019: Feeling quite mortal
I can't believe I used to be so busy
Written instead of playing League of Legends…
Hello! It’s been a minute—this week’s post is an extended personal note.
I just finished week 3 of my new job, and have been adjusting to balancing a full-time job again.
When I first quit my job, I struggled with feeling “unproductive” in my new abundance of time. I later grew to cherish the ability to do nothing and just exist. Without endless tasks and calendar events filling my days, I had space to dream, to introspect, to create, because my soul was free to wander and explore. These days, I’ve been feeling the opposite, and I’ve really been struggling with the sense that time and energy suddenly feel scarce.
In some ways, nothing has changed—my new role is remote, so my daily environment is still the same. However, instead of solely working for and on myself, I now have a manager to report to, stakeholders to manage, a team to get to know, context to build, slides to make, documents to write, etc. After that, I had community events and classes I’d signed up for, a blog (and withering novel) to write, chores and cooking to do, a partner and family to hang out with, friends to see, book clubs I should read for, TV shows to catch up on, while trying to make myself choose to go to the gym.
Feeling like this baffles me, because I also recognize that this is almost everyone’s daily life and was my status quo until I took a break. Sure, I knew I was a busy bee in the past, but I never before felt frustrated at having to pick and choose what I could do with my remaining time when 5pm rolls around. I recently met a girl finishing business school who described her life of endless side projects, and thought to myself, “Did I once do all that too? Do I envy that? Do I want to be that busy again?” My answer is now no, but I don’t think my life reflects it at all.
I realized (maybe 10 years too late, lol) that I have serious time management issues. Not in that I can’t get things done, but that I’ve been constantly making prioritization decisions that result in burnout:
I’ve always overworked: I’m reachable almost every minute I’m awake, and treat work asks as top priority. I used to work 60-80 hours weekly (for years). Even 3 weeks into my new job, I’ve already worked late on multiple occasions (including the Wendy classic shift, midnight-3am).
I choose breadth over depth: I meet up with more friends infrequently, which creates acquaintance-friends vs. deep friendships. I pursue many activities and hobbies shallowly, which is great for novelty but prevents mastery.
I constantly trade off my wellness: I habitually sleep less than 6 hours, I let go of diet and exercise whenever the going gets tough, and am constantly dehydrated and getting sick. Back in my Big 4 days, I used to joke that my default state was general malaise but ironically the status hasn’t seemed to leave for good.
This is where I kick myself. Wasn’t the whole point of my sabbatical to take time, recharge, figure out what gives me life, so that I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes again? The worst part was that I wanted to spend more time writing over my other hobbies, and it’s the one thing that I haven’t actually done at all for the past month.
I recently read (skimmed?) a self-help book, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, because I was drawn to its cheeky subtitle: Time Management for Mortals. The premise of the book is prioritization: there’s not enough time to do everything we want to do. Instead of productivity hacking, the only way to really manage time is to let go of the idea of doing everything and identify only the things we really, actively, want—and do a ruthless culling of everything else. Its simple point is deceptively difficult to accept—I don’t want to admit that I’m mortal—I want to have my cake and eat it too, even though I now know that it can’t be the case anymore.
I miss the days where I had endless energy, the manic college-student type where I felt limitless, endlessly chatting or partying or writing term papers through the night. Where I could borrow from tomorrow ad infinitum, and my body and mind would never feel the recoil. These days I know and acutely feel that I am only mortal, with the same 24 hours to use each day as everyone else.
Truthfully, I don’t have the capacity to deeply invest in community building, or make a ton of new friends, or go to every book club or meetup or interesting class or salon out there. What I really need is to unbusy myself, to make the space to rest before I get tired. (I now believe that’s the only way to prevent burnout.)
I hope that in giving up many of the things I like, I’ll have more space for what I love. My goal in the absence of busyness is to devote more time to health: to sleep on a sane schedule, exercise regularly, eat nutritiously, and spend time on mindfulness—including the introspection and mind-wandering necessary to write these posts and my novel. I’ve also overextended my social energy lately, and now want to deepen existing friendships than create more new connections despite my love for meeting new people. (I’m not used to being protective of my needs, but I’m also not used to living without hubris…😅)
It’ll be tough, especially since I used to wear my busy bee reputation like a badge, and placed so much of my identity in having myriad interests. My busy schedule insidiously took over my life, which contributed to my eventual burnout. I was the proverbial frog in the boiling pot; but this time around, my break gave me enough time away from busyness to realize how dangerous too much of it can be. And this time around, I’m determined to find a solution for it.
Thanks for reading! I don’t have a great way of ending this, other than to ask that you keep me accountable in writing and to thank you for your support. Let me know if you’ve gone through something similar—I’d love to take notes where I can.
I learned the hard way that the more I did, the more was given to me. I worked fast and was thorough, and my co-workers just took their time and did the bare minimum. Guess who was happier and better rested? I believe in office hours now, going in and focusing and getting the work done, then turning off when the workday is over (with exceptions for emergencies and deadlines). As creatives, we have to do that so we do have time for ourselves and to replenish. And the whole of Europe does that, taking off August entirely, and they are doing just fine! I love Spain and parts of the UK for experimenting with a 4-day workweek (and it's working). We don't have to perpetuate that American standard of working ourselves into an early grave (or addiction or depression). We get to live, too. So, you're not alone in your struggle. You're just learning this lesson earlier than others (like me), and letting that other you go (even though she's grasping to hold on!) so the new you can thrive. xo