letters to kepler

Dear Mika,

First of all, as if I haven’t said it enough, happy book birthday to you and Danica. I can’t wait for the dual-celebration of books one and two next year. I hope it feels like having your birthday exactly the right distance from Christmas. Double the celebration, double the love. (Throw Thanksgiving in there too). 

As you know, I’ve been anxious the past couple days. The reasons are multitudinous (don’t ask me why this is the word that called to me, and yes, I had to Google it to make sure I spelled it right), from grieving the loss of my brother earlier this summer, to the epic highs and lows of library work, to last minute papers—

And I think it’s the “last minute” that I want to talk about today. 

I know I said I’d write about something fun, so I’ll try to keep this less existential and more silly-goofy-totally-chill.

I’m a procrastinator.

That’s not a secret to anyone, least of all you. 

But as terrible as I am at sticking to deadlines and remembering the finer details of what I’d like to do, I organize as hard as I can to manage the many platters I hold in my hands.

There’s a platter for work and for school and for creative writing and for unwinding and for chores and for quality time with family and for quality time with friends—

And I’m supposed to balance all of that every day?! 

I know you get it—most people do! We have so many things on our plates and next to no time to get it all done. It gets hectic. It gets stressful. I doomscroll on TikTok to feel something when I can’t sleep (and inevitably feel worse for it … and lose more sleep).

I try to organize things by due dates, level of urgency, interest, level of difficulty, and motivation. Not in a vertical kind of way, but as if each of them are a meter and some are filled to the brim and others are barely filled at all. It is highly unlikely all five of them hit a synchronous peak.

For example: I am most often interested in writing creatively, but sometimes find it difficult to focus (high level of difficulty), or can’t prioritize it under the more pressing (urgent) tasks, but then the pressing tasks are also difficult, because the interest is low! Well now I’ve lost all motivation so I think I’ll just watch YouTube instead …

Sometimes taking care of my environment helps to lower difficulty and raise motivation (and turn my plumbob from orange to green), but doing so cuts into time reserved for the other things, so due dates loom over me like an eldritch beast eager to devour my soul and sanity.

I was anxious to work on my paper because I felt unprepared and unqualified to tackle the subject matter. Maybe a little overwhelmed by the prompt too, even though it was laid out pretty cleanly. So I didn’t get to it until I had to get to it, and spent much longer on it on Sunday than I should have, because focusing was soooo hard.

It’s easy to get frustrated about being a procrastinator.

And I won’t say it’s out of my control, because it isn’t really. I think it’s a matter of learning how to stack your tasks by priority level and minimize distractions so you can knock them out one by one the way you wash one dish at a time when you’re clearing the sink. (Like, you can try to wash them all at once but it gets a little hectic and now there’s soapy water all over the counters).

I got a 20 out of 20 on that paper.

This could condition me into procrastinating on everything because apparently I can get it done and done well under the highest level of duress, but that’s not sustainable, right? It’s exhausting! And sometimes I fail to get it done especially if grades and a deadline aren’t on the line (as you, unfortunately, know all too well).

So I want to take a step back and look at it from a different perspective.

If I could do well when I crammed it all in last second, I can do well when I give myself time. Same result, less stress. So then it’s just learning how to stack the plates, right?

I’d like to try carrying only as much as I can carry, and stop saying yes to every platter that’s put in my face, whether I feel obligated to carry it or just really want to carry it so bad it looks so fun.

Balance. And patience.

Maybe if I sit back and handle one plate (or platter; I keep going back and forth on the imagery here) at a time, I can get a clean sink and feel a little less anxious when another platter (or plate) comes my way.

As an aside, thank you for always being so patient with me. I envy your ability to organize and get things done, not just well, but also on time. You make me want to be better and show me that it’s possible.

Always,
Becca