Sock Puppets, Time, and Not Doing Enough

Art by Sarah Anderson

Guess where I was last week instead of writing my next newsletter to you all?

In my bed. Curled up like a little gremlin.

I crashed. Hard. My brain no longer formed thoughts. I was a blob. A gremlin, hermit, blob of a creature.

And once again I am asking myself: why did I crash so hard? Why could I do nothing but binge shows about a girl who loves poison in feudal china, witches with a furry friend that looks like a cozy white scarf, and people turning into animals when hugged (lets play guess that anime).

Shouldn’t it just be a day, or even a few hours, minutes, and then I hop right back into it?
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So I asked myself “Well how much work have you been doing?”

And naturally I answered “NOT ENOUGH I HAVE TO DO MORE.”

One second…

I pull out two colorful socks with buttons for eyes, put them on my hands, and proceed to act out the following dialogue:

“Well what proof do you have?”
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“Proof?”
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“Yea I mean do you have documentation of how many hours you work?”
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“Well I have my color coordinated Google Calendar for every job I have”
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“Okay, but does that factor in work you do outside those times? You do work outside those times yea?”
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“YEA BUT NOT EN-“
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“Okay so you don’t actually know how long for a fact?”
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And I went, “Hm.”

So I figured there’s probably an app for that. And there was. There were many. I landed on Toggl. Uploaded that. And the first thing I logged was the hour I spent searching apps. Because I realized, even if I wasn’t making moolah, my tracking of hours is part of my work!

Then I started tracking throughout the week and I realized, I fucking work. A lot.

And that made me also wonder: how much do I want to be working a week? Are certain tasks taking me longer than I realized? Do I need to adjust my services? Wow I only spend an hour a week with friends? I’d like that to happen more. That sounds restful. Wait. Maybe this will help me find more of a balance between work and rest, and I won’t find myself burning out and crashing for long periods of time as consistently.

Both sock puppets jaws drop.

And that’s when I began to feel like I had more energy again. What a relief! Now rather than spending a huge amount of energy catastrophizing and beating myself up for “not doing enough” I could see that in fact I wasn’t doing too badly. And I didn’t need to worry as much!!

And now here I am writing this newsletter and feeling more optimistic :)

P.S. I wish I had sock puppets, how fun. Oooooo new fun fall craft…..

Note: I did not go through this difficult time alone!! I was fortunate to have some additional support from my own Organic Intelligence Coach in between anime episodes and oreos, which gave me relief amidst the exhaustion and unpleasant feelings I was experiencing.
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If you’re finding things more difficult and need some additional support as well, I’m happy to offer some through 1:1 sessions of my own!
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Click the link below to learn more and book a discovery call with me :)