“You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do.” – Ferris Bueller
I’ll not exhaust the story too much, but a couple of months ago, the right side of my body went numb. This was scary, but thankfully, I was diagnosed with migraines (they don’t have to be pain headaches, I’ve learned), and prescribed meds to manage.
Since, symptoms have escalated, and that has led to MRI and more MRI and further testing. Who knows what is happening to me (we’ll figure it out in time), but I do know this:
My productivity has been galvanized like never before.
As I combat wild levels of fatigue, energy is now a very special resource. This means I ask, of all things I do, is this important enough to risk not being able to do the rest of my day?
Peeking behind the scenes a bit more, I’m on vacation from work, which was mostly planned ahead of time and fortuitous in timing since I can’t keep up, so I am lucky to not have to worry about that, but all else I do is done with incredible deliberateness.
“Time management” is the term that I hear most often, but it’s really “action management” (that which consumes time), which is really “choice management” (that which inspires action), which is really “values management” (that which drives choice). Never before have I been so clearly able to see a line so directly connecting my core values to what I am doing in every moment.
That’s probably exhausting too, but it makes me happy to live through.
I don’t know what the takeaway here is, except to say that, where possible, really identifying and then leaning in to core values to drive how one spends the time one has agency over is incredibly rewarding. And hopefully, you don’t have to have your whole body go numb to signal this.
