I ❤️ Slow Productivity
A perfectly timed reminder... and a little help from Claude.
I’m trying to do ALL the things. All at once.
I want to write more. I’m building an app. I want to finally start working on creating education materials for photographers. I’m rebuilding my photography company in a new city and state… in a way I’ve never operated before. And, I’m trying to make friends and network as much as possible so I feel connected to the community.
Some days I feel like I’m killing it… like I’ve got all these balls in the air and I’m juggling them like a boss! Toss me a fire stick while you’re at it… I’ve got this!!
Other days… that fire stick knocks me right in the head, catches me and everything around me on fire, and I crash and burn royally.
That’s been this past week.
It’s been on my to-do list for three weeks now to sit down and write. I even put it on the calendar… and when it’s on the calendar… it’s gospel. It happens. It cannot be changed. And, yet, every day… I see it sitting - unchecked from yesterday - and so I slide it over to the next possible day which is usually a two or three day window from now. And, the pattern continues. It’s not even on my calendar for today because I finally left it where it was on Sunday. I lost at my own game.
You may think… but you’re writing now! You did it! And, that is definitely true to an extent… yes, I am writing, but not about what I had planned. This is a random rant I need to get off my chest about how I am failing. Or, maybe more so how I FEEL like I’m failing.
Because I am.
Yes, I’m making progress on the day-to-day… chipping away at the to-do lists scattered across post-its, dry erase boards, journals, and my phone. Things are getting done, connections are getting made, photos are getting edited. But the things I truly want to do are still sitting patiently, waiting for me to begin.
Why are they waiting… because I am TERRIFIED to do them! Writing is scary. Building an app is SO HARD!! Creating an educational space for photographers to learn from ME… why would they want to do that?? Imposter much???? So, yeah… it’s all anxiety and fear that is stopping me in my tracks.
It’s also this need that I have to push hard… to do all the things as quickly as possible so I can make progress and be successful NOW. But it’s exhausting me. And, I think that’s what happened this past week… I hit the wall. Hard.
I had so many things to do, but all I could make myself do was lay in bed and watch true crime shows. Hostage series? Yeah! HBO show about 911 calls where you have to figure out if the caller did it? Absolutely! Holly Madison hosting a show about sex workers who get murdered? Yup! Four days of that. Zero energy. Getting up the last three steps of my staircase felt like a summit push. I forced myself to make meals, take my daily walks, edit photos, respond to emails, and show up for a couple of social engagements, but I was not happy about any of it.
Then today, something shifted. I woke up feeling like myself again. Two nights of 9+ hours of sleep helped, but so did the podcast I listened to on my walk. Mel Robbins interviewing Dr. Cal Newport, a Georgetown professor and one of the leading productivity thinkers today.
They had lots of obvious tips and thoughts on how to avoid burnout - which I appreciated, but where he got me was when he started talking about “slow productivity”. We have this intense desire (at least as American women) to get shit done… fast. We need to achieve greatness, check off the entire task list (which he calls a “wish list”), and look amazing doing it! But he restored my faith and outlook when he said Isaac Newton didn’t come up with his inventions and mathy things in one day or even one year… Jane Austen didn’t write her books in a couple of months… Oprah didn’t become Oprah overnight!! (Ok, he didn’t mention the last one, but it was worth including.) So, why am I trying to make all these things happen in six months??? It’s not fair… to me… or to my projects. Let’s take our time. Let’s enjoy the process. Let’s make sure we are doing things right… not fast. And, most important… let’s not add any more pressure or stress onto myself than is already included in this life journey I’m on. Right?
I’ve sat with that most of today as I was editing my nephew’s senior portraits (which turned out SO amazing btw). And, I still felt like I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was stuck or not doing enough or not motivated. So, I came downstairs and sat in meditation for a moment with my tarot deck in hand.
I pulled six cards one at a time and set them in a row. And, I laughed as I looked up their meanings. This is how Claude interpreted them…
Your six-card spread painted a picture of depletion from misaligned work: Ace of Wands reversed showed your creative spark stalled, while the Well upright pointed to emotional resources still there but untapped. Six of Swords reversed suggested you were stuck rather than transitioning through difficulty, King of Swords reversed reflected scattered, overworked thinking, Four of Wands reversed showed a lack of grounding and celebration, and Nine of Swords upright captured the anxious spiral keeping you up at night — together, a spread about being creatively and mentally drained by work that doesn’t nourish you, with real resources waiting to be reclaimed once the pressure eases.
That last sentence killed me. What a perfect depiction of how I feel. The work I have done for the past twenty years is the work that is currently killing my mojo. One of the reasons I left Austin was to leave this kind of work behind… not because I didn’t love it, but because I know I am meant to do something else now. It’s still a necessary tool in my life since it’s my only source of income, so I am still tied to it - but at least I understand why I am feeling SO disconnected while in the middle of it.
After reading through all of that and chatting with Claude a bit more about it, I pulled one more card. My intention was to seek a clarifying moment… if I lean into what the cards are telling me, what will come of it?
I pulled the Wheel of Fortune. And, my girl, Claudia, said this…
Oh, that’s perfect! Wheel of Fortune upright is the universe saying: this cycle you’re in right now — the intensity, the crunch, all of it — it’s turning. What goes down comes back up. You’re not stuck here forever. Relief and renewal are on their way.
When you look up the meaning of this card on the google machine, it says “represents destiny, cycles, and sudden turning points. It reminds you that life is constantly in motion and encourages you to embrace inevitable change, trust the universe, and adapt to unpredictable circumstances”.
So, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll power through this work that is required of me, but I will also be intentional to set aside time to create and rest/restore. The Well card kept trying to tell me: the water’s there, but I have to stop running the tap dry before I refill it. If I can hold on and keep doing the work I love and lean into the new path I’m on… I’ll be rewarded.
Here’s what that looks like for me this week. I’m prioritizing the “must-do” work today and tomorrow so it stops running me. But I’m also blocking off two hours a day to work on the projects that actually excite me - the writing, the app, the education work - instead of waiting until everything else is done first. (Because we all know “everything else” is never done.) And when the must-do work is done, it’s done. I’m not going to squeeze one more email in at 9pm just because I can.
Instead of trying to move all three of those forward this week, I’m picking one to make real progress on and letting the other two rest. And I’m canceling a couple of social engagements to give myself the recovery time I clearly need after last week. Not because I don’t want to see people… but because rest isn’t a reward for finishing the work. It’s what makes the work possible.
For those of you going through crazy change or creating a new life for yourself or who are trying to figure out what is next… be kind to yourself. Give yourself some grace. Create moments of joy in your life every day. Be creative so your soul is fed. And, definitely make sure you allow a time of rest - true rest. Restorative rest. And, trust in yourself and the Universe that you’ve got this. It will all work out in the timing that is perfect to create something beautiful and so unexpected!
This is one of my favorite pieces that hangs in my home by Hayley Mitchell, an artist based in Austin, Texas. This is how I see myself when I’m slaying the slow productivity vibes.
