Hey. You. Yeah.
Overworked, underpaid and unappreciated person. I see you. You got through 2023 in one piece. Well done.
Are you starting your to-do list for the year, and it looks like a lot of the stuff you had to do last year?
You know that big to-do list that never seems to get smaller?
With stuff on it like:
- Post more on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter/X, Tiktok, Youtube?
- Pay attention to your analytics! Learn more about SEO!
- Keep offering this service that you’re not really into anymore?
- Start or continue a podcast?!? Even though it doesn’t seem like it will make any difference at all, people keep telling you to do this? And you just never do it?
Yep. This is your sign that you can stop it, or just cross it off your list and say yeah, I’m not gonna do that.
WHAAAAT? Recordscratch noise.
I challenge you to Make a To-Don’t list in 2024.
And it doesn’t just have to be for work stuff.
You can make a to-don’t list for your life, that includes:
- Don’t check email 1 day a week.
- Hydrate with water first thing, NOT caffeine.
- Don’t read the news on Monday or Tuesday, or even for weeks if it makes you feel better.
- Don’t keep doing that kind of exercise that you don’t like. Do something else.
- Don’t respond to those emails in your inbox, just delete them. If it’s important they will email you again.
- Don’t hang out with people who make you feel exhausted.
- Can you minimize tasks that make you feel exhausted? How? (hint they might also be on your procrastination to-do list.)
- Who can you ask for help with the exhausting tasks? Can you do it together or delegate it?
- Don’t read the perpetually open tabs. Can you delete those open tabs in your browser?
- If you make a yearly plan, don’t feel you need to refer to it all the time. The important thing is that you made it. Things might go to plan, they most likely will not. Because we live in a time where capitalism is crumbling, COVID is still rampant, we have two endless wars going on in Gaza and the Ukraine, rising seas and temperatures and a faltering social support system make it hard to predict what will happen.
Did you change in the last 4 years?
Of course you did. That’s ALSO why you need to give yourself permission to do less. You can keep pretending, or you can embrace that you’re not going to get as much done as you did in 2019.
You’re not that person anymore. Maybe you got long COVID. Or maybe you got laid off. Perhaps you’re not where you were planning to be 4 years ago.
The pandemic has changed us, forever.
We can face the truth, or we can continue to pretend we can go back to “business as usual.”
End the guilt and shame cycle and just own what you will and won’t do.
We are taught by this sick society that we are not allowed to rest. That we need to feel guilt and shame all the time. To always feel like we’re forgetting something, and if we just DO A LITTLE MORE we will get rid of this feeling. Capitalism thrives on that, because then we buy more.
Guess what, you can’t BUY your way out of the black hole of guilt and shame. It’s a prescription for overwork, burnout, and an endless attempt to prove your worth to a society that profits if you feel this way.
You’ve tried to do it all.
- How many planners have you bought? (spoiler alert, I bought TWO for 2024)
- How many webinars have you attended to try to see how to stay on top of your unrealistic workload? (uhhhh how many have I taught you? (Sorrrrry))
- What about the time you lost co-workers and their work was dumped on you, with no increase in pay? How many more times is that gonna happen, before you shout ENOUGH?
- How many gurus have promised you can just automate it all away?
And what happens when you DO automate your work?
More work comes in to fill the gaps?
Wow. Funny how that works.
They said we’d all have automated our work away by now. With dishwashers, washing machines, supermarkets, cars, apps and websites to automate everything. But then more work comes in to fill in the gap.
That’s capitalism Baybee!
Who will ever tell you to do less?
Me. I’m here to tell you. Do less. Why?
In fact, doing less is EXACTLY what the world needs right now! According to Dr Devon Price, the multidimensional tropical forest recovery research from Science.org depends on us doing less. If we just stop working so much, stop polluting so much, stop deforestation, forests can repair themselves.
What if you too, can stop doing so much? I know that might go against everything you have been taught-
“You have to love your job,” or at least like it, or find deeper meaning for your life in it, but… you don’t.
You don’t have to do that.
Work was never meant to give your life meaning.
We were brainwashed to think, well even if I’m not getting paid a lot, I’m doing what I love.
And again, Work won’t love you back.
And do you REALLY love your job?
Or is it a cognitive bias you have?
As researcher Leon Festinger wrote in A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, when you are paid very little to do a job, you tend to have a positive bias that makes you try to square it in your head. Like, this is actually really fun. Otherwise why would I be doing it?
Would you really miss your tasks if you did less?
Since I stepped away from full time fundraising, I can say I absolutely DO NOT MISS IT.
I like teaching, for sure. But the actual job of fundraising? It’s a slog my friend. It’s a slog with NO END.
What if you could block out your calendar and secretly write “NOTHING” on it?
Just, NOTHING happens in this time. I get to do whatever I want?
And maybe it’s just a nap. Or walking. Or literally nothing.
What if you could take your time back?
Permission to do nothing, granted!
THIS is part of a LARGER sea change, a larger conversation about refusal.
Refusing to pretend everything is fine. Daring to be the bearer of the same old news, yep, COVID is still here, YEP, we still need to be careful.
There’s a bigger piece about systems of power, oppression, racism, patriarchy and capitalism that makes us act this way. Stay tuned for more.
Thank you so much
Brilliant!
I love this so much. Thank you for the validation!