Compartmentalize Me
February 8, 2021 5:30 AM Subscribe
I've got a lot of Stuff going on right now, and it's messing with my focus and concentration, esp at work, but also during my leisure time and the time I spend on my creative pursuits. How do I mentally compartmentalise better?
Work is always busy and always requires a lot of focus and attention to detail. That's usually fine, that's where I shine most of the time.
But right now I am also navigating a big project (house move) and obviously I get phone calls and emails from estate agents, solicitors etc during the work day. I am doing this alone and feeling very vulnerable/stressed out by it as I have no one to advise me or talk things over with, and I find myself constantly breaking off work to stress out about negotiations or if my last email was clear enough and whether it's all going to work out, or to go onto Reddit and Money Saving Expert fora to see what other people think (which is sometimes helpful but sometimes very stress-inducing!).
I really want this house move. I've wanted to do it for a long time. I know I just need to push through this and it'll be okay.
But it's eating up all my mental energy and leaving me liable to making mistakes at work (where a simple mistake could have big repercussions); it's also messing with my sleep at a time that I need to be calm, focused and well-rested in order to make the best decisions. I've also got the WORST writers' block, which is a small problem in the grand scheme of things, but my creative writing is my most reliable form of stress relief and when deprived of it I just feel mentally and emotionally awful, like I'm clogged up with 'stuff' that won't leave my brain.
So how do I mentally compartmentalise better? I try to set aside set times to work on house-stuff (Saturdays, Friday afternoons, weekday lunchtimes) but thoughts of it distract me constantly and emails and phone calls from externals come at all hours of the work day.
Work is always busy and always requires a lot of focus and attention to detail. That's usually fine, that's where I shine most of the time.
But right now I am also navigating a big project (house move) and obviously I get phone calls and emails from estate agents, solicitors etc during the work day. I am doing this alone and feeling very vulnerable/stressed out by it as I have no one to advise me or talk things over with, and I find myself constantly breaking off work to stress out about negotiations or if my last email was clear enough and whether it's all going to work out, or to go onto Reddit and Money Saving Expert fora to see what other people think (which is sometimes helpful but sometimes very stress-inducing!).
I really want this house move. I've wanted to do it for a long time. I know I just need to push through this and it'll be okay.
But it's eating up all my mental energy and leaving me liable to making mistakes at work (where a simple mistake could have big repercussions); it's also messing with my sleep at a time that I need to be calm, focused and well-rested in order to make the best decisions. I've also got the WORST writers' block, which is a small problem in the grand scheme of things, but my creative writing is my most reliable form of stress relief and when deprived of it I just feel mentally and emotionally awful, like I'm clogged up with 'stuff' that won't leave my brain.
So how do I mentally compartmentalise better? I try to set aside set times to work on house-stuff (Saturdays, Friday afternoons, weekday lunchtimes) but thoughts of it distract me constantly and emails and phone calls from externals come at all hours of the work day.
When I was working full time, in grad school full time, moving apartments, and planning my wedding, I started making very detailed weekly to do lists with a separate column for each category. It took probably an hour each Sunday to get everything perfectly sorted and scheduled but it let me mentally let go and just "do the things" for the rest of the week.
I second the advice to tell your team at work, we bought a house this time last year and there are always last-minute things that pop up and have to be dealt with immediately.
posted by The Librarian at 7:01 AM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I second the advice to tell your team at work, we bought a house this time last year and there are always last-minute things that pop up and have to be dealt with immediately.
posted by The Librarian at 7:01 AM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I would recruit a friend to bounce things off of. A big piece of doing it alone is the part where you're second guessing yourself (how am I phrasing this email, is the lawyer pressuring me into X or is that my actual preference, etc.) and having someone to give you a reality check would be a big help. If you have a friend with a little patience for keeping track of your stories and answering anxiety texts, that could go a long way to keeping you feeling anchored in your decisions.
posted by gideonfrog at 8:23 AM on February 8, 2021
posted by gideonfrog at 8:23 AM on February 8, 2021
One thing that helped me when we bought a house was to more consciously accept that I was "satisficing" and not optimising in some areas - e.g. we got a decent mortgage deal but probably not the absolute best one on offer, we possibly could have negotiated a little bit harder on price etc.
Not stressing that we'd get the absolute best outcome meant we could focus on other things (work, my wife's pregnancy). 20 years later I can barely even remember what we compromised on but we still have the house and the children!
posted by crocomancer at 9:10 AM on February 8, 2021 [5 favorites]
Not stressing that we'd get the absolute best outcome meant we could focus on other things (work, my wife's pregnancy). 20 years later I can barely even remember what we compromised on but we still have the house and the children!
posted by crocomancer at 9:10 AM on February 8, 2021 [5 favorites]
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- Told my boss and everyone on my team that I was buying a house alone and was very stressed, and the reality was I wasn't going to have mental room to do much beyond my day to day tasks for a little while.
- Scheduled a few half day vacation days to give myself space to take care of house business during daylight hours.
- I was kind to myself. I bought my house not just by myself but also during a global pandemic and widespread racial justice protests. There was a lot going on. I ordered pre-made meals from Freshly for a few weeks so I didn't even have to think about feeding myself. I didn't touch or even think about work outside of work hours. And I let go of every single thing that didn't provide me either 1. progress on house or 2. mind numbing comfort. Who cares if I spent an entire Saturday playing some dumb phone game and watching 16 hours of Law and Order? Certainly not me today! It's what I needed to do then to recuperate.
Creative writing is great, but realistically it requires brain space. Let yourself be a blob for a while. Soon, you'll be a blob in a new house and things will get better and you'll be back to yourself.
posted by phunniemee at 5:44 AM on February 8, 2021 [9 favorites]