So … you had your schedule all worked out. Your plans laid, your priorities clear …
And then you get dumped on. Just like a snow storm came barrelling along to disrupt your well laid plans.
The roads are bad, slippery, messy, treacherous.
Suddenly, what was going smoothly and according to plan is skewing all over the place, skidding entirely out of control. You’re going in directions you hadn’t expected and have no control over it.
There’s shoveling. Lots of shoveling. Time-consuming shoveling!
Sometimes the only thing you can do when you get buried under mountains of paper, email, questions, research, and so on is to grab a shovel and start digging.
Take a snow day, and stay home where it’s warm and cozy.
When you’re hit with a blizzard of work, it’s tempting to just curl up and nest until the whole thing is over. Make some cocoa, and snuggle up on the couch with a blanket. Because, sometimes, an enforced rest isn’t a bad idea. If you’ve been working extra hard, having a reason to slow down doesn’t always hurt.
Or, you can just dive in and play in it.
Sometimes, the rush you get from jumping in and just immersing yourself in your project is more satisfying than giving up. Just accept that you’ve got snow (lots, and lots of snow) and don’t let it stop you. Let it inspire you.
Remember what it’s like to be a kid in the snow.
Now, you can’t compare a pile of work with the glee of a child who gets an unexpected day off from school. But … you love what you do, right? And you love the feeling of success when you’re so, so popular that you’re caught in a blizzard of work, right? So … have fun with the snow!
I dive in. Though if it were a literal snow day, as opposed to a figurative one, I would cozy up with the TV or a good book. đŸ™‚
J’s last blog post..TiVo Alert ~ San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker
What a fun post! Sometimes I actually function better when I’m swamped and sometimes it’s invigorating to have a big pile of work to get through.
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..Holiday Fiction (Writing Exercise)
Personally, I don’t like the “swamped” feeling but I DO find that it can inspire me to get impressive amounts of work done. But I’m happiest when I feel like I’m in control (grin). (Or, you know, have the ILLUSION of being in control!)
This is an especially appropriate post considering we just received 10 inches of snow.
First I shovelled snow, then I crept into my home office to spend a few hours writing posts for our Writing Tips for a Year service, trying to get ahead in the morning so I could make snowmen in the afternoon. (All the showmen are now holding oversized red pens!)
Once the snowmen were appropriately dressed, it was back in for hot chocolate and a few hours of preparing upcoming writing courses, something that had been put off for the chance to work uninterrupted for a few hours.