On anxiety and productivity
Hi tumblr! it’s been *mumble* years since I started this thing, with the intention of scratching my writing itch and possibly not being a creepy Anon when I send Asks to other tumblr users who are better at this than I am. (tumblr-ers? tumblrites? tumblrumbles?)
Alas, the path of an anxious, depressed grad student is paved with unfulfilled intentions. As proof, here’s a list of some of the things I’ve intended to do and not done in the past three years:
Now, a person who did even a fraction of those things would be leading a fairly successful and interesting life, right? On my most optimistic of days, I can imagine myself as that successful, interesting person. “Oh yes,” I imagine future-me saying as she tosses her immaculately-kept locks. “I recall the time when I didn’t maintain a full social schedule while also pursuing multiple fulfilling hobbies and meeting all of my academic deadlines and personal responsibilities. What a mess I was!” And then future-me laughs and takes a sip of a green smoothie and continues, I don’t know, stand-up-paddleboarding with her close-knit group of like-minded friends. Or something.
For a long time I’ve known that my problem with every single item on that list is time management. That ideal future-me has time to do ALL THE THINGS because she doesn’t spend 90 minutes or so on the couch every morning falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes while trying to figure out the optimal order in which to complete the day’s tasks. If only I would stop “wasting time doing nothing,” I’d think, I could do all of those things.
But see, I think I’ve finally figured out why I’ve never converted that awareness into actual change. I’m not “doing nothing” -- I’m trying to fight against anxiety. Anxiety is unpleasant and exhausting, but it’s also REALLY freaking time consuming. I’ve never lived in a normal person’s brain, so I can’t say for sure whether this is true, but I imagine that they look something like this when they’re making a minor decision about a day’s activities:
Meanwhile, this happened in my brain last Friday:
Do you see what I mean? A decision that would take your average Joe at MOST twenty seconds turns into a couple hours of internet research and strategizing. On a good day I still have time to actually implement the decision I’ve made; on a bad day, I give up before I ever come to a decision and watch Once Upon a Time on Netflix instead.
I’ve tried to eliminate the whole decision-making process by making myself schedules to follow, but the problem therein is I just end up frontloading all of the decisions into a single anxiety-filled session of over-analysis from which I take days to recover. Usually the schedule doesn’t even end up getting finished because I’ve worked myself into a panic over whether it makes sense to shop for groceries before or after I go to the gym on Tuesday.
So, the way I see it, I have two choices: I can start listing “anxiety” as one of my hobbies and just lean in, maybe start documenting my crazy-ass thought spirals the way other people photograph particularly elaborate meals they’ve made; or I can figure out how to keep my anxious thought patterns from turning “What should I cook for dinner?” into a question that requires a spreadsheet and a few hours of uninterrupted concentration.
Maybe I could start flipping a coin to make decisions? That always turns out well, right?
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