This is an old-fashioned blog post (below the line), with the newest update at the top. It’s a record of my attempt to do one thing at a time, as outlined in this post.
Thursday, April 21, 2022
7:17 am
Substack has been giving me a lot of grief about editing this page. It’s timed out six or seven times in the last two days. I will write an update on the one-thing-at-a-time update in a week or two, but apparently Substack doesn’t like treating posts like blogs, with regular updates.
Monday, April 18, 2022
1:16pm
Therapy was brutal this weekend and I’m emotionally exhausted. I’ve been streaming TV in the background all day to give myself some breathing room. I will make myself get back on the one-thing-at-a-time horse tomorrow.
Sunday, April 17, 2022
6:52am
The ongoing experiment in doing one thing at a time is going well. I’m learning a lot. I have therapy on the weekends, which is a very intense one-thing-at-a-time. Not listening to podcasts or audiobooks or music while driving home made for processing it to be much more intense than usual. By the time I got home, I felt really drained. Debated whether to give myself a rest from the intense processing by streaming a video or listening to an audiobook or something, but I didn’t want to avoid things I should be facing. Compromised by sitting for awhile, thinking through my session, and then giving myself a break and listening to an old favorite novel on audible, to get all the weekend stuff done that I need to get done so my work week goes well.
Today I have some work to do for a side hustle, four math problems to do for a daily math challenge, and then therapy early this evening. That’s not much for a Sunday, which is good. I need a restful day.
I’m also going to try to finish an essay I’ve had in drafts forever.
Friday, April 15, 2022
4:29 pm
Doing One Thing At A Time
Something major happened today that I’m not going to put on the internet, but it required a very long conversation by text. And it was great. I took deep breaths and stayed at my computer focusing on the conversation and only the conversation. This is a much better way to live.
Thursday, April 14, 2022
7:32pm
Doing One Thing At A Time
This was difficult and tricky, and my mind had a very hard time settling down, but ultimately I was moderately successful. Put in several single-focus sessions of coding at work, on a big project I’m trying to add new features. Also cleaned my apartment with single focus, which was great. I love where I live and I enjoy cleaning. I did listen to an audiobook while cooking, once I realized that cooking involves a lot of points where you get things to a point and then do nothing for awhile. I will continue to experiment with cooking with and without a podcast or audiobook being piped into my hearing aids.
Besides listening to an audiobook while cooking, the other thing that has been a little tricky is conversations with friends, which mostly happen over text. Sitting down and doing nothing but waiting on a friend to reply isn’t quite tenable, but what I did today was initiate a conversation on a particular topic when I had something to do that I was talking to that friend about, which is the closest facsimile to making them part of what I am doing. (I unwrapped an Easter package while texting with a friend about the package, sending pics, etc., which made it all part of doing the one thing, at least to the fullest extent possible when someone lives far away.)
The main thing I am noticing right now is the struggle. My nervous system is definitely addicted to the dopamine hits of twitter, checking email, etc. But I’m on a twitter break until Sunday night, which I do by having a friend change my password, so I can’t violate my intentions there. That’s really helpful.
I have had to stop and remind myself to do one thing at a time about nine billion times, but it’s part of making a big change. Part of the process.
Today’s One Big Thing
Had a really hard time with my One Big Thing today (which was to write about something in particular, in my journal, in preparation for taking it to therapy to talk about). This has happened before, usually when there’s something I’m unconsciously avoiding. I wasn’t able to make myself write about it, but I used a good tactic that’s worked for me in the past. Many times when I didn’t feel like studying, I would tell myself “OK. You don’t have to study. But you can’t do anything else.” Usually after 15-20 minutes of just sitting and doing nothing I’d start studying. This morning, I had to get ready to go to the gym and did not get the journaling done, but I thought a lot about what’s going on, which will be helpful when I actually write.
2:47am
Over the last couple of days, I’ve had some false starts as all the things I didn’t anticipate being complications revealed themselves: the friends who are used to getting very fast text replies who got worried, the distractions caused by the anxiety of not knowing if an important email I’m waiting on has come through, the overwhelming volume of Twitter DMs I hadn’t consciously realized I was getting.
I believe that I have worked out the kinks, so to speak, and am prepared to begin in earnest now. I’m on an official Twitter break through Sunday night, which helps quite a lot.
Today’s Goals
A Twitter mutual sent me a wonderful email outlining the philosophy of “one big thing” for each day. It’s the thing you do before you do anything else: your top priority. My day begins at 5am and I leave for the gym at 7:15. There are other things I normally try to do in the mornings, but for today I’m going to use that time for my One Big Thing, which is to write in my journal about something I’ve been avoiding facing, in preparation for seeing my therapist this weekend to discuss it.
Then my goal for the rest of the day is to do one thing at a time, noticing (ideally without judgment) why and when that’s hard, and seeing what I can learn from it. I will update this page later today.
If you are following along and would like to submit a comment or report of your own, email me at hollymathnerd at gmail dot com and I’ll add it to this page!