Your To-Do List Can Chill—I’m Older Than All of It
Pep Talk from Ossie
(Decorative Skull, Reluctant Therapist, Unofficial Patron Saint of Burnout Recovery)
Ah, look at you standing paralyzed like a block of ice in front of the mighty To-Do List.
Nothing but unchecked boxes and a bucket full of fake urgency. But the looks of your frown I'm guessing that you believe that if you fail to conquer that darn list today, the universe might revoke your worth, dignity, pride, and the future you've been dreaming about since you were three.
Listen, I’ve been posted up in this Archive since the first papyrus planner. I even got to see the first book mark invented. I’ll say this once and I’ll say it again: you don’t owe your soul to an endless list of checkboxes. Check boxes are honestly the worst.
Being overwhelmed and stuck in not equivalent to being lazy. It's just something that happens to these pesky little beings called humans.
You know what happens when humans ignore the flashing warning signs that says they are on the verge of burnout?
They explode. Big Boom.
Or worse, they start monologuing with more run-on sentences than my zombie cousin Fred. Dude doesn’t know the difference between a semi-colon and a comma.
If your brain feels stuck on endless buffering today, just know that you have this illness I like to call data overload. It’s a very tricky thing to cure. Some would say it involves finishing your to-do list, but a much faster approach is setting that darn thing on fire right before a nice vacation. Preferably one that is someone on a beach, with endless snacks and a volleyball championship at sunset.
So if you're lying there thinking, “I should be doing [insert whatever is bothering you here].”
I’d like to offer a counter-spell:
First, close your eyes and take a deep inhale.
Now hold it for six seconds, and follow that up with a slow exhale.
Put the to-do list in a drawer and hide under a blanket.
Now inhale and exhale.
There you go! That was the most amazing thing since I woke up in the Archives.
You are not falling behind. You’re just walking at your own undead pace.
So let’s make a new list, just for today:
Breathe. That Inhale and exhale is marvelous.
Drink eight cups of water. Not not all at once, we don’t need you drowning.
Stretch something (even if it’s just your eyebrows)
Ignore one obligation with the absolute confidence of a very tired skull
You’re doing enough.
Not because some list said so. But because you’re still showing up, even on the days when your spark dims from a firework to a flicker.
In case no one told you today...flickers still count.
Now back under the blanket you go. That to-do list can wait.
With Love, Ossie
(P.S. I’ve been meaning to clean out my closet since Shakespeare wrote that play with the people dying. I promise whatever is on your list can survive a little delay. )
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