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#6189
Rachel East
Moderator

Hi Dave,

What a crazy time we’re living in! It’s totally natural to be having a difficult time adjusting to the notion of working from home with nothing to do. It’s sort of like having whiplash!

To me, it sounds like classic overwhelm. Not necessarily a big GAIL or anything; just that you’re contemplating SO much things you could be doing that you get overwhelmed and shut down. That’s normal! When you’re standing and staring a mountain, imagining scaling the whole thing is incredibly challenging. But any mountain is scaled in a series of smaller steps, which I think is what needs to happen here.

One big thing that could help you is to break down your to-dos into smaller tasks. “Job research” is probably too big of a task. Maybe “30 minutes of stalking people on LinkedIn,” for example, is a more manageable thing to ask of yourself.

And as for it being tedious and you getting overwhelmed … well, it sounds like you’re already pretty overwhelmed! And I agree that a schedule will probably help you feel less so, particularly if you’re a person who likes structure. The “tedious” thing does sound like something a gremlin would say. Probably because it’s afraid if you implement a schedule you’ll “fail,” so might as well make it sound boring/unattainable to have one in the first place so you’ll never try, and therefore never disappoint yourself.

But I want to remove the expectation that your schedule has to be awesome and that you have to stick to it perfectly from day 1, or else it’s a failure (and you are, too). NO ONE creates a perfect schedule and sticks to it perfectly at the outset (and maybe ever). This is just an experiment! It might take many go-arounds before you find a rhythm that works. And hey, by then we may all be back to life as usual. This doesn’t have to be a super serious endeavor. It can be something lighter and playful, if you let it (and actually, as a Type 6 that’s a very good idea. Sixes tend to get very serious about their commitments, and if you want to move in the direction of growth, integrating a bit more lightheartedness and flow, like a healthy 9, would be ideal for you).