The “Well” blog of the NYT showed their Top 10 stories for improving your mental health. While doom scrolling through the list, #4 came up.
“Free yourself from task paralysis” This one was practically pointing a finger at me.
Do you guys get this as well?
It’s when you have 37 things to do, and all of them have gotten downloaded to your brain’s desktop in one big jumbled pile. You can’t even make a To-Do list because they are all mentally present for you in that mound of chaos, all at once. A that point, it’s officially become a To-Do-Do pile.
They called this “Task Paralysis” and fine. But for me, I call it spinning because I’d mentally start on one project, which triggered something I had to finished for another, which triggered an unfinished portion, of then next one, and on and on until the 37th one triggered the task I started with in the first place!
I have to think Task Paralysis must be a super common affliction, especially in small businesses where everyone wears multiple hats.
For me, I had to mentally manually take those 37 things and put them off my desktop until there was only one thing left. Just one. Only then could I focus on a task without my ADD kicking in [Squirrel!]. Only then does that To-Do-Do pile turn back into a simple, doable To-Do list.
If you have something you do to manage this issue, respond here I’d love to hear!
