S6E17: Question: How to do urgent work after bad news
Full transcript:
Good morning, happy Tuesday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. And today, I just wanted to pop in and leave you a quick message of encouragement for when you need to work, you need to get stuff done and it has to happen now, but you can’t concentrate because of THIS THING.
And THIS THING is important. It’s the argument you just had with your best friend or your partner. It’s the email that went round this morning at work telling you job losses are looming, or the failed exam, the bad news, or the rejection letter earlier today. Whatever it is, it’s sitting there, the elephant in the room, demanding all your headspace, and blocking any work from happening at all.
I’ve heard people talk about compartmentalisation all my life. I’m naturally very, very bad at it. And the thing is, in normal life, that isn’t a bad thing. Because it means that creatively, anything that I study, anything that I read, watch, regardless of what discipline it’s in or whether it’s work or leisure, it all goes into the same cauldron. And that creates magic. It’s amazing to be able to make connections between completely random things and to not have these walls between all my areas of life. But of course, the downside is that when things are difficult, if we’re not particularly used to compartmentalising, it’s very, very hard to file it away.
But this task, this assignment, this study, needs to get done, today. Here are three tips to get that work done.
1) Write down the looping thoughts. It might seem counterintuitive if you’re watching the clock and worrying that you already don’t have time for this, to take 15, 20 minutes out to write down your thoughts. But it’s time well spent and you can cut it down to ten minutes if you think you really can’t spare any more. But write down what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, in bullet points if you want, as fast as you can, get it out of your head and onto paper. When new thoughts about it pop into your head, write them down, don’t keep them swirling around your brain.
2) Break up the task into the smallest possible steps. Especially if you are waiting for something, so you keep checking your phone, keep refreshing your inbox, keep just waiting for an answer or an update. Find the smallest possible thing you can reasonably do between the quick check of the phone. Tick each thing off. Just literally one foot in front of the other.
3) Keep the study sessions short. It’s better to set yourself to concentrate for 15 minutes at a time, and actually get things done, than it is to sit in one place for several hours and struggle and ruminate and actually do less. If you have one successful 15 minutes, you might be able to keep going, you might be able to take a quick break, move around, get some water, whatever it is, and then try for just one more set of 15 minutes. And remember, you’re just doing the simplest, smallest steps, one at a time, to get that task done.
Now is the time to be the kindest to yourself that you can be, keep your strength up, and focus only on the work that’s absolutely 100% cannot-be-missed-essential. Thank you so much for sending me this question, I’m sending the biggest well wishes, and I will see you tomorrow.