266: Holly Worton ~ What to Do When You Don’t Feel Like Doing Anything

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I’m back again, with another solo episode! This week’s episode is inspired by this week’s episode. What I mean by that is that I waited until the last minute to record it. I had a very, very lazy week and to be honest, I didn’t get much done, which was disappointing, because I’m out of the office for the next two weeks, and I planned to get EVERYTHING done between Monday and Friday. It was a reasonable expectation, but it didn’t happen. In this episode, I explore why I didn’t manage to get much done, and I talk about when we need to push ourselves to get things done, and when we need to take it easy. I know we’ve all had weeks like this, so I hope you find this useful!

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What You’ll Learn

How to get clear on why you’re not being productive
How to understand when it’s time to give yourself a break, or push through the laziness
Why lazy days can be a symptom of burnout
Why you need to pay attention to where you are in your cycle
How to have reasonable expectations when planning your week
Why you need to be flexible with your priorities
Why time blocking makes it easy to be flexible with your calendar

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 266. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode. Today, I am going to talk about what to do when you don’t feel like doing anything.

This week’s episode in inspired by this week’s episode. What I mean by that is that I have waited to the last minute to record it. I had a very, very, lazy and unproductive week, and I really didn’t get much done which was disappointing, because I am going to be out-of-the-office for the next two weeks, and I planned to get everything done and get up-to-date last week between Monday and Friday. Now today’s Saturday, when I am recording this, and I am kind of scrambling to get stuff done over the weekend, because I have got plans for Monday and then from Tuesday to Saturday I am away. So, while I thought this was a reasonable expectation, in terms of getting things done, it didn’t happen, and, in this episode, I thought it would be useful to actually talk about that experience and explore why I didn’t manage to get much done; what I could have differently; what I could do differently in the future; and why I think we need to be kind to ourselves when we have these lazy weeks. I also talk about why sometimes we do need to push ourselves to get things done, and sometimes we just need to just give ourselves permission to take it easy.

I know that we have all had weeks like this, so I hope you find this useful. I know a lot of times I use this podcast to talk about what I am going through personally, and that really resonates with people, because I am obviously not the only person who is experiencing this.

What you are going to learn today?

You are going to learn, how to get clear on why you are not being productive in those weeks or days that you are having a non-productive streak. You are going to learn how to understand when it is time to give yourself a break or whether you need to push through the laziness. We are going to talk about why lazy days can be a symptom of burnout, why you need to pay attention to where you are in your cycle, if you are a woman. How to have reasonable expectations when planning your week, and why time blocking makes it easy to be flexible with your calendar.

So, let’s talk about my week. So, I originally planned to record this episode on Monday. I had it time-blocked in my calendar, got to Monday, tons of stuff was going on Monday and it didn’t happen. I moved it to Tuesday, it didn’t happen on Tuesday. I moved it to Wednesday, didn’t feel like doing it on Wednesday. So, I moved it to Thursday, Thursday I did not get anything done in the afternoon when I had this planned. So, I moved it to Friday, nothing happened. Saturday, I planned to do this much earlier in the afternoon, I had a very lazy Saturday, despite the fact that I had two big chunks of time to do stuff, one of them being this podcast episode. The other thing I didn’t get done has been dragged to tomorrow, when I hope I will finally be able to get it done. I am not normally like this, so this confuses me, because I am usually good at planning my weeks, planning my days, and getting stuff done.

Now, because I time block stuff into my calendar, that means that it allows me to be flexible, I can drag and drop stuff as I reorganise my priorities; I can drag and drop stuff if I see that one task took me a lot longer than I thought it would and so I don’t have time today, so I can drag something that is of lower priority to tomorrow. It is very, very, flexible. I have talked about time-blocking before, but if you don’t know what it is, basically, you can do this online, with an online calendar, or you can do this with a printed calendar, but I use Google calendar to manage my life, pretty much. So I have got everything in there, I have got breakfast, lunch, dinner. I have got a little bit of time to tidy up the house and my office, I have got time for my morning routine, I have got time for client calls, I have got tasks: stuff like recording podcast episodes, promoting my podcast, all kinds of stuff like that, it is all in the calendar. I love colour, so it is all colour-coded, I have got different colours for things outside the office, different colours for calls that are inside the office, personal stuff, it is all colour-coded and in my calendar, in a way that makes it beautiful and fun to organise.

