Paralysed by a deadline? Cancel all plans and then do no work.
📮 STRESSED!
Morning Powells,
I am on one of the tightest deadlines f my life. So tight that I don’t have time to go back and insert the ‘o’ into the previous sentence which I accidentally omitted. Usually, on deadlines this tight I am like a machine, able to work at a fast pace relentlessly until it is done. And so on Monday I sat down to tackle the 159 pages that lay un-artworked before me and flipped on my power switch and readied myself to crack on. But the power only came on intermittently, and instead if feeling motivated I felt anxious and overwhelmed. I must be malfunctioning I thought when the clock reached 7pm and I’d barely achieved anything, tomorrow will be better...
On Tuesday, I was restless both in mind and body. In a panic, I called off a trip to London for a book launch. I lay awake most of the night worrying but that did give me chance to read half of Murder by Narwhal by Alex T Smith, which I am very much enjoying.
Hump day. Not going to London. Surely I’ll get loads of work done?! Total outage from 3pm.
Thursday. I photoshopped myself into a photo of the book launch that I didn’t attend with surprisingly successful results (see above), and then the fuse box blew around tea-time. Rising anxiety in the night.
On Friday I called the National Grid*. They pointed out that maybe my circuit board was overworked and recommended I manually shut off the power for the rest of the day. I thought this was sound advice and so I powered down, cleaned out the sock drawer and spent some time in the garden looking at clouds. Tried not to panic.
That brings us to the present day. Saturday 15th March. 8.34am. Anxiety rattles in my ribcage and I can hear procrastination knocking at the door but I have popped a sign up that says ‘I’M NOT HOME’. Fingers crossed it works. I will soon be powering up the kettle, and then hopefully myself…
Powell x
*My long-suffering agent.
I have so been here - years and years ago I found a coach that looked at energy and creativity in a different fashion - she said you can't force it out of you when it's not there so you have to honor your creative energy which means you can't force it. I also adhere to just doing something which often gets me moving - I write notes with pictures, do whatever I can to get creative. Don't be so hard on yourself, it'll all come in:) MOST IMPORTANTLY, you aren't alone!!!
Oh my goodness. Its like you are describing my life.