Thoughts on Slowing Down
For a long time now I have defined my worth based on my productivity and output. I don’t know when it started. I remember that I used to prioritize rest and give myself time to just be. But at some point during the years, I stopped. What became more important was the amount I performed. Every moment of every day had to be filled with me doing something productive or it was wasted time.
Lately, I’ve been trying to get myself to slow down. We’re in the middle of sleep regressions with both of my kids and it’s made me rethink how I see my productivity. I’m spending more time trying to get them to sleep or being awake when they have communicated that sleep is no longer a realistic option. Time that I had previously dedicated to productivity is now being spent in other ways and I’m needing to prioritize rest because I’m not getting as much sleep as I was before. I won’t like… it’s been a difficult transition. But now that we’re a few weeks in I’m realizing that it’s not all bad. I can have less output, get rest, and still be a productive, contributing member of my household and at work.
Redefining Free Time
This mindset shift started when I read Happier Hour. I have been looking at my free time all wrong. I defined my free time as my alone time. Solely dedicated to me. If I didn’t get my alone time, I was frustrated and would quickly claim that I had no time to myself. But that wasn’t exactly true because there was all of this other time that was meaningful and that I spent with my family that I wasn’t counting as part of my free time. In this season of my life, I’m never going to get enough free time to fill my need to relax based solely on the amount of alone time I get. But being able to change my mindset to see that family time is also relaxing time is incredibly helpful.
Changing My Expectations for My Daily Work Output
Another change I have recently made is that my goal is to work on 2-3 projects at work each day - and that’s it. My days are filled with meetings, responding to emails and random chats, and other little things that pop up that lead to a full day and pull me away from my work. Once I started considering this, I realized I could only touch on 2-3 projects per day. My goal is to work on one project in the morning and one project in the afternoon. I was trying to do a little bit of everything every day and it was making me crazy because I wasn’t making any progress. Dialing it back and being realistic that my capacity only allows me to work on 2-3 projects a day puts me in an easier and more gentle mindset where I am nicer to myself and feel as though I am moving the needle every day.
Committing to Rest
One of the greatest ironies of my takeaways from reading Happier Hour was that I realized I did need more rest. I communicated this need to my husband. I mapped out the time on my calendar when I would sleep and rest. I gave myself a pep talk about why getting more sleep is important. And then my children immediately stopped sleeping and started waking up multiple times each night or early in the morning. I haven’t had consistently uninterrupted sleep in years now, but waking up and being awake for multiple hours every single night has led to a whole new level of sleep deprivation.
At first I was just mad. I felt like the universe was laughing at me. And as a result, I was not a very nice person to anyone in my home for about a week and a half. I think I was experiencing some form of shock. I realized the only thing I could do in this situation was control my mindset and response. I could continue to be mad, but that wasn’t helping anyone. Or I could adapt and figure out what I needed to show up nicer.
Because my rest couldn’t look how I had originally expected it to, I’ve had to find other ways to build in rest throughout the day to accumulate what I need to function. This might be a random midday nap (thank goodness for working from home!), a nice long walk, or just giving myself more of a break when it comes to getting things done around the house. Cutting back on chores isn’t ideal, but I remind myself that this isn’t permanent and we can do it for now. I’ve also been reminding myself that sleep and rest are productive and that I’m a kinder, more empathetic parent, and more enthusiastic when I prioritize rest and downtime.
I’m still working on not defining my worth based on my productivity. Undoing it is going to take a long time, but if a friend were defining herself this way, I would tell her the following:
You are so much more than what you create. At the end of the day, those projects don’t matter as much as your ability to show up for yourself, your family, and your people. You deserve to relax. Not every minute of every day has to be planned or filled with something productive for you to live a meaningful life. You are allowed to take it slow and enjoy it.