Get Your Life Together

(well, kinda)

Hello darlings!

How is everyone doing? Closing out September with a bang, I hope!

I am not. September has been a SLOG. A combination of personal obligations, professional conferences, extreme weather, a WILD election, and a general personal state of ennui, I’m struggling to get to the end of the month and to get even a little bit of shit done.

One of the challenges for me recently is that I feel like I’m constantly juggling either spending all my time on stupid small shit or trying to work on bigger things but then letting all that small shit slip by and then feeling bad / being late with shit. What’s a distracted scholar to do? Go on a GYLT trip, that’s what!

I’ve got some serious brain fry right now and I’m looking for ways to a) stay on top of a lot of little tasks, b) not spend all day doing those tasks, and c) give myself a little breathing break. In addition to trying to get enough sleep (LOL), eating well, and moving my body, I’m also using a “GYLT break” in my calendar.

One technique that I’m trying is getting around my mental fatigue by giving myself a couple of blocks of time to Get Your Life Together (GYLT). During this time, I work on any of these small tasks that I’ve been putting off. This could include finally replying that stupid email, making a doctors appointment, booking a plane ticket, filing a reimbursement, cleaning off my desk, ordering a birthday present, printing out a return label, etc etc.  

These are the little tasks that take up just a wee bit of our memory. I am pretty good about adding them to a Google Keep list like this:

But I have to convert these things to actual action steps! And many of these require effort during actual work hours. So I’ll get to another 6pm and realize I still haven’t called my fucking dermatologist. So I have this constant memory running about all the things I need to fucking DO but cannot seem to find the time to get done!

Get Your Life Together, one time block a day:

Last week, I gave myself 3 x 15 minute blocks. That wasn’t enough! So, this week, I’m giving myself 3 x 30 minutes. GYLT, one block at a time, day at a time! Using my tried and true productivity tool of time blocking to take care of myself!

I’m hoping that I can make some headway on that to-do list plus anything else that comes up this week (dammit, I just remembered I need to take the cat to the vet!) Even better, when I honor these time blocks, I’m going to treat myself to a fun fall coffee.

Let’s see whether I can actually get my life together? (narrator: no she won’t, but maybe she’ll be less of a fucking mess than she was last week?) How about you, my darlings?

XOXOX

Mirya