Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!
For a person who juggled school life, romantic life, personal life, and social life all at once during my student days, you would think I have a pretty good grip on how much I am able to accomplish within a certain amount of time, right?
Boy, I wish.
I think after I stopped being a student, I lost those multitasking skills because nowadays, I’m horrible at multitasking. It’s also weird; I feel as if people my age are always multitasking, yet if I attempt to do it, I break down. Truly, I do.
If you’re anything like me, you would know how hard it is to fit things in your schedule, not because you’re extremely busy or anything, but once you have one or two things planned for the week, you then feel like you have a lot of shit on your plate and simply can’t juggle it all. Like that last sentence; make sure to take a breath during that lengthy explanation.
I’m not bad at being organized and I don’t have a problem doing things on a deadline and whatnot, it’s more so I’m bad that “killing two birds with one stone.” I mean, if I have a therapy session to get to, but I have to walk the extra blocks to my pharmacy to pick up my medicine or something, it’s a trip. In fact, I almost died of exhaustion the last time I did that.
But it’s simply not because I don’t want to do it. It’s more so of the fact that in my routine, the one my homegirl Anxiety and I have compromised together, doesn’t leave me feeling out of place or comfortable.
Lemme explain.
You see, we anxiety-ridden peeps (I apologize for the usage of “peeps” and I apologize for targeting my anxiety-ridden life yet again), function on having a routine. We all (if not most) hate the thought of change or a shift in our routine. When there is a shift of routine, we are pretty much only thinking about that one thing all day, until that event comes. When you find out what routine works best for you, it’s extremely hard to try to get out of it because it’s then our anxiety telling us to not break the routine. For example, if on Wednesdays I have therapy, but this particular Wednesday I have to do laundry either before or after my session, I’m all out-of-whack. I feel like I don’t have control over my own day. Is it nonsense? Uh, yeah, but does my homegirl named “Anxiety” care? Nope.
So, if there’s only one major thing you can handle out of your days, then so be it (for now)! Remember that routines are always bound to change, whether we’re aware of them or not! Some routine changes are going to be more difficult and uncomfortable than others, but I encourage to always find opportunities to switch things up a bit just so I get more comfortable in switches in my routine.
A good example is getting a job: most of my routine is now me at my job, doing what I have to do, and getting through the day. At first, it was scary to have such a big change in schedule in such short notice, and it just took me some techniques and exercises to adjust my body into the new routine. Does it mean that I’m any better at multitasking? No, it just means that I’m becoming more accepting to routine changes, which means if anything comes up, I’m able to learn how to multitask without freaking out that I had too much in my hands.
So, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t juggle more than one thing at a time. Maybe you’re just built to focus on one thing at a time, while others are able to tackle more than one task at a time. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy, it just means you’re a little more slow-paced and articulated about the activities you do during your routine.
So, hey if you’re a horrible multitasker, that’s fine! Welcome to my exclusive club.
Letters From Liz. 