Heyyyyy,
Thank you so much for coming back to Weekly, Maybe, especially after two consecutive weeks of Heavy Stuff. Some of you have reached out to me to wish me well or reconnect, and that made my whole week! #wholesome
Several folks have also shared their own experience struggling with obsessive/intrusive thoughts, and I’m sending you lots of hugs. Know that you’re not alone, and help is available. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but one of the toughest, most humbling lessons I had to learn from therapy is that your thoughts do not define you. This excerpt (from this book) gives me so much comfort:
Invasive thoughts are just random firings from an out-of-order computer. Thoughts don’t have to mean anything unless we choose to infuse them with meaning. We can actually leave our thoughts alone, allow them to hoot and holler, rant and spew, all the while knowing they cannot turn us into the crazy characters their content may suggest.
When we accept that thoughts just happen, that they’re not our fault and not ours to control, this is victory. This is freedom—freedom with thoughts, not from thoughts. We can now get on with our life.
Now, in the spirit of #NoThoughtsHeadEmpty, I want to switch to a lighter topic this time around. I want to share my very own three simple productivity tips for certain kinds of people. You know who you folks are: the depressed, the constantly distracted, the anxious, the neurodivergent, those with constant intrusive thoughts. If you struggle with being productive (occasionally or all the time like myself), I’m writing this for you.
However, if you’re the overachiever, early riser, go-getter type of person, you don’t need these tips. If you regularly use a planner, a journal, or have some kind of productivity system, you definitely don’t need these tips. If you know how to link relational databases on Notion, then what are you doing here? What is the meaning of life? Where do we go after we die? May Allah show you mercy on Judgment Day. Go back to your little Dashboards or “Command Centers” or whatever you call them, you genius, beautiful freaks.
Alright, back to you, my hopeless besties.
For the longest time, especially during my Darkest Episodes, I was locked in my own head. I was missing deadlines, appointments, hangouts—couldn’t even walk to the kitchen to grab a glass of water, so I would lie down in my room, parched, for hours and hours with my dry mouth and depressive thoughts. (I’m going somewhere with this, I promiseee). Eventually, I would make it out of those episodes after a while, and whenever I was back in control of the proverbial wheel, I was always eager to redeem myself. So I mutated into a workaholic, hyper-productive monster constantly eager to Get Shit Done, because the alternative (aka being a Loser) was worse.
Long story short, years later I was in therapy for my OCD, and my therapist was asking me to list down the things I could do to distract myself whenever my compulsion showed up. The idea is that I need to refuse to give in to the batshit things my mind is telling me to do—like rearranging my desk or (my personal favorite) Replaying Scenes in My Head. One of the ways to refuse compulsions is by distracting ourselves with other things: engaging in pleasant activities, hobbies, or just mindless fun. The sad thing was, at the time I couldn’t come up with any “fun things” to distract myself with besides working.
My therapist was about my age, and she suggested that I go on TikTok for some “mindless and free entertainment.” I gasped. How is doom scrolling going to cure my OCD??? She said she would much rather see me spending hours watching funny TikToks than hours going down memory lane (fair enough). “But I feel guilty whenever I’m on social media, because it’s useless and unproductive.” That must have really piqued her interest, because she instantly went on Therapist mode and said, “Okay. We need to unpack this.” It was this “unpacking” that led me to come up with these three tips.
Tip #1: Understand this is all bullshit
Folks, if you’re still here waiting for those tips, first of all, I need to tell you this: productivity is a scam. The biggest lie ever told to us is that the more productive we are (i.e., the more tasks we can accomplish within a single hour or day), the better we become. There is a multibillion-dollar industry comprising (mostly) white men giving us tips, “tools” and “programs” to help us become more “productive” just so other people can make even more profit out of our labor. I say fuck that.
I don’t deny there will be times that we must absolutely just get up and get stuff done, that we have obligations to fulfill and bills to pay, but for the love of god, please, understand that we are entering an arena where the playing field is not level. The world has been cruel to us, tricking us into believing that we are only worthy when we are doing something other than nothing. The first thing we need to do, then, is to stop being cruel to ourselves.
The fact that despite waking up to a million intrusive thoughts in my head, I am able to get out of bed, take a shower, and make coffee, means that I have accomplished so much more than most people. I stopped demanding myself to be more productive: I already am. And with that, I am ready to beat them at their own game.
Tip #2: Summon the will to live
I start my day by opening one page on my Notes. I ask myself two important questions: How can I make life easier for future-me? and How can I also be in service of present-me by having some mindless fun?
You might think, well, now that’s underwhelming. That’s a to-do list. It is—and a very simple one at that, because I only have the mental capacity for very simple stuff. But something else also happens when you look at your life this way: you begin to see continuity. When I saw that there are things I can do now to make my life easier next month, I became hopeful. I started to want to live, til next week, next month, next year. I started thinking, I guess I’ll stick around and see what happens. For someone who used to be unable to see life beyond the next 24 hours, this is huge.
You can do this on a piece of paper, a whiteboard, or a Google Doc—I use Notes because I can access it from both my phone and my laptop. Feel free to change it up or modify it as you see fit, but make sure it’s nothing too complicated. It needs to be simple enough for my depressed OCD brain to process.
The important thing is knowing that you matter, and you are the priority: the you today, the future you next week, next month, next year. Being “productive”, then, doesn’t mean doing x amount of tasks in a given day, but rather doing anything necessary to take care of the present and future versions of ourselves. It means that taking a sick day to binge-watch Netflix can be productive. It also means that sometimes working isn’t productive.
Tip #3: Five minutes of work followed by 25 minutes of break
Since I’m also extremely forgetful, the next thing I do is go to my Calendar and make sure I time-block those tasks above so I don’t miss doing something simply because I forget (which happens a lot when I’m depressed or my OCD flares up). These two things—going to Notes and then going to Calendar—take about five to ten minutes in total, but they make a whole world of difference. Seeing my day or my week mapped out gives me clarity and a general idea of what my life will be in the short term. Time-blocking makes things seem possible, and I love it.
I am never too strict with these time blocks, though—in fact, here’s another tip: add an extra hour to each task and be pleasantly “surprised” if you finish earlier. I’m always happy to abandon my plans if a friend suddenly shows up and wants to hang out—this is what sets this system apart from the rest: that I am cutting myself some fucking slack because I know I’ll live. I trust myself enough to come back and pick up where I left off. Remember, mindless fun! Screw it!
So, there you go: my three simple tips. I know it’s not much and it’s far from perfect, but I’m hoping that by sharing this, someone else out there who is struggling might read this and find it just a little bit helpful, too. If you could take with you only one thing from this post, please let it be the first tip: that whenever you find yourself slowly sinking, beating yourself up, burning out, please know that it’s not your fault. Whether you are acing it or half-assing it, you are always worthy, so don’t let these games fool you into thinking otherwise. Take care of yourself out there.
From deep in the trenches,
Lazy-Wawa
I needed this!!!!!!