Life update this week
Mar. 28th, 2014 01:22 pmLiv has put her house on the market and started receiving offers. Which is really scary but really exciting.
Liv is visiting for a long weekend, working from home while I'm at work. We're busy with family stuff most of the weekend. It's still an exciting treat to wake up together on a normal day without it being a special occasion.
I finally made a phone call I'd been stressing about for months. I feel silly because the phonecall itself was easy, but I'd been making it harder and harder to get it done by being stressed about having put it off that long. I feel like that was a last large barrier, that there's nothing else lingering in my life which is that stressful.
Work has been going better and better. I'm getting a much better sense for how long I can actually concentrate for, and what the sweet spot of how long to actually spend working is, and feeling I've build up a sufficient buffer of success that I can have a few days of experimenting or just feeling off, without it becoming a habit or risking being a disaster.
I'm really enjoying light evenings and looking forward to the clocks changing. I'd not realised how much I liked being in daylight.
Liv is visiting for a long weekend, working from home while I'm at work. We're busy with family stuff most of the weekend. It's still an exciting treat to wake up together on a normal day without it being a special occasion.
I finally made a phone call I'd been stressing about for months. I feel silly because the phonecall itself was easy, but I'd been making it harder and harder to get it done by being stressed about having put it off that long. I feel like that was a last large barrier, that there's nothing else lingering in my life which is that stressful.
Work has been going better and better. I'm getting a much better sense for how long I can actually concentrate for, and what the sweet spot of how long to actually spend working is, and feeling I've build up a sufficient buffer of success that I can have a few days of experimenting or just feeling off, without it becoming a habit or risking being a disaster.
I'm really enjoying light evenings and looking forward to the clocks changing. I'd not realised how much I liked being in daylight.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-29 04:15 pm (UTC)More strategies to get around that would be awesome; got any?
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Date: 2014-03-30 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 11:41 am (UTC)Off the top of my head, things which I think helped me:
* Talking openly about it, admitting "I'm blocked on this but I don't know why" instead of letting yourself pretend that it's actually more complicated than it is.
* The long haul. I've rarely made any progress on one particular doom-thing, but the effort often helps me handle the next thing BEFORE it becomes a doom-thing.
* Building good habits. Picking small things (eg. arrive at work before 9.20), tracking which days I do them and which days I don't, try and make it automatic.
* Recognise which things are triggers for me (mostly "things I've been stressing over for ages" and "talking to people") and being ready for them.
* Going through what I'm going to do in my mind, acclimatising gently.
* Picking a realistic schedule, even if it's "do 5 minutes the first day." Really, really small tasks, until I get some momentum. If I don't succeed in that, don't make it bigger, make it smaller the next day.
* Getting someone to come and hold my hand while I get started. preferably someone who will prod you a *little* bit, but mostly just sit with you and not judge and make you feel worse if you don't get anything done.
* Aggressively prioritise "do something vaguely ok" rather than "do it right". I can always improve it later. Accept some things I'm not going to have time to do and throw them away.
* Accept easy ways round it if possible (eg. if you can afford it, hire a cleaner if it would help focus on other things, not say "YES, I can do this, I don't need help") or work on a different task for a while.