My terrible day

My terrible day started yesterday.

I had woken up, feeling excited about starting the week. I had so much to catch up on after taking some time off sick last week. I was going to be a productivity machine.

I packed my bag and marched into my wonderful co-working space. I had already ticked off so many "great day” boxes, and it was barely 9am!

Sure enough, my morning was great. I smashed out some tasks, and attended some useful meetings. I was so locked in that I almost missed lunchtime rolling in.

I went for a walk — via an excellent beef sandwich — to get some movement and fresh air before restarting for the afternoon. Everything was going great.

Then, I sat back at my computer and looked for the next item on my to-do list.

Blank.

I hadn’t planned anything else for the day. No worries, I thought — I’ll just check the team kanban board; there’s bound to be something I can work on there.

Nope.

Everything was blocked by someone else. A pending meeting or decision. Or another developer.

I could feel the productive momentum slipping from my grasp like sand. Being unsure of what to do next is my kryptonite. 

I sat in a state of paralysis for over an hour, waiting for something interesting to happen at work, or on the internet, or in my life. Eventually, I decided that I was wasting my time, and that I should just give up and go home.

Fast-forward to this morning. At 9am, I was still on the sofa. Because I knew that if I made it upstairs to my home office, I would just get myself stuck in the same paralysis, falling into a bottomless pit of boredom. And if I was going to be unproductive, I could at least do it productively by watching TV.

It’s now nearly 4pm, and I’ve achieved very little today. I did eventually become bored enough to get my shoes on and walk the dog. But I feel as though my day has been an utter waste.

What I’m experiencing is probably burnout. The brain’s defence mechanism against overextension and overwork.

I’m absolutely sure that if I’d spent 10 minutes looking for something to work on, I would have found it. But that was not my destiny today. Truthfully, some days just get wasted. 

I’ve become fairly used to this since I started working from home 5 years ago. My motivation ebbs when there is nobody around me to keep it topped up when my internal reserves run dry.

This is the reality of living with ADHD — my brain is on a rollercoaster, and sometimes it goes too fast and flies off the rails for a while. Sometimes it feels like it’s going alarmingly quickly, and it’s almost impossible to imagine it slowing down. And sometimes it feels like it’s crawling uphill, but it’s  just building momentum for an upcoming burst of speed.

Today is a slow day. In the moment, I tell myself I’m an utter failure. But the bigger picture shows clear progress — albeit extremely unsteady and inconsistent.

Today was terrible. That’s okay.