Post-Vacation Crunch

I told myself, and my newsletter readers, that I was going to take it easy in July. After all, I missed the first week due to my vacation (I know, boo hoo, poor me). The post-vacation situation is that there are piles of things at work, piles of things at home, phone calls to be made to catch up, endless laundry, restocking the larder, getting the doctor appointments caught up before school starts, etc. And there are also the usual things I do and enjoy doing.

Yet, there’s a little nagging voice in my head. Why haven’t you blogged? You’ve had ideas. You’ve written them down. What’s the holdup? And what about that newsletter? When do you think you’re going to get to that? You should be working on it now. What’ve you been doing with all your time?

Then I go through the list of things I’ve been doing with my time. They all seem legit. It’s not like I’m spending long hours contemplating my navel. And what if I were? What would be wrong with that?

So now I’m telling myself that I’ll get to things when I get to them. Like right now, I had planned (notice I didn’t give it a should) to be working on something else. But the mood was right to work on this and the something else will surely wait. It’s not do or die. Not too many things are, are they?

So I’m telling the little nagging voice: Give it a rest. Things will get done in their own time. There’s no real rush. Life will go on whether I pay my bills today or three days from now. I’d rather catch up with a friend than get to that work quicker. If someone needs the work they’ll ask for it and I’ll do it. No biggie. I’m going to take three deep breaths and go to my happy place; why don’t you try to do the same you nag?

I know this self-talk strategy only works for a while and then the nagging voice needs to hear my kinder, gentler version of SHUT UP! again. But that’s fine. Some things require a great deal of repetition for mastery.

And when I’m ready to embark on a new project, I’ll put on a little Black Eyed Peas…Let’s get it started. Until then, I’m going to enjoy my post-vacation calm.