How to Be Productive on A Bad Day

The last couple of days have been incredibly tough. Two days ago I woke up with blurry vision in my right eye. In all honesty, I wrote it off believing that perhaps it was just a stye coming up or dry eyes. I went about my day almost normally. But then when I woke yesterday, the issue was considerably worse. My vision was at less than 50% of my normal vision for that eye. After having some conversations with my mom who had suffered an ocular stroke several years back, we agreed that a trip to the emergency room was warranted. Turns out a rare viral infection has set up residence in the center of my eye. The infection can be aggressive and so I’m being treated with aggressive meds. When I finally left the hospital yesterday, I had an appointment to return this morning.

On the one hand, I was and continue to be extremely grateful for access to healthcare and for a diagnosis. Waking up without the vision you went to bed with is scary! On the other hand, I couldn’t help but think about how the “loss” of TWO back to back days in my week were going to affect my goals and overall productivity. For instance, I have a sermon to write and preach for next week. I have grant proposal to finish by midnight Sunday night, that I’d planned to have completed by today. All of these things began to run through my mind as I sat waiting for a confirming physician to come in to finalize the diagnosis and talk causes and treatments.

And so, in this post, I want to share with you a few strategies that I have used the last two days to make sure that I’ve been at least a little bit productive.

Strategy #1 - Don’t Panic

Now, this first strategy is easier said than done, but it is absolutely necessary. At one point in the doctor’s office when they were giving me possible (not likely) prognosis, I held it together until the doctors left the room. And then…. well…. I crumbled. My eyes filled up and spilled over resulting in a soggy KN95 mask. (I think it goes without saying that wet masks feel disgusting.) After allowing myself a few moments to process, I decided that panicking was not going to do anything to help my current plight. With that realization, I was brought to the next strategy.

Strategy #2 - Breathe

Telling you not to panic doesn’t work if you’ve already entered panic mode. So, one of my strategies is to take a moment to intentionally take some deep breaths - in through my nose and out through my mouth several times. This may seem like an elementary thought, but there is a reason that meditation, yoga and several therapies focus on intentional breathing. Taking even just a few moments to focus on inhaling and exhaling is enough to bring your mind and body to a more centered place than when you began.

Strategy # 3- Reassess

When you encounter a crisis or a life occurrence that derails your day, it’s important to take a moment to reassess. Think through time, resources and capacity. This step will help you with the next two strategies.

Strategy #4- Determine what is absolutely necessary

If we’re honest, all of us pile our to-do lists with tasks each day or week. Some of these tasks are absolutely crucial and time-sensitive. But others… most others… can likely wait a day or longer without much consequence (we’ll talk more about this in another post). In moments of crisis or derailment, the ability to quickly identify the difference is invaluable. In this way your are able to immediately remove some of the pressure off of yourself.

For example, one thing I had on my lists yesterday were to feed my sourdough starter one final time and refrigerate. I was bummed about not being able to do it and worried that nearly two weeks of work on a strong starter were going to go out the window. But as I thought about it, it was possible that the starter would survive another day on the counter if it had to. And, if by chance it was ruined, it would not be such a critical point in time that it warranted my stressing about it in the present moment. When I realized that and gave myself permission to walk away from that task, it freed up mental capacity for the next thing. Even without a crisis moment, I encourage you to practice this on “normal” days. Have a look at your task list and see if there’s is one thing that you can talk yourself into releasing for a a period of time. I think you will find the experiment to be at least somewhat rewarding.

Strategy #5- Determine what is doable

I know, I know… you’ve determined what is necessary so now you HAVE to figure out a way to actually DO it all right? WRONG! Or MAYBE. Just because something is determined to be necessary TC doesn’t always mean that it is doable. Think of it this way. If you book a flight that is leaving at 9am, it is indeed necessary that you make that flight. You’ve decided to Uber and the driver picks you up on time. GREAT. But, 2 miles from the airport traffic comes to a standstill and remains that way until 8:55. While it is necessary for you to make the flight, there is no way that you can actually ride the last two miles, go through security checkpoints and make it to your gate before the plane takes off. It’s necessary, but based on capacity, ability, necessary processes, etc, the necessary thing is no longer doable.

At this point in the process, you have to narrow down that list again to determine what is doable. Remember now, up in the reassessment phase we took inventory of our resources, so if we maintain an open mind about this process, determine what’s doable is well… doable.

Strategy #6- Plan

This step doesn’t have to be a major undertaking. It’s simply about taking the items you have determined to be doable and deciding the best way to get them done. The key here is acknowledging that you don’t have to do it all yourself. I know. For people like me and maybe you, asking for help may not be the easiest thing to do. In fact, we hate the very idea. But, in moments like these, it’s important to understand that there are people around you who are able and willing to help you. Sure, they might do things a little differently than we do. But what’s more important? That it’s done step by step, exactly as you would or that it gets done?

Strategy #7 - Execute

Once you have come up with a reasonable plan, it’s time to execute. In this moment, simply do the best you can to stick with the plan you devised. All things might not work out perfectly, but if you give it your best shot, I am confident that you will find that your day has not gone totally unfulfilled.

Strategy #8- Be kind to yourself

This last one is perhaps one of the most important. One day like this, sometimes the best you will be able to do is keep yourself from a complete panic attack. Some life events come that are hard to bounce back from. The best you can do in these moments is to simply be kind to yourself. Unplug, breathe and allow yourself to process your feelings. You could try to process through and press your way through to completing something, but in the end, pushing yourself beyond when you are already in a vulnerable state, can cause more damage than good. This season, at least for me, is about being productive, but not without self care.

I hope this has been reasonably helpful to you. Do you have strategies you use to make it through a day that doesn’t or isn’t going to the way you hoped it would? I love to hear them down in the comments!

Take care!