I joke a lot about this, but I genuinely feel this statement describes me perfectly: I’m either an unstoppable force or an immovable object. There are weeks when I’m full steam ahead, crushing every task at hand, and others where I’m glued to a couch. I could also compare this to the conflict between my Taurus sun and Virgo moon. My Taurus sun is an indulgent bastard (and I love her for it) whereas my Virgo moon is a chronic perfectionist who pushes that Dionysian bitch to scrub the grout every once in awhile. (My Pisces rising just wants everyone to vibe, you know?)
The absolute worst thing about my two speeds is that neither is good for me long-term. In college, I leaned into my taskmaster side for a semester. I had a lot of work to do for my classes, so I segmented my days into blocks of time to accomplish everything I needed to.
This was great for managing my time and is absolutely the reason I got everything done on time that semester, but I took it too far. Rather than using this technique to account for breaks or reasonable workloads for myself, I viewed every waking hour as critical to spend “productively.” I was having panic attacks every day. This wasn’t something I could keep up, as rewarding as it was for me to feel accomplished. On the other hand, there have been plenty of times when I felt unmotivated and immovable for days, weeks, or months and it was to my own detriment.
This theme comes up constantly for me, especially over the course of work-related burnout I experienced for three consecutive years in my career. How do I find a happy medium between these two speeds; can I find a “medium” speed?
I honestly don’t believe there is a middle ground for me. That sounds defeatist, but I beg to differ. What if, rather than viewing my two speeds as a handicap, I find a way to harness it and use it to my advantage? What if for every day I give it 1000%, I take one day to be a slug? How would that work?
Let’s do an exercise here, using my week ahead as an example. Here’s everything I need to do next week (simplified):
- work out a minimum of 4 times
- trim the rose bushes
- weekly/daily chores
- grocery shop
- work (duh)
- meal prep
- journaling
- make a coffee scrub
- work on video project
- meet with my dietician
That looks reasonable, right? There’s a side of me that’s screaming “YOU CAN DO MORE THAN THAT!!”, and I’m going to acknowledge her and add in a buffer for those extra things that will give me that I AM THE QUEEN OF TASK MOUNTAIN feeling. For balance, I’m adding some blocks for winding down or just going slow. Using my time blocking technique, let’s see what this all looks like:
Having “lazy hours” built into this system makes everything look so much more manageable. With this week’s plan, I’ll go really hard on Friday and have plenty of time Saturday and Sunday to do absolutely nothing if I want to. I’ve also added in optional workout or “get shit done” time blocks to account for any shifting priorities or overachiever urges that come up. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s creative problem solving!