hi! grateful for you're here reading this. 

 

I feel most vital when I’ve spent at least some of a day wrestling with a project or task. To wrestle something is to be in process with it, however, it is getting to it that is the challenging part for most...it certainly is for me. 

 

Once I start, regardless of how tedious or time consuming the task, I seldom want to stop. When I’m in the midst of working, whether it’s responding to emails or writing, it's challenging for me to even pause to use the bathroom, stretch, go for a walk. I need to either complete the task or be interrupted by a scheduled plan in order to stop.

 

What prevents us from getting into something is: procrastination. 

 

My take is that procrastination is a result of overwhelm. I believe we often procrastinate out of fear, not laziness…fear of success. This must be subconscious as I don’t consciously feel afraid to succeed; in fact success sounds quite nice. However, I must fear it on some level because I sure as hell delay starting tasks. The conscious reason it takes so long to start is because I feel paralyzed choosing what to begin with.

 

In this frozen state I often make lists, therefore utilizing most of the time and energy I have available for writing what I want to do, leaving little to actually do tasks I listed. 

 

Recently, my quantity of people to call, texts to respond to, and emails grew at a pace I couldn't keep up with. I feel a low level of fear that I'm falling behind in critical work while distracted by social engagements. I show up to the party… with the cake…but little do they know I haven’t answered emails in months and owe texts to dozens. And even though communication is needed from me, I feel lonely because it feels like work rather than connection. 

 

To depict how overwhelm led to procrastination, I typed out a bit from my morning pages… 

This is the true ticker of my anxious, spiraling, frustrated, overwhelmed state to show how my overwhelm snowballed into procrastination.I started by listing out all of my tasks, then I wrote the following: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What happened next is my favorite form of procrastination: doing another less urgent task. I cancelled the date, didn’t write, read, or make the calls–instead did laundry. I could’ve brought my computer or a book to the laundromat but I didn’t. Or I could've even answered important texts or DMs from my phone but I didn’t. Instead I just wandered around. 

 

I share this to show you how I mismanaged my energy that weekend. Because when I did finally have free time, I lacked the energy for applying it to my tasks or leisure activities I wanted to do. This is why managing our energy is perhaps more important than managing time. 

 

I procrastinated not out of laziness, but out of overwhelm and lack of energy to prioritize. I did a lot, however none of it was done with intention or presence. The only way out of this is counterintuitive: it is to get out of my own head and connect with others. This is when I call a friend not to vent, but purely to listen to their shit, or do someone a useful favor, but then I have to return to myself. And with the energy given back to me from that connection, I can apply it to myself by starting on a task, any task. You will feel like you've accomplished something after this discomfort of half-doing things. 

 

The antidote to overwhelm is: space, time, saying no, and boundaries, so I have the energy and capacity to do what I need to do and want to do. Time is finite, so time management is useful but not as important as energy management.

 

Energy can be created and destroyed. We have interactions with people who take energy and we have interactions that give us energy. It is difficult to discern which way an interaction will go, but usually you can intuitively know if something will drain your energy or fill you. 

 

So with that I’m doing a bunch to improve my relationship to overwhelm, procrastination, and energy management.…that is what we discussed in this month's In Process including…