Letters for Creatives #42: Ways to stay productive when you are overwhelmed
Plus: A fictional story about a couple and deers
Hello, I am Celeste. Thank you for being here. If you would like to receive Letters for Creatives every Thursday, subscribe to read weekly letters on creativity, mental wellness, mindset and more. It is a secret but you get a free poetry book and Spotify playlist if you sign up for free. You can go to the directory to see the topics I have covered so far.
Building new habits
James Clear suggested trying Temptation Bundling in his book Atomic Habits. It is to pair something you want to do with something you need to do. For instance, you can listen to podcasts or audiobooks when you are having ice cream if you want to listen to more podcasts.
Accountability
Another way to help you finish a task that you are dragging is accountability. I stumbled upon Focus mate this week. I just had a session that lasted for 50 minutes to write this letter. It certainly helped me to start and keep going until I finish.
I saw the translated version of Atomic Habits last week. It is definitely my next read. If there is a time machine to check the books that I took a note to read next. Let me know. I forgot most of them.
Time blocking is another way to free yourself from feeling overwhelmed. I tried bullet journal for about a year and ditched it. I have been finding the next best way for me to do deep work for a few hours. When you put a task in your calendar, the specific time leaves you no choice but to do it, even when you don’t want to at the beginning.
A story about a couple, their past and deers
I wrote the longest story I could ever write. It was inspired by the different perspectives of The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.
From the perspective of him
He went to bed as usual after removing almost a hundred tattoos on a Sunday. He fell asleep in a second.
He saw one of the women who came in that day. He didn’t look at her face when she was there.
She asked him “can you remove this one?” She pointed at a tattoo on her arm. It was a head of a deer that reminded him of his ex-wife.
As he prepared to remove the tattoo, the woman stopped him. “What?” He got confused. She told him that she needed him to take a photo of her with the tattoo. “Why do you need a photo before you get rid of it?” He asked as he took her phone to take the photo.
“I don’t know. I record a lot of these moments. Is the tattoo going to be removed completely?”
“Have you read the reviews of our shop? You don’t need to worry about it.” He got a bit irritated by her question.
She looked at him in his eyes and said “Do it then.”
All of a sudden, he saw a face of a deer instead of a woman face, with a hint of his ex-wife by the way she looked at him.
Before he could do anything, he woke up full of sweat and saw his ex-wife sleeping next to him.
You can read the perspective of her and their past on my Instagram.
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Until next time,
Celeste