Curiosity is Key

Do you know what I realized? A client recently said to me, Realistic time management is boring.

Yep, I replied; it is.

She came back by saying it is much better than feeling anxious all the time—I just wasn't prepared for how boring it is.

I remember when I realized that there is a high that comes from high functioning anxiety—running from thing to thing can be invigorating AND stressful.

Multi-Tasking Anxious Nancy

I have six apps open on my computer—at a minimum. I might write for 5 minutes (even though it feels like 30 minutes), jump to my email and respond, and hop over to slack. Remember, I was supposed to order the dog's meds again, so I pause to call the vet, jump up to flip the laundry, and then back again to write for 5 minutes before I rinse and repeat—lots of energy, lots of variety, lots of productivity. Or so I thought.

Single task Nancy

One or 2 apps open at a maximum. Earplugs in (ear plugs are a way I have found to tell my brain, ok, now we are focusing—when I put the ear plugs in, I know I am serious) and writing 20 minutes. If I am drawing a blank on what to write, my trick is to keep typing even if it isn't helpful or stand up and get into my body—no jumping tasks, no distracting myself. If after 20 minutes I am still drawing a blank, I pick another task to do for 20 minutes. I might answer emails, call the vet, or finally research where to order furnace filters—one task at a time.

Single task Nancy does feel less jittery, less anxiety-full, AND there are days it is counter to every bone in my body!

So Yes, IF we do one task at a time, it can make our anxiety less—doing one task at a time naturally calms us down. And when I have a particularly anxious day, it can be very hard to do one task at a time.

It is a chicken vs. egg concept—doing one task at a time can slow my nervous system down and reduce my anxiety. And it is also true that if I am feeling anxious, doing one task at a time might be the last thing I want to do.

This is why I offer some anxiety reduction strategies in Self Loyalty School, but for the most part, I talk about building self-loyalty. It isn't about being multi-tasking Nancy or Single Task Nancy; it is about having curiosity for myself and building a relationship with myself.

Building curiosity means I check in with myself throughout my day. The Mindfulness Hacks I talk about in Spiral One of the Body theme week one day 3 are how I build in a natural pause so I can notice how my body is feeling. One day I notice that doing one task at a time is helpful and feels good. And the next day doing one task at a time is too limiting and causes my anxiety to spike. When it doesn't feel good, I know that maybe I need to change things up. Maybe today is a day that I will jump from thing to thing more, and when I sense that it is increasing my anxiety, I will tone it down and do one task at a time.

One of my favorite reminders to my clients—as I talked about yesterday, there are no rules. We SO want to find the rules, find the way to hack ourselves and do it the right way. The rules are the opposite of being curious.

Multi-tasking or not, the secret to building self-loyalty is being kind to yourself and being curious about your anxiety and how it is showing up.