On Slow Days and Breaking Cycles
Writing Challenge Day Six. It’s passing by in a flash, and it’s getting easier and easier to fill the page and write my thoughts out. I’m glad I started doing this challenge.
Today (Friday) has been a particularly slow day for me. I had and have plenty to do and a long list of things that I should have been getting to, but it just wasn’t the day for productivity. It took much longer than usual to get out of bed, and sitting at my desk and studying was suddenly a massive chore compared to how it usually goes. I could only concentrate in small bursts over the course of about 90 minutes. After that I switched over to just working through my tasks for the day, which also had to be put away after a little over two low-energy, low-concentration hours.
The good news is the fact that days like this have now become far and few between. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. One of the biggest challenges I face as a freelancer with a mostly open schedule is discipline. I’ve come to recognise the ‘risk factors’ that contribute to creating days like this, and I generally try my best to maintain a routine to avoid low-energy, low-productivity days like this.
Chief among these factors is a lack of exercise. Having a regular workout routine has gone from something I felt obligated to do to improve my health, to a part of my day that I look forward to. Of course, rest days are a must, but I have gotten used to moving around five to six days out of my week, with yoga for rest days. Mind you—it took me some five, six years of continued upwards failing and trial and error to get to this point, and I still have a ways to go. But my bedrock of exercise has set solidly. Which makes it all the more frustrating when I am unable to exercise for external reasons. In this case, I am on a minimum-ten-day break form exercise for a skin treatment, which means that I should avoid sweating too much. Whilst I’m happy I was able to get the treatment, the lack of sports honestly just suuuuuuuuucks. I’ve touched on this in another blog post though, so I’ll leave the lack of sports just at that.
Other factors come into play as well. Uncertainty and stress will always mess with my routine and good habits. While I’m certainly used to my fair share of instability and irregularity in my day-to-day with work and self-studies and life, I do also have my thresholds of stress beyond which I start feeling its effects and influences. I’m currently in the midst of an administrative nightmare with my realty agency as I’m moving out of my apartment (or, trying to!) in preparation to leave to Japan. The uncertainty of decisions out of my hands is always a stressor, and life has been a whirlwind of uncertainty in the past half-year as I prepare for the move to the other side of the globe. Waiting for government confirmations, coursework notifications, administrative work, apartment stuff here, apartment stuff there; the lack of stability has been peering through the cracks now and then.
Despite having a slow start to the day, that doesn’t mean that the entire day is gone and ruined. I used to have a bad habit of not being able to ‘take back’ a day once I felt that it was slow or long, or just purely bad. I’m still breaking away from it, but I’ve gotten a little better every time.
So, now I get back on my feet. That’s what I did today, by taking little steps. I got out of bed. Changed the sheets. Folded the clothes from the dryer and put them away. Cleaned up a little in my room (just a little). Did the dishes. Took a nice shower. Organised my textbooks and workbooks so that I can study a bit tonight or jump right into it tomorrow. And then I headed to work. Now, I’m writing this entry. It’s not been a particularly productive day compared to my peak, but I feel proud of myself to have been able to take back what would have been a ‘zero day’. It’s a small victory, but it feels enormous in the moment.
I am also writing this out and telling myself this again. I don’t always let myself hear it or feel it, or take action on what I’ve written out in this blog. But I want to do so more often. Because everyone has days like this. And I want to share that I am learning to break the cycles and the loops that these days lure me into. If I can, I certainly think that you can to. I hope that in sharing this, it maybe helps others realise that they can take the days back, even if it’s just one productive hour where you planned for many more. Take every little victory that you can get, seize it, and celebrate it. You certainly deserve it.
