After weeks of insomnia, the opposite has been the case the past week or so and I seem to be barely able to stay awake past 9:30. (So, given that it is currently 9:29pm, you'll forgive me if this post trails off into random characters any minute now due to my falling asleep on the keyboard.)
This recent exhaustion and its marked contrast with my less-recent insomnia has me thinking. We seem to be in a society that thrives on encouraging productivity. In fact I feel absolutely safe in saying that I was much more productive when I wasn't able to sleep: wide awake, folding clothes or catching up on emails or blog posts I'd neglected the rest of the day. I may not have been sleeping, but I didn't feel so behind. Now that I'm getting tired earlier -- arguably at a normal time of the night -- I find myself struggling to keep up.
Am I expecting too much of myself? Even if it's things I want to do, with no tangible benefit other than "I just wanna," compared to things like, "Hey, we're all out of clean underwear," where do the priorities lie, and where ought the priorities lie? Productivity, me-time, or getting some dang sleep?
This is one of those things I'm great at when it comes to my clients. In fact, one was commenting recently that after a session she and I had where she, too, was stressing out over a mile-long to-do list and not enough time to complete it, she was able to take the "what absolutely has to get done or the world explodes?" approach to prioritizing that we'd done during the session, and apply it on a fairly regular basis when she feels herself feeling the same type of stress. I remember my own coach commenting one time that you "can't do brain surgery on yourself," and this is definitely one of those cases for me. I'm so glad I'm able to help my clients feel more empowered when it comes to their to-do lists, because, man, I can relate to stressing out over them...
Today is just one of those days. But that's okay, because I know that once the immediate STRESS of realizing how full my calendar is this week is able to wear off, I'll be able to look at everything I absolutely have to do and realize that for a lot of it, the world will not explode if it doesn't get done. (We currently have plenty of clean underwear. And even socks.) And I know that at the end of this very busy week, I'll feel very accomplished. So right now, I'll just remember to breathe.
What about you? How much stuff that absolutely has to get done or else is on your plate right now, stressing you out? And how much of that, actually, could be put off until you realistically have time to do it, without the world exploding?
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