Nexts
Overriding brain "clench mode" to reduce overwhelm.
My idea for this newsletter has been living in my head—and driving many of my actions—for more than a month.
I am a total sucker for systems that are supposed to help me organize my life and get shit done. I’m as fascinated by the structures and ideas as I am enticed by the notion that maybe this system will live up to its magical promises. So fascinated by the underpinnings that I actually don’t care when each system inevitably turns out to be only as useful as I make it—because of course that’s the nature of systems. Learning that ADHDers often need to switch up systems has also helped me tremendously—now it’s all one big experiment, which is how I like to live my life anyway. Asking myself “what’s next?” drives my latest system, and lo and behold—it has been helping me significantly reduce the stresses of pernicious overwhelm.
Last winter, I downloaded Todoist and used their “Getting Things Done” template for a couple of weeks. I liked the concept a lot: braindump into what the method calls a “collection tool” (Todoist wants you to use their app, natch) and then figure out the next step for each project. But as with other apps, its intangibility meant that I was bound to forget all about it.
I also found it overwhelming. I had listed about 10 different project areas by the time I finished populating the app, and—AAAAAAAAAGH! Because yes, I do have that many project areas. But thinking about them all and having them winking at me unattended in the left margin of an app was really not a good feeling. It wasn’t any better than my epic handwritten to-do lists—in fact, it was worse because I couldn’t see all the things at once. So I switched to a modified version of the Agile Results methodology on paper, which was helpful for a while—but unsurprisingly, at some point I stopped even opening that notebook (I’m sure I’ll come back to it…eventually).
Enter “nexts.”
My usual way of life is a combination of unstructured drifting from task to task (what Mattia Maurée calls “whack-a-mole”) and hyperfocused work on one task (usually editing or writing). I’m still working out a balance between those two approaches (including finding a way around the well-known challenge of not hearing my body’s signals when I’m in tunnel-vision mode), but I usually relish this combination and am glad I can set up my work life to mostly accommodate it. But with multiple projects on the go—along with the administrivia that comes along with running a business and living in late capitalism—it’s far too easy to get scattered and stressed. And I do not relish that!
I had imagined August would provide a bit of a breather, but in addition to the big editing project that had been on my calendar for a while, I picked up a couple more editing clients (yay!!!) and my social life got way more active when folks started coming back from summer holidays (also yay!!!). Suddenly the to-do list started exploding, too.
Something reminded me of the “next” idea from the Getting Things Done system. I don’t remember whether it was a conversation or something I read, heard on a podcast, or remembered from the fabulous Coaching Neurodiverse Clients course I took in the spring—but whatever triggered my memory was right on time.
Since then, I’ve been pulling a handful of “nexts” out of my larger to-do list when I feel overwhelmed. That has helped reduce my stress level enormously. Sometimes I let the “nexts” list be a buffet—I can do things in whatever order I’m inclined—but when I’m really tired and/or truly in knots, I lay out the “nexts” in sequence so that all I have to do is follow directions (which sometimes works when I’m exhausted and thus more compliant). It seems so simple, so obvious—but I suspect that when I get into to-do list overwhelm, my brain is already in “clench mode” and it’s hard to relax enough to imagine structural solutions to what seems to be an overabundance of content.
So—I don’t know if y’all need this or not, but if so, give it a try. And if you feel comfortable doing so, let me know how it went!
Would It Be Weird If…
I offered a service generating tables in Word? I find it oddly calming now that I know how to do it efficiently, and judging from some of my editing clients’ attempts, it makes other people want to tear their hair out.
In Other News
The Blue Ridge Irish Music School, which I cofounded with Sara Read (here on Substack as Sarah Henrik), is turning 25 this year. The next event in our yearlong celebration is a “Gaela” fundraising event featuring music, dance, a whiskey tasting, and good food…and I heard yesterday that there’s talk of costumes??? (Unclear yet whether “Irish costumes” will mean cloth caps or the enduringly ubiquitous Adidas tracksuits….) If you’re within striking distance of Charlottesville and would like to support a great organization (not that I’m biased or anything), come join us! I stepped away from most organizing more than 20 years ago, but it’s so exciting to see how the school has grown in the last 25 years.
They’re calming down a bit by now, but my figs have been EXUBERANT this year. The local fauna are 100% here for this—I encountered a drunk skunk one night (who luckily wasn’t startled enough to spray). And then this absolutely BOLD feckin’ article:
It’s also plum season (though my neighborhood tree finished bearing in June). You know what that means!
