help me feel my best and function well.

Life's aches and pains (reflections after a Covid booster, hour 27)

Workout aches and pains be like: 

I see you've decided to run over a kilometer without stretching your hamstrings first. Smug upstart.

Getting old aches and pains be like:

I see you've decided to reach for the fork you dropped under the table without getting off your chair. Foolish mortal. 

Vaccine booster aches and pains be like:

I see you've decided to have wrists. Idiot.

Girl, (Somewhat) Uninterrupted

Curbing the pathological notification checking.

Trying to take a bit of time to reset, sort of. Try something a bit different. Shake things up. It's hard but I also feel like despite the hard things never really letting up, I'm feeling things shift a bit for me. More clarity. Maybe it's the vitamins. Maybe it's getting back to work but without the soul-tearingly early hours required to get everyone to their respective day jobs on time, now that we're all working from home. More willingness to move on things I had set aside too or was avoiding looking at. More intentionality. I'm starting to take charge of the push and pull of the tides and push back a bit so resentment isn't my only mental state -- which feels important. I can't analyze it too closely or try to force myself to document it all. I need to accept that some things are too big for me to reduce to words or lists or line items -- and anyway, that's a good thing in my books. I just need to actually make peace with it. 

 Something I've learned more concretely about myself in the last couple days of virtual school, and that I should probably watch for more and keep in mind, is that interruption is one of the main things that kills my productivity. So much so that even the thought that I might be interrupted kind of paralyzes my ability to transition to the next right thing. I just pace and wait and fritter away time on the less important but easily finished or abandoned tasks while I let the potential for interruption pass. Sometimes I think it's fine to acknowledge this and allow for myself to do just the one thing at a time. Other times though, I may need to find ways to control or redirect this tendency, since some interruptions never end but also never begin. That said, I also need to reduce the potential for interruptions in some areas. This week I've been shutting down a lot of sources of mini-crisis and it's been nice to have my mind free to continue the thought I was already having. More of that would be good. Basically, there's almost no need for me to ever rely on Social Media to keep me connected to the people I really need to keep constant connection with, and so turning of its push notifications and limiting checking it to a smaller window each day can help me avoid inviting interruption. So doing, I can increase the continuous flow time for things like serenity, creativity, and purpose.