Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 232: Overcoming Overwhelm: The Power of Senseless Action

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232: Overcoming Overwhelm: The Power of Senseless Action · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  When nothing makes sense in your home, it's time to do something senseless.
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  Hey, I'm Joy, podcast host here, and I just wanted to share that my most frequent
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  comments when I asked, you know, what's bothering you most about your home?
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  I get the, I'm overwhelmed, or the, I don't know where to start.
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  By far, those are my two most common concepts. And this feeling of being stuck is rough.
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  We know we have to fight to overpower this feeling of inertia of just making
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  our body get up and get moving towards something that feels productive.
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  And we're constantly battling these thoughts in our heads where we're like,
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  wait, I should start here.
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  Or I know I need to do this first. or this is bugging me and that is bugging my family and I,
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  you just start spinning in circles and completely paralyzing yourself and absolutely
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  doing nothing because you're just, you're worried about doing the right thing
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  instead of just doing anything.
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  So let's figure out how to get ourselves into action and we're going to use
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  this hack of doing something senseless.
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  A wise person once said everybody is
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  a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to
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  climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that
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  it's stupid well fish quit trying
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  to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys
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  it's time to jump in the water and learn
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  how to swim with the current of your life I'm Joy a
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  professional organizer mom of four and fellow
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  fish brain if you're looking for a place to get understanding encouragement
• 1:50
  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks then i'm glad
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  you're here let's ditch the type a advice and embrace what makes our brains
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  and our homes unique together we could have a joy loving home.
• 2:08
  I have to share that one of the things that bugs me when I am trying to figure
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  out how to do something that is hard for me and I'm seeking help out there on the internet,
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  whether it be through a YouTube video or something I've seen on Instagram,
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  for me, I am most acutely aware of my own struggles when I'm trying to figure
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  out anything to do with technology.
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  So running the back end of my business in some sort of streamlined,
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  productive way is the bane of my existence, mostly because technology and I have battles,
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  probably because I'm old, whatever.
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  It's all good. It's all good. It is keeping my brain sharp, trying to figure these things out.
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  But what frustrates me beyond anything is I will pull up a video that I will
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  make sure is very recent. We'll make sure is very specific to whatever task
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  I'm trying to accomplish.
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  And I will play it on my iPad while I am working on my laptop.
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  And I will be following a step-by-step tutorial of sorts to get something fixed
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  in the backend technology of my business.
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  And inevitably, within three steps, my screen will not look like their screen.
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  I just I want to pull my hair out and scream and
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  be like seriously seriously it's a recent
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  video it's the you know it's the same laptop
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  I'm using it's the same product I'm using
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  it she I don't know I don't
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  know why my screen will not look like their screen and so therefore I
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  can't even find what they're telling me to click to do next that type of frustration
• 3:51
  I can completely relate as far as how that can feel in your home when you're
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  watching somebody do some sort of organizing or decluttering type of video and
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  you're like, I just, I need some inspiration.
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  I need some companionship. I need to follow along.
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  The problem is whether we want to or not, we create a sort of assumed set of knowledge.
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  We don't even realize we're doing it most of the time.
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  So when you're watching someone who is further along than you on their journey.
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  They're in the middle and you're at the beginning. And they believe they remember
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  what it was like to be at the beginning, but they have forgotten.
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  As hard as they try, they have forgotten. And so there's this presumed knowledge
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  that exists because they have it and they've forgotten there was a time when they didn't have it.
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  And I've used this cautionary tale before where I'm like, be careful to give
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  yourself grace because when you're stepping into these videos that you're watching
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  for advice, they are in their middle and you are at your beginning.
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  And so there's this almost immediate feeling of loss like I have when I'm doing
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  with anything in technology and in my groups.
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  And when I share things on this podcast, I try really, really,
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  really hard to be most leaning into the beginner.
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  It's really hard to find people in
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  the middle and it makes us feel really lacking or less than or frustrated and
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  if you have ever stepped into any of my podcasts and felt that way I apologize
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  profusely because that is the very thing I want to avoid and so I want to give you this.
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  This knowledge of if you are in the midst of working alongside a video or working
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  with me in your ears or any other organizing type podcaster in your ears,
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  please, please know that any frustration you experience is not your fault.
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  It is the fault of you stepping in with somebody who's already farther along.
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  And there's value in that because you're trying to follow somebody who's been
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  there, done that, it's at least one step better than following somebody who's
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  never struggled with organizing before, because there is a huge leap of where they don't understand.
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  So I want you to at least try and stick with people who have honestly struggled
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  and who are honestly trying to make things better.
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  If you can find somebody that's even with you, that's even better.
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  But sometimes when you find somebody that's even with you, you're like,
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  where are they guiding me? It becomes a bit of a blind leading the blind scenario.
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  So I just want you to know that those feelings of inadequacy will go away because
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  at some point you'll be following farther along on your journey too.
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  And if somebody is coming up behind you, you actually could frustrate them.
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  We're all in a different sort of timeline on our journeys to get our houses in order.
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  And so that inevitable little bits of frustration is just because you're meeting
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  up with somebody who's at a different point on the journey.
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  The awareness of that might be a little helpful. So anyway, I have blathered
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  on and gotten so sidetracked with what I want to talk about,
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  which is this senseless hack. So let's jump into the senseless hack.
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  So if you are in one of those frustrating moments where you just want to scream and you're in this,
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  you circled around either literally through your home or in your head and you
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  feeling this inability to get started because nothing is making sense,
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  then I give you permission to go do something senseless.
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  Go gravitate towards whatever is pulling you and go ahead and do it.
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  My example of this is this exact week.
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  I have been really spirally.
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  I don't know how to describe it other than I feel like I'm just sort of that
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  chicken with the head cut off.
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  Nothing I'm doing is of any kind of, it doesn't feel like I'm actually making progress.
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  It doesn't feel like there's any productivity. It just feels like I'm running
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  around and things are happening, but none of them are actually adding up to any effectiveness.
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  I feel like I'm blowing leaves on a windy day.
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  Like I'm out there, I'm doing the work, the leaves are blowing in a direction,
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  and then the wind is swooping through and just resetting everything.
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  So what is all of the effort for?
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  It really feels like lately it wouldn't matter the effort I put in,
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  even if it could all be channeled in a single direction, I feel like the wind
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  would still blow and knock it all over again.
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  So I had to sort of take a breath and go, recognize that this is happening.
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  This is the hack and the gift I want to give you. If you recognize that you're
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  in one of these weird spirally moments where you feel like you're blowing leaves on a windy day,
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  then put the put the leaf blower down and go do something completely different
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  that doesn't have to make sense to anybody. It doesn't even have to make sense to you.
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  So my example of this this morning is I was in that spirally mood yet again.
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  And I walked into my laundry room because my daughter texted me and said, I'm so, so sorry.
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  I forgot to start my laundry last night and I have to have my practice closed.
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  Do you mind starting the load for me?
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  So I was like, okay, that gives me some focus. It gives me something to do.
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  So I walked into the laundry room, dumped her clothes into the washer and started it.
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  And as I was turning to leave, I saw something