Don’t Lose the Remote: Hitting Pause When Life Gets Bonkers
You know those dreams where you’re late for algebra to take a test you didn’t know about/study for and then realize you aren’t wearing pants? Anxiety makes your teeth start to fall out and your IRL alarm gets worked into the narrative as a fire drill and everyone’s pointing and laughing at your naked ass while you try—in vain—to make a Lisa Frank binder hide the important bits? Yeah, we all do.
That frantic feeling can make your heart pound, muscles clench, and mind spin. Now add in a few more chaos variables: you’re awake, you’re at work, and this could be life pretty much 24/7. I say ‘could be’ because the first rule of adulthood is also the most important: how to use the remote.
REWIND
We’ve all heard it a million times. Today’s media landscape (the small one we create, not the dumpster fire of corporate overlords) isn’t healthy. If you look around—literally right now—there are probably half a dozen devices desperately wanting your attention. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
But when you’re at work or trying to check things off your to-do list, it’s hard to focus with alert sounds chirping in the background like hungry baby birds.
Now throw in the Molotov cocktail that is todays outside world. News notifications ding, Amber and Silver alerts klaxon, and spam callers insist on trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty. It makes you want to rewind to the days where junk mail was limited to a literal mailbox, phone calls could be handled by the answering machine, and talking heads were silenced by turning off the radio or TV.
FAST FORWARD
But we live in 2025 so how can we focus on being creative in the eye of a hurricane? Planning. Experts suggest going old-school/throw-back: make a list of priorities (be crazy, use paper and pen because writing focuses the mind), turn off or silence things you don’t absolutely need to monitor, and focus on one task at a time.
And guess what? It’s ok to tackle smaller, easier tasks first just to achieve that checking-things-off-your-list high. Unless doing so makes you late on something else. Make sure the list includes relevant deadlines (if they’re different for each item) and keep track. ‘You know best what you need’ should balance evenly on the teeter-totter of ‘get shit done.’
Guess what, part 2. If focus requires noise canceling headphones, white noise (personally I’m addicted to this vid and use it almost daily), or a spotless workstation, that’s okay. Find your bliss point of creativity, productivity, durability, and all the other -ity things that keep you moving forward and getting paid.
PAUSE and STOP
The other thing experts recommend is knowing when to pause and step away. If you’re a creative, try making a complete draft of your current project. Save, close, and let it marinate while you answer emails, refill your coffee, do a little mid-day yoga (for the love of all that’s holy, don’t be weird about it if you’re in an office setting), take a walk, or start on project #2. After a little bit, you’ll return to task #1 with fresh(er) eyes and a little perspective.
At the end of the workday, push stop on the work/life balance remote for at least a little while. If you were an ER doc or air traffic controller we wouldn’t be talking right now and those are the only two folks who’re important enough to be on call 24/7. Let your commute home be about obnoxious singing in the car, binging murder podcasts, chatting with friends, or window shopping from the bus.
I can hear grumbling from the back of the class saying “but when you’re self-driven you need to reply to questions/job offers/follow-ups/inquiries ASAP so you don’t miss out on the next assignment.” And yes, that’s true. But you have to eat, sleep, chill, shower, and—wait for it—occasionally unplug to keep the nightmares away.
Cornell University smartypants explain that breaks “to refresh your brain and body increases your energy, productivity, and ability to focus. Keep in mind: social media doesn’t work well as a ‘purposeful break.’ Instead, find activities that give your mind a break and allow you to breathe deeply, laugh, move your body, be creative, or ‘zone out’ on purpose. These kinds of activities will help you re-energize and re-focus.”
With luck, you’ll find sweet dreams AND a full (yet manageable) workload.
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