Procrastination can be a sign of burnout and sometimes a little rest is all that’s needed to get back in the game.
For about two weeks I had been, what I can only describe as, stuck. I sat in front of my laptop ready to get to work and nothing came to me. I tried getting up early, following a morning ritual, writing to do lists, offering myself rewards for getting just about anything done, and nothing worked. The biggest issue was that the more I got stuck, the more I spoke very harshly to myself.
Instead of acknowledging that I had a blockage, I would berate myself for being lazy, stupid and useless. Because, of course, that helps!
I would spend most of my day, pacing aimlessly around my dining table, repeating over and over to myself, just how awful I was, and then staring forlornly at my whiteboard (a pile of A3 pages sellotaped to my living room door) where I had scrawled the word WHY? I hoped for inspiration to come to me, I begged and willed my brain to work, but nothing happened.
When my partner came home in the evenings, he would lovingly ask me how my day was. What would follow would be a mix of screams, tears, tantrums and more hateful words, mostly aimed at myself but a few thrown at him for good measure because, how dare he question me?! I immediately took his kind questions as a telling off for being so lazy and unproductive while he was at work being useful, which was of course, all in my head!
Every time a call or email came through, I would be in bits! How was I supposed to get anything done when I was constantly bombarded by these 15-20 emails a day?! This would quickly be followed with, but I used to deal with 300 emails a day and still get work done, so what is wrong with me, why am I so useless?!
To solve this overwhelming and distracting email and phone call problem, my better half offered to take my work phone to work with him, and he would keep an eye on it so I could get some work done without the distraction. This at first seemed a huge result and I was so grateful to him for removing the ‘problem.’ Unfortunately, within half a day I was back to pacing around the dining table and had only achieved writing a string of expletives on my make-do white board.
Now my overwhelming thoughts were guilt and shame. My partner was doing my job for me because I was too lazy and useless to do it myself and to make it worse, he was doing it better than me, whilst also successfully managing his own job. My self esteem took an instant nose-dive and my self-talk just got more and more negative.
Together we tried going through my extensive (60 item) to do list and narrowing down what was most important. I had four websites and they all needed a serious update, my company also had a big event coming up and needed promo material, banners, folders etc, I had also just taken on a marketing manager to help with all of our marketing but I had not given her enough information for her to really get going with things. All of these big projects required content, all of which needed to be written by me and I was stuck on all of it! I was letting my company down! My partner and I sat down and prioritised everything, delegated where we could, and then I was left with a slightly more organised 54 item to do list.
My partner continued to man the phone and emails and gave me four days to get my head straight.
Day one, I started writing everything that was needed for the new branded folders for our big event.
Day two, I completed the task and then had a meeting with the marketing manager to get her take on what was needed for the website and what she needed to get moving on the marketing side of things. She immediately took two items off my to do list and put them on hers.
Day three, I did nothing. I curled up on my sofa with my cat and binge watched NCIS. I didn’t even bother getting dressed. I had the first full ‘down-day’ that I’d had since lockdown lifted. I drank hot chocolates that my partner made and brought to me. I ate what my Mum would call, ‘picky bits,’ slices of apple and cheese, sliced meats, tomatoes, cucumber, sticks of carrot, anything that I could nibble on at leisure. Day three was a complete reset. I didn’t think about work and therefore I didn’t have any negative self-talk about work. Every now and then I would get a flutter of panic and I would ask my partner if it was ok that I was doing nothing, he would reply “you’re fine, do you need more chocolate” and that would be it, back to relaxing.
Day four, I had a lazy morning. I washed my hair and gave myself a full facial, and in the afternoon, I planned the updates for my main website, made the decision to shut down one of them and wrote two out of the three new website pages needed. I also wrote a press release, which was not on my to do list and cooked dinner for the first time in a week.
A few days later and I was still full steam ahead. My to do list was still long but when you run your own company, the to do list always has a lot on, but the important thing is, I wasn’t scared of it anymore. I was being hugely productive and was back on the phone and emails and managing really well. No longer stuck!
Procrastination is not laziness or uselessness; it can be a sign of overwhelm and a need for some time off.
There is power in taking a ‘down-day,’ where you take the pressure off yourself and just ‘be’ for a day or two! Forcing yourself to be productive and keep your head in the game when you clearly need a break only increase negative self-talk, and negative self-talk leads to burnout.
My lesson from this; take a damn day off!