I forgot to write a newsletter this week. If I’m honest, it wasn’t so much forgetting as it was avoiding. I simply didn’t know what to write.

My podcast is on summer break; I don’t have the forcing function of an immediate topic to write about. And I want to write for you about mental health and healing - and bring you great advice and real life examples from people who have managed challenges.

But this week, I felt I had no words to say. I was going to write a newsletter over the weekend, but my sister and her family came to visit. They are soon moving far away, and I’m feeling tremendous sadness about that. I thought: be here now with your family. Don’t go off and work in this precious time. And that felt like good advice.

I was going to write on Monday, and the Highland Park shooting happened. And, like many of you, that just left me feeling hopeless and sad and like nothing I could ever say or do can make a difference.

I just procrastinated until I forgot. And the more I procrastinated, the more impossible writing the newsletter felt. And then  on Wednesday evening I sat up with a start and realized I forgot to write my newsletter. And I felt ashamed and depressed, because that’s what we often feel when we procrastinate (even if putting off the deadline feels good in the moment).

Why am I telling you all this? After all, missing a newsletter isn’t a big deal. That’s the thing: you may be grieving right now. You may feel deeply anxious, uncertain, and like things are not ok. And that may lead you to “forget” to do work assignments and avoid deadlines. 

If this is you right now, try to turn a big, scary deadline into something smaller. When you feel anxious, it can be easy to turn a seemingly straightforward task into an overwhelming thought exercise and you avoid doing your work..

So it’s important to do something. You want to feel effective, quickly. That will feed into your ability to keep working by building momentum and motivation for the bigger tasks ahead. 

Perform a smaller but relevant action to break the rumination. If you’re staring at a blank screen, tidy up a counter space or your desk.This may seem minor, but making even a small amount of progress will ease anxiety and give your brain the nudge it needs to focus on a task and not ruminate. You can practice:

1. First, identify a reasonably complex task you need to accomplish today, but that you’re dreading (we all have one).

2. Identify a task that’s smaller but related. So if the big task is organizing months of expenses and this feels overwhelming, organize receipts into a folder or clean up your desktop. Try to create the feeling of being on a roll…

3. Give yourself some time to tackle that smaller task. Set a timer if you like.

And if nothing else works, then get up from your desk and do something around the house or your office- something physical ideally, like emptying the trash or dusting. Get into movement and out of your head. 

Change your scenery or get into motion= it will help you stop the mental spiral and get back to work. If that doesn’t work, pick a later time to do the task and try not to think about it until your appointed time. Pick your freshest time of day: for example early morning or late at night. Schedule a block to do the task and reward yourself when you’re done.

Sometimes, it helps to stop and ask: why am I avoiding this task? What's really going on? I'll write more about that another time.

And also: It’s ok to not be ok right now. Sometimes deadlines don’t matter.