Working through tough times

Some lessons learned at the School of Hard Knocks

You might have noticed that it’s been quiet around here lately. I took an unplanned summer hiatus from BookSmarts because, to be totally honest, life has been a bit of a roller coaster. The details aren’t important; I’ll just say that a health issue in my family has been consuming a huge share of my time and brainpower. So I thought, why not write about that?

Why not address how hard it is to do research—or any type of intellectually demanding or creative work—during periods of personal upheaval?

This is an area where I have some unsought-after expertise. In my 10 years as a journalist, I have worked (or attempted to work) through two pregnancies and three miscarriages, extended periods of inadequate (or nonexistent) childcare, two-going-on-three nerve-shredding national elections, widespread political unrest, and—oh yeah—a global pandemic.

Photo by Sergei Gussev on Unsplash

As during previous challenging periods, I’m finding that it’s just not possible to perform at my best right now. I struggle to keep my train of thought on track. I can’t remember what I’ve read or where I read it. And I can’t for the life of me think of that million-dollar word that is right on the tip of my tongue.... I literally feel like I have a different brain. And I do. (Research shows that when we are stressed, our memory and cognitive abilities tank.)

My goal, in the long-term, is to continue to practice mindfulness and self-compassion, because often, feeling my feelings is the only way for me to stop frantically trying to solve unsolvable problems and think about something else—like work that I truly love to do. (More on that below.)

In the short-term, I’m relying on the lessons I’ve learned from going through this kind of thing before, which I wanted to share here:

1) Expect and accept a lower caliber of work

During earlier trials, I would get frustrated that I wasn’t moving as fast as usual, or producing the same quality of work. Now, I expect that this will be true, and try to give myself grace and flexibility.

For instance, if I can muster the concentration to write, I withhold judgment of the product (a practice that I’ve found helpful generally). I use every crutch I know of (internet blockers, timers, etc.) and just try to spit out the most rudimentary version of the thing I’m trying to say. I give myself permission to use even more ample TKs and CKs than usual, and I try not to spend too much time perfecting the writing, knowing it will probably be rewritten later.

The goal, as Erin Zimmerman said of writing a book while caring for newborn twins, is just “to just keep the process moving at whatever level of cognition I could bring to it that day.”

That said, sometimes I cannot accomplish even that. I was having a particularly bad day a few weeks ago and could tell that my plan for the day was woefully out of reach. So I switched gears and burned through some overdue administrative tasks. Turns out that my stress brain can still make expense spreadsheets and answer overdue emails.

2) Drop balls—wisely

A few years ago, I was overwhelmed and sharing my fears and frustrations with a group of female writers who have been supporting each other for a long time now. That’s when my friend Kate Horowitz (writer of small magic) introduced me to Nora Roberts’ idea that some of the balls we juggle are made of plastic while others are made of glass. The former can be dropped without major consequences, while the latter will shatter into a million sharp pieces.

If you search your feelings hard enough, it’s usually pretty easy to tell which is which. (If not, the link above provides helpful guidelines.)

This was a really helpful concept for me. I’m a perfectionist and, when life is good, I pride myself on not dropping any balls—even small ones like running out of peanut butter or forgetting to put out the trash. But when I start to get overwhelmed, ball dropping becomes inevitable. I still don’t like it, but I’ve found it’s slightly more tolerable when I make conscious choices about which balls I should dive to catch and which I can let roll away. (Sadly, BookSmarts has been a plastic ball this summer.)

I would expand on Roberts’ metaphor with a few more suggestions: if possible, toss a ball to a friend. Can you delegate something at work? Can you sign up for a meal delivery service? Whatever you can do to proactively reduce the number of balls in the air can be a huge help.

More importantly, don’t even think about picking up a new ball. This is not the time to volunteer to judge an award, or moderate a panel, or do anything that will be a net negative drain on your energy. Just. Say. No.

3) When things get really tough, take a time out

Many people have noted that the pressure we feel to keep producing no matter the circumstances is really a form of ableism—the internalization of insatiable capitalism. One of those people if my friend Lizzie Wade, who has observed that, more often than not, “our limits are framed as something to be pushed beyond and overcome, not something to be honored.”

But there is no reason that humans should be able to push through their physical or mental limits—or seal off their non-work concerns like the workers in Severance. We just aren’t built that way. And, if you want to be a cold, hard utilitarian about it, trying to push through hard times can actually be less efficient than just giving yourself a break.

I learned this last spring, when several pillars of my personal life collapsed at once and I decided to put myself on a “leave of absence.” It was, admittedly, a pretty grandiose way of saying that I was going to take a few weeks off, especially considering I have no boss to report to.

The point was to give myself permission to stop. The conflict between my desire to work and my ability to work had become too much to bear. I cried uncle.

Once the tension between my personal and professional obligations was removed, I was finally able to do some important things, like sleep. And grieve. And eventually, try to tackle some of the problems that were making it impossible for me to work in the first place. If I hadn’t taken a break, I know that things would have gotten far worse.

Still, it wasn’t a perfect solution. In reality, I missed my book. I love researching and writing, and while my “leave” gave me some necessary breathing room, it also cut out a major source of joy and meaning in my life.

So I eventually got back to work—slowly, stupidly, utterly dependent on timers and other tools, squinting to distinguish between glass and plastic balls, but most importantly, being radically kind to myself. A few months later, I had a spurt of extraordinarily satisfying productivity that more than made up for my time off.

If, like me, you are in a season of difficulty now, please know that you are not alone and you are not broken. I have no doubt that you are doing your best. Things will get better, and then probably worse, and then better again—on and on for as long as we are human.