We've all been there (hopefully). We all know the excitement and anxiety that accompanies our stomach and mind when getting a huge plate of food at a restaurant. You were starving, so you went for the huge meal. The meal where the waiter looked at you and said "That can feed three people," and you laughed and said:
"Look at me, I can handle it."
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The food comes, you dive in, and your pacing seems like you're going to be downing this plate within 10 minutes. Personally, I like to use the strategy of eating it as fast as humanly possible, so your mind can't catch up to your stomach until it is far too late. You get more food in that way, you know?
The problem is that you will eventually get full. Maybe you will finish the plate and maybe you won't, but even if you finish this particular plate, you will one day find a plate of food that you just can't seem to finish, no matter how hard you try. Nowadays, because I'm no longer a regular athlete, my own experience has involved more of getting a takeout box and less of sending back an empty plate.
Weirdly enough, the same thing has been happening with my work. See, I love taking on as much as possible. I think doing so allows me to have a wide variety of responsibilities and experiences, which ultimately helps round me out as a person. Recently, however, the stress associated with spreading myself out over different areas has become much greater because the responsibilities have skyrocketed. Consequently, my more structured commitments, like my two summer jobs and Odyssey, get the attention they need because there are deadlines to meet. The other things, things that I want to do for me, like my vlog, photography, working out and some short films, simply disappear.
Stress builds because I'm trying to meet deadlines while I consciously I know I'm putting off other things that I also love to do. It seems like there is just not enough time in the day, so I sit and wonder if I finally need to cut activities out of my schedule to make time. I look at my commitments, both to others and to myself, and think about what would be best to remove from my daily planner. The problem is that I'm like a hoarder in that sense: I'll want to use something eventually, so I won't get rid of it. I wouldn't have signed on to these obligations, both personally and to others, if I had not had reason to do them. It's very hard to just forget those reasons. It's hard to remove something and let yourself feel okay about doing so.
Before I go on, it is totally OK if other people don't have trouble with this. It is just incredibly hard for me because of one simple fact.
While I sit there trying to think about what to cut out, I remember that having more time to do things has never helped me plan out my other obligations so that I finish them in a more timely manner. It just gives me more time to derp around and visit my favorite place, ever.
Procrastination City. I actually have a permanent residence there, so stop by and talk anytime you want. Bah dum tss!
I don't need to give myself more opportunity to stop by P.C.; I just need to find the source of my problem. In doing so, I've found that right now, the difficulty of the tasks isn't what makes them stressful. It's the time they each take up and my inability to plan for it. That may be a consequence of me keeping track of everything mentally because I hate planners. My middle school would give students planners and force us to use them, and it made me feel incredibly dumb. I would forget to write in it and ask others for the assignment until I eventually just learned how to get by without it. I never hopped on the bandwagon, but the problem is that in the years since, I still never have. All my obligations are still recorded by memory.
I have no self-prescribed schedule, either. I just do things when I can. MIT football tried to teach me how to plan every minute of my day so I wouldn't have any issue with procrastination or stress, but I finagled my way around that. Consequently, I don't remind myself of things until the day before they're due, and I don't plan out how I am going to attack my "burger challenge delux" of a workload, I just run in screaming "Leroy Jenkins!". (The funny thing is I would totally plan out how to attack the actual challenge burger, and there is also a lesson there)
Thus, with all of that said, I've set some goals for the summer:
1. Actually plan things out: Have a planner, dedicate time to each of my obligations every day and adjust as needed so I feel fulfilled and not disappointed at when I'm shipping back up to Boston at the end of the summer.
2. Positive reinforcement: Always telling myself it is totally possible to do everything I want to do.
3. I will also have to have a way to remind myself of my obligations' deadlines as I go so I nibble off a little piece at a time instead of trying to down the whole thing in one sitting.
I'm wicked excited. I also would like to say that I really enjoy writing here because it becomes a way to reflect and talk with all of you about everything I'm trying to figure out, and it gives me a chance to share what works for me. But, you know what, I'm interested in what works for you, too. Leave a comment below on what you think about managing a huge workload or taking on more than you can chew!
Have a great week!
