Make Progress When You Feel Like A Slug
Task weight, rest days, and turning on the hose just a little bit.
Today is one of those days where almost everything seems harder for me. You know the kind I’m talking about.
You wake up, you got plenty of sleep but you still feel more tired than usual. You start your day and you’re not as sharp as you usually are. Everything, even small stuff, feels like more work.
The ups and downs are frustrating. If you’re like me, you also seek linear progress. I want a straight-arrow pointed up and to the right. Setbacks make progress feel uncertain or fleeting. Days like this feel more stressful because they can mean that I have to be even more productive tomorrow to catch up to that impossible and unrealistic arrow.
One of the ways I’ve learned to make progress when I feel like a slug is to focus on doing small things. Sometimes tasks are small enough all by themselves and other times, you have to break bigger tasks apart.
What’s difficult about this advice is that your mileage may vary.
Once I get going, I tend to be able to get up to a normal operating speed. If I don’t, I consider options like taking a rest day. Rest days are still new to me, in the past I’d just force it. So, I’m no expert there. You’ll have to try this for yourself and see where you typically land and if it’s a useful strategy—but momentum is a key element of being productive when my brain doesn’t want to cooperate.
The battle seems like an unwinnable fight. How will you suddenly turn yourself into a motivated, productive human today? The answer of course, is that you usually can’t. The answer, most of the time, is realizing that the fight isn’t about forcing yourself to be productive and instead is only about turning the hose on a little bit at a time.
Try that on and let me know how it goes.
I look to the little things that I can accomplish to make me feel I can do something more. Sometimes it's just straightening up a room, even my classroom, or starting a wash. If I have a big task, like starting a new wood project that will take lots of time and effort, I start by cleaning up the shop. Small steps for me may lead to larger ones. But then some procrastination is not so bad once in a while too ;)