Unburying myself from self-imposed process
Me: Hey, who put all these heavy rocks in this bag and demanded that I lug it around every day?
The Universe: …
Me: Oh right, I did.
Earlier this week, my wife asked if she could go to a happy hour the next day. That would require me to leave work on the early side in order to be home with the kids while she was out. This was a small request, and yet I felt a blanket of dread settle over me when she asked. I opened my work calendar and stared through it, unable to process its information. I mumbled something like, “I think maybe I’m a little burnt out,” and retreated to my basement office, where I nearly burst into tears.
Yikes.
In the immortal words of David Byrne, how did I get here?
It was partly due to the busy three-day weekend we had just concluded, during which yours truly, a middle-of-the-spectrum introvert, was almost constantly socially engaged. It was fun, and I was mostly happy throughout it, but it left me exhausted and vulnerable to overwhelm.
But the bigger issue, I realized later, was that I’d made the standard workday far too burdensome on myself. I like structure, routine, and checklists. They help me remember to do the things I need or want to do. But they also make it easy to accumulate process:
- It’d be great to read The Daily Stoic every morning. It only takes a minute. I’ll add that to my morning checklist.
- Oh look, that guy also wrote The Daily Dad. It’s important to be a good dad. I’ll add that too.
- The Make Time book says to pick one highlight every day. Great idea. Add it to the checklist.
- I should spend 5 minutes prepping for each meeting I have each day. Add it.
- I want to incorporate the GROW coaching method into my meeting prep. Checklist.
- I want to review and update a monthly note as inspired by The Bullet Journal Method. Add it.
- I read that I should update my today task list to include only those things I must do today. Nice idea. Add that.
Sadly, I could keep going.
Over time, what started as a relatively sane morning “reflection” checklist had turned into a labyrinth of daily preparatory work that I felt I must complete before I could do my actual job. This seems absurd in hindsight, and yet it took a near-breakdown for it to dawn on me that this was not only unnecessary but had become truly counter-productive.
Sigh. 🤦‍♂️
I’m dumping all the rocks out of the bag and starting fresh. I’ve found some relevant helpful thoughts from Oliver Burkeman’s You Are Here series in the Waking Up app. I hope to write about some of those soon.