It’s never easy to come back after a break. To “start again”, once more. Especially when the break wasn’t intentional.
I never think “oh, I’m going to go a few months without writing or blogging”. Or “I’m going to stop judo for 6 months”. Life happens, and time goes by, and there we are.
As always, the easiest way back is to take the path of least resistance: in my case, when it comes to blogging, writing about coming back.
You know the meme: “My brain is like an internet browser. I have 17 tabs open, 3 of them are frozen and I have no idea where the music is coming from.” That’s it, and it’s not just my brain: my life is like that.
Hyperactivity tends to fill up calendars and keep one running around. Medication for ADHD is (literally, for some people) life-saving but it doesn’t change who we are: it makes the challenges that come with the condition more manageable.
In my case, I have discovered, with medication, that I have better control on being able to make myself do things. I can plan things for my day and follow the plan. I can make long(ish) term projects without feeling deep despair. I am “able to do” much more easily, and therefore spending much less of my time bogged down by my executive disfunction, less of my time worrying about what is wrong with me or feeling distressed because I don’t understand why certain parts of my operating system seem broken or buggy. As I’ve written a few times, I now feel like I have admin rights to the operating system of my life, and it’s great.
But the flip side is that I still want to do as many things as before. And I’m actually doing more than before. But even with my new-found power to “do”, I cannot do all the things. My wants are too numerous for the time and energy life puts at my disposal.
So I’ve been running a lot, doing cool things, resting too (not quite enough, but decently enough), and not managing to squeeze writing into there.
I have come to understand, over my many years of writing, that I generally write on impulse. An idea goes through my head, I write. Something pisses me off, I write. I think of something helpful for somebody else, I write. I want to share something with others, I write. I’m upset, I write. Now that my impulse control is better, this need to write is not as strong – which is great, because it means that when something annoys me or catches my attention, instead of having to sit down and write about it for an hour or three, I can “stick to the plan” more or less and get my work done or pay my bills. But it’s also not great, because I haven’t yet figured out where and how to firewall writing time and energy in my life. Because I very much still want to write. I still have ideas, there are things I want to say, to share, to rant (diplomatically) about.
To be able to write, I need to feel that I have enough time to do it. So, clearly, one of the keys is having a less busy schedule. Surprise. Nothing new to see here. I’m working on it.
Also: when I sit down because I have some space where I “could” write, the stuff to write is gone from my brain. I remember, many years ago, keeping a list of “to blog” ideas. It completely backfired because they became “tasks” that I never felt like doing. This is also something I’m looking for the keys to, with my new understanding of how my brain works: how to “generate motivation” for a task I want to do, when the motivation is not there. I watched this video on “jumpstarting” a few weeks back and I think there is something in it. Exploring what I can do with these admin rights, you see.
One thing I know I wanted to write about was my “going to sleep” advice, because it’s a question that comes up here and there, and I have a long list of advice, which would be perfect to collect in a blog post.
I want to write about my holidays walking the Dales Way (without getting stuck processing 1500 photos and without waiting so long that it all fades away). I’ve been thinking a lot about how to manage time and tasks (at work and off work), including how queuing theory can maybe help. (Yes, the article is in German, and I actually read it in German: another thing to write about, my experience with working in a majority-German-speaking environment. Lots of thoughts about that.) Perimenopause and HRT is also a topic that is on my radar, as is, of course, a lot of stuff about ADHD. Turning 50. And more, but my brain is drawing blanks right now (I had a very long day on Wednesday and I’m still recovering).
Are you a reformed “impulse writer”? How did you manage the transition? How do you “generate motivation” when faced with a task you want to do – but you’ve let the fire for it die?
I’m often torn between three things that requires – at least for me – activating different parts of my brain, or “setting it” to different ways of thinking :
1- writing
2- coding
3- making money ie consulting
The two first ones supporting the last one, but not always. I can also write on topics I’m interested in that do not generate business.
For writing, I just start a post as a draft, with a few keys. I have developed (step 2) a small wordpress plugin that allows me to define how important this post would be and also to “prelink” it.
So if I have a second post I’m on, that should refer to the first one, I don’t have anymore to stop writing post 2, I just go on and write post 1 when I’m ready for it.
But switching between “writing mood” and “coding” or “business” mood is still difficult.
PS: Welcome back 🙂
L’horreur des envies qui deviennent des tâches… je connais!
J’ai découvert que, parfois, si j’attends suffisamment longtemps en les ayant loin des yeux (donc loin de l’esprit), quand je les retrouve elles ne sont plus ni l’une ni l’autre, et hop à la poubelle (ok, au travail c’est plus compliqué… quoique parfois on est surpris-e).
Si la conséquence de ne pas faire est importante, je me mets en mode “marche forcée”, avec un début, une fin et une récompense ensuite. Efficace pour get the thing done, pas forcément dans le plaisir de faire la chose, mais celui d’avoir la chose faite.
Enfin, je me planifie des plages, grandes et régulières, pour faire de la place sur la liste. Et je vois en fonction de l’inspiration du moment ce dans quoi je me lance. Parfois, c’est 12’000 petites choses (classer des papiers, passer une commande), parfois une étape d’un grand truc. Avancer, même un petit peu, c’est déjà très gratifiant. Et souvent, une fois que j’ai commencé le truc rebutant, je retrouve la flamme!
Toute la difficulté est d’arriver à trier entre les envies qu’on a et celles qu’on décide de garder et traiter. Clairement, plus je diffère le démarrage plus il me sera difficile d’initier la tâche. Je n’ai plus depuis des années la marge de manœuvre pour écrire ET publier de manière impulsive (cf le blog aux 1’000 couleurs), en revanche je tiens un journal qui me sert de poubelle et fait bien le job. Et pour la publication, je m’en tiens à Instagram.