Member-only story
How to Get More Work Done Quickly When You’re Drowning
It was a Wednesday afternoon.
I was sitting in a tiny, poorly ventilated WeWork phone booth after 4 hours of back-to-back work meetings.
My head was spinning. Meeting after meeting felt like problem after problem and the massive to do list I started the week with had not been touched. If anything, it was growing.
My thoughts were racing from what felt like literal whiplash.
There’s too much on the go, I thought. There are too many plates spinning in the air, it’s no surprise some of them are breaking. If anything, it’s surprising they don’t break more often.
I opened the sliding booth door and walked into the sunshine. I needed to escape.
As I walked through downtown, I tried to understand the source of my anxiety:
- Was is the sheer number of tasks on my plate?
- Was it the fact that I didn’t feel I’d been keeping track of all my tasks?
- Is something going to slip through the cracks?
The answer: just…Yes.
The anxiety + sleep loss cycle
At that point in my life, I was starting to slip into a downwards spiral.
