Hi Brooke,

Every day with this is a fight. I battle on. Here’s my fun model for today:
C: Schedule – ASM docs
T: I’m behind and don’t want to push work into the evening
F: Overwhelmed
A: Buffer/ Binge (actually white knuckle what would have been a binge… and here’s the good thing, I no longer call that a win.)
R: Still behind didn’t work longer.

I want to get the work done within my work hours. Focused, positive, calm, matter of fact.

This next model, I started with the results line.
C: ASM Docs
T: I must complete this. I have a deadline.
F: Stress, boxed in
A: Reschedule, start early, no email outside of planned times, Plan before starting
R: ASM Docs done by 4

OK – so now I have the two normal swings of my life there… a pendulum that swings between running away and beating myself through a task. How is it I’ve never grown beyond middle school in my work methods? Gah!

But my question is this… That feeling – of being boxed in and driven down a chute by my mental task master is the feeling I try to run from. It’s successful some of the time, especially the closer to the deadline I get, so my brain is using a tool that works often…. but I don’t want to live my life that way. And when I look at this I tell myself if I just bull my way through enough tasks soon I’ll be ahead and can plan a more reasonable way forward. After 50 years, I don’t think THAT’S gonna happen. So where do I go now?

I believe you’ve said you can’t get a good result from a negative feeling. What would you do to rework that model?

Also, of course, everything that pushes out the work I need to do (ASM Docs say) is really important (rolling eyes ) – meeting with my boss goes over by 1/2 hour, new team has big project and I want to make sure I’m up to speed so I move my tasks to attend a KT meeting) etc. All stuff that seemed important at the time but didn’t really make my life better.

– Amy