So, I know this is a system that works for me…except when it doesn’t. And I find myself having these lazy weeks, and to be honest, I can’t remember the last time this happened. I would have to go back through my calendar and see, but I can’t I remember the last time I had a week like this, when I just couldn’t get stuff done. And it was an issue of I had low energy levels this week, I mean I was fine in terms of sleep, I got enough sleep, which is something that is very important to me, but I just couldn’t focus, I couldn’t get stuff done. And all I felt like doing was sitting in my chair downstairs, my nice green armchair, and reading a book. And, it wasn’t because what I am reading is that gripping, and I couldn’t put it down, it was just that I couldn’t focus on anything but entertainment or reading.

So, earlier today, I was thinking what happened to me? What caused this? And I think this is one of the most important things, when you have a week like this. It is important to get clear on why you are feeling the way you are, because that can give you kind of a hint of how to respond to it. So, why was I not being productive this week? Why was I feeling lazy this week? Why was I feeling like not doing anything this week? Well, when I sat down and looked at some of the stuff that I actually did do, not just this week, but last week, which of course effected this week, ah it all made sense. So let me explain to you my last couple of weeks were, so not last Sunday/Monday, but the week before, I went camping, on my own, for the first time. So, Sunday, I hiked about ten miles from my house to a campsite, I camped overnight, didn’t sleep very well, and I hiked back another eight miles to my house Monday morning. Well, I was tired because I didn’t get much sleep and I had hiked 18 miles in two days, which is normal for me, when I am doing a long distance trail, but I was wearing a really heavy pack, because I had all my camping gear in it. So, it was a lot of hiking, with a heavy pack, which made it much more challenging. So, it was a lot of physical activity.

Then, on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, I had my Lowland Leader Assessment, so that was the assessment, or kind of exam, for a course that I took in April, which is how to lead walking groups in lowland areas, like Southern England, in the areas that I live in. It was ten hours on Wednesday and five hours on Thursday, so it was not only the stress of being assessed on this, it was like an exam, I had to take turns leading the group, and managing the group, and also navigating and navigating in ways that I don’t necessarily navigate when I am planning a walk for a group. So, it was a lot of focus, a lot of concentration and a lot of physical activity, because it was ten hours of hiking on one day, five hours the second day. And then I had the smart idea of not cancelling my private kickboxing class on Thursday morning. So, after hiking for ten hours on Wednesday, I went to kickboxing at 7am on Thursday and then went for the second day of my Lowland Leader Assessment on Thursday afternoon. It was also raining, it was pouring down with rain all Thursday, which made navigation more difficult, it made everything more stressful, and it was just a very challenging two days. Now, I passed my assessment, but, honestly, I barely passed it, I did not do well. So, that was that.

Then, that was the last weekend, I went on Friday to this three-hour healing session with my friend Suneet, which was super-deep; we did a lot of really, really, deep ancestral work, and that was one of those things where sometimes I don’t feel… it is like I know I have deep work, but I don’t really recognise how much it is going to affect me. So, I think I didn’t take that into consideration. So after I had these two really challenging physical days, I go and do some really deep inner work, and then I went on a walk and a visit to stone circle with my friend Cathy, on Saturday, and then on Sunday I decided that I was going to go camping again. So I hiked to this camp ground and camped, slept much better than I had the weekend before, and then I hiked back on Monday. Again, more challenging physical stuff, which was good from an exercise point of view, but I was I think wearing myself out a little bit. Then, on that Monday morning, that I was returning from my camping trip, my period started. Sorry if this is TMI, but I have talked about the importance of paying attention to your cycle before. Now normally I know that I am pretty non-functional on the first day of my cycle, I have low-energy-levels, so I don’t usually exercise, and I usually have the day blocked out in my calendar, so I don’t plan to get much work done. So, the fact that I had a couple of very strenuous hiking days, because I was carrying that pack for my camping trip, meant that that drained my energy levels even more. So, Monday was just like, I answered some emails, but didn’t get much else done. Then, Tuesday, I got stuff done, I don’t know how honestly; Wednesday, I could not focus at all, I got some stuff done in the morning and then I just lost it in the afternoon. I have blank spots in my calendar for Wednesday. Thursday, I, again, had two very deep healing sessions, one with this new woman I hadn’t worked with before, we did a body talk session and then another session with my friend Claire Baker, who I have been doing a lot of really deep ancestral work with, as well. So, super deep emotion stuff. And then again it was Thursday, so I had my private kickboxing class in the morning which was physically demanding as well, then that night I had a late night call with my book launch coach, she is in the US, most of her clients are in the US except for me, so that started at 11pm and it ended at after midnight, at 12:30. And then that meant that Friday I was exhausted and unproductive and then the same on Saturday. So, I am kind of exhausted just explaining this to you, which gives me an idea of how busy I have been.

Sorry if that was really long-winded and excessive, but you get the idea. I have been really, really, busy, both with work stuff, and with physical stuff, and exercise, and doing some really deep emotional work which of course affects you, even though you can’t really see it, you can feel it. So, once I sat down and I looked at all this stuff I have been doing, both the inner work, outer work, practical business action, it was like I had more compassion for myself. I know I had to get a lot of stuff done this week and I didn’t, but what was I thinking when I was planning my week? I really should have taken a look in my calendar and thought: is this really the best week to be doing two back-to-back sessions of really deep work; is this the best week to be trying to get so much stuff done after all the stuff I did last week?

So, when you are planning your calendar, when you are planning your weeks, and you know that you have stuff happening, when you know you have stuff coming up, like, next week, I am going to be in Yorkshire, for several days for a navigation course, that’s going to be physically demanding and it is going to require a lot of focus on my part. The following week I am going to be away again, so it is like: yes, I have to get work done before I go, but then maybe I shouldn’t be planning all these camping trips and other stuff. So, now that I am looking back on it, it is logical, but at the time I was just really excited about trying out my new camping gear, and wanted to practice using it, and practice hiking with a bigger pack on my back, before the summer is over. So, I sometimes feel like I want to do everything, and I don’t have enough time to do all the things that I want to do, both business-wise and personal-wise. But, you can’t always do all the things that you want to do, so sometimes you have to prioritise.

Now, again, looking back, I can see how I could have prioritised better, but now that has happened it is gone and over with, all I can do is use this as a lesson for the future. The important thing to me is that I was able to take a look at why I was feeling unproductive and realise that I needed to give myself a break. So, I did give myself permission today, or not today, well, actually today as well(!), and I allowed myself to sleep in, I slept nine-and-a-half hours last night for the first time in a long time, because I was feeling really tired. So, all week long, at an intuitive level I think I felt like I needed a break, and so I didn’t force myself to push through that feeling of laziness, because I feel like sometimes those lazy days, those days or those weeks, when you don’t get much done, they can be a symptom of burnout. So, sometimes when you have been doing too much, whether you have been doing too much time on your business, or doing too much physical activity, or whatever, doing too much of anything and then sometimes you hit those days where you think: I can’t do anything because I can’t focus. That can be a symptom of burnout, that can be a symptom of you feeling lazy, because that’s what your body needs, that’s what your mind needs. You need to take a break and just relax and do whatever it is, give yourself permission to do whatever it is, that feel like you want to do. So, maybe that is taking a walk, making that is taking a bath, maybe that is sitting in your favourite chair with a good book, maybe it is sleeping in. But give yourself permission to have those lazy moments or mornings, or afternoons, or days, or even weeks. Because if you force yourself to push through that sometimes that can lead to burnout. However, of course, there are some times when you are feeling lazy, and not feeling like doing anything, and you might need to step things up a bit and try to get things done.

So, it was an effort for me to sit down in my office and do this podcast now, but I wanted to, because I felt like it was important for me to tell you this story while I was still kind of in the middle of this week, but starting to come out the other end, because it is fresh in my mind, it is fresh in my experience, and it is important for me to share this with you, because I know that I am not the only one who has experienced this. Also, I needed to give my Podcast editor some time to get it edited before Monday, and I already feel bad that I am doing this so late, I am usually much earlier with the episodes. So, I had a timeline, I had a deadline, I had to get this done. So, how to know when it is time to push yourself a little bit and when it is time to give yourself a break: how do you know that? Well, stop like I did and think: what have been doing for the last few days? What have I been doing for the last few weeks? Am I possibly heading towards burnout? Now, if you are, give yourself a break. If not, if you have not been doing too much, if you feel like you could do more, if you feel like you have the energy to do more, but you just haven’t been, go to the list and pick the three most important things for you to do and sit down and do one. Or pick the three easiest things for you to do on your list and do those. Or, just go with your gut and just pick one thing and do it, and see if, by taking that action, it kind of helps you focus and get back into the swing of doing things.

Another reason why I find time blocking to be really useful, is that if I know if I just have two hours in my calendar to do a certain task, and after that I have another thing that I am supposed to do, then I sit down and I really, really, focus. So, if you are the kind of person who hasn’t been planning your days, or time blocking your calendar and you find that you are not getting anything done, give that a try, because I really find that having that structure, and seeing that I have a certain amount of time to do a certain task, really helps me to get stuff done. And, again, this is assuming that you are not heading towards burnout. Be kind to yourself, if you need a break, take a break, and that break might be more than half-an-hour, it might be a full day. Sometimes we need to give ourselves a break, even when we don’t want to, because it will help us be more productive later.

Also, intuitively, I think you know whether you need to give yourself a break, or whether you need to just get stuff done. At some level I knew this week that I had to let myself rest. So, I was getting stuff done in the early parts of the day, but the afternoons, I have got big blank spots in the afternoons, especially on Wednesday and Friday. I just didn’t do anything, and I think those were two of the days when I actually sat in bed and read a book, because that’s what I needed, that’s what my body needed, that’s what my brain needed. I had stuff that I was processing, and I needed to give myself permission to do that, and like I said, I think I felt that at an intuitive level. So, you will know, intuitively, if you are in touch with yourself, whether you need a break or whether you need to get stuff done but be kind to yourself. And, for me, it can be really hard, I tend to have high expectations for myself, and I tend to push myself possibly more than I need to. I tend to try to force myself to get things done when perhaps I actually need a break. So, that’s why it is so important to have reasonable expectations when planning your week. And like I said, if I had thought about the energetic exhaustion that I might have as a result of the three-hour session with my friend, Suneet, last Friday, and then two back-to-back sessions last Thursday, plus all the other physical stuff I was doing, I would have known, in advance, that it might have been a challenging week to get things done. So the trick is to now look into the future and look into the next few weeks of my calendar, and be kind to myself, and look at my calendar and say: how much can I reasonably get done on these days? Can I get all this stuff done or do I have to postpone it? And when you postpone stuff, that involves prioritising and sometimes we set a priority for tasks and then things change and priorities change, so be flexible with your priorities and give yourself permission to say: okay, when I plan my calendar for this week, that task was a number one priority but, honestly, I don’t really need to get it done this week. I could put if off until next week because I have other things that are now more important. So, be flexible with your priorities and be willing to re-evaluate them every week, every day, throughout the day, because that’s going to help you get the most important things done.

So, to give you some examples, so next week, like I said I am up in Yorkshire, I have a navigation course, and I’m bringing my computer because I want to have it in case I can get stuff done, but, honestly, I don’t think I am going to have a lot of free time. I know that the group has dinners planned together to work on some of the stuff from the course, I know I will be tired physically, because I am going to be on higher hills than I am used to walking, so it is going to be more strenuous physically, I am going to be tired and probably not going to get much done. So, I already know that I am bringing the computer, but I have got to be super flexible, and I don’t actually have time blocked in the evenings to work on the business. I am leaving it open, if I have time I will do it, if I don’t, I don’t.

The following week I am visiting a friend, so I will probably not be bringing my computer however we have talked about getting some writing done together, so I might. The following week I am back into normal business week, so I have got my usual times blocked out to get stuff done, I have to time open for client sessions and I have got a deadline looming for my next book, and I am going to have to start blocking out time to get that done. I think by that week by brain should be back on track, it should be rested from a week with my friend, and I should be able to focus on my book which is something I really need to be working on. So, hopefully, that is something that I can do the following week, because I have got a personal deadline of the end of the month for my first draft. Again, weeks beyond that I can be fairly flexible, so I can see what I can fit into my calendar and I can see what I can’t fit into my calendar, based on the other stuff that is going on. Basically, it is the next two weeks that I have to worry about and based on my experience from the last couple of weeks, of overloading myself, I am going to be much more aware of what I can get done reasonably.

So, I hope you found this episode useful and I hope it will help you to think about what you can get done in a week and what you maybe can’t, because you have been overloading yourself, or have lower energy levels, or something else. So, I encourage you to get stuff done, when you can, of course, but also be kind to yourself when you feel like you can’t get stuff done, for whatever reason, and just really stop and think about it. So, instead of beating yourself up for not focussing, or not getting everything done in your to-do list, stop and think: what’s going on? What could be affecting me? Did I not sleep well? Where am I in my cycle? Has anything emotional happened to me lately? Have I had a really deep therapy session, could that be effecting me? Could I be tired because I did something, an extra-long workout at the gym? This stuff all affects us, and it affects our ability to get stuff done and run our business. So, be kind to yourself and use this extra information to help you to plan a reasonable schedule in your calendar. So, that’s it for today, I hope you found this useful. As I said, I always find it timely to share the stuff that I am going through, and I find that I get a lot of really good feedback on it because I am not the only one experiencing this.

So, once more, be kind to yourself and have a fabulous week, whether you are having a lazy week, or a very productive week!

Show Notes / Feedback

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So, thank you again for listening, if you enjoyed this episode please come back next week, I will see you again on Monday as always. Have a great week.

And remember to visit hollyworton.com/265 for the show notes on this episode.