We Should Stop Worrying About Getting Stuff Done

Here in the United States, most of us have been ordered to stay at home for the past 6ish weeks. While everyone is experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in their own way, I’ve noticed there are a lot of similarities in the ways many of us are feeling.

My conversations with a lot of colleagues, friends, and clients have shown that many of us spent the first few weeks in a sort of denial and fog. I think we had a hope that this was all very temporary and that things would get back to “normal” soon enough.

Have you felt like you’re in a fog too?

If you’re anything like me, you spent the first month not being very productive. I’ll admit that since every day has felt like Sunday to me I wasn’t getting a whole lot done (either for business or around the house). My desk got cluttered, I haven’t done any filing, and I’ve forgotten to do several work tasks.

I look at content that other people are putting out there and I start to feel like I should be doing more. I should be tackling all my home improvement projects, my house should be spotlessly clean, I should be blogging several times a week and posting on social media, I should be creating online courses and newsletters.

But I’m not doing any of those things. I haven’t had the bandwidth to do all these things that the internet is telling me I should be doing because I am stressed about the critical state of so many businesses, I’m worried about the health and safety of friends and family, and my normal routine has gone out the window since my husband and I are both home all day. Plus, I’ve realized, I just don’t want to.

The real reason my house will never be spotless.

After some reflection I’ve decided it’s not a great time to be spending money on home improvement projects, I have 2 large dogs so my house will never be spotless, I don’t want to blog more than once or twice a month, I dislike social media, and I don’t have time to learn how to create online courses and newsletters. And as anyone who has done a video call with me lately knows, I’m no longer worried about the stack of paper on my filing cabinet which has become a semi-permanent feature of my home office.

Papers I need to file.

I’m telling you all this because I want to give you permission to allow things to not get done. The world is going through a terrible crisis and the majority of individuals are affected in some way. Despite what you see on the internet, most people don’t react to a significant life crisis by making Pinterest-worthy transformations. Even I, a trained professional organizer and productivity specialist, can’t manage to get my papers filed right now.

So, for now I’ve decided that it’s ok not to get stuff done and I’m not going to worry about it any more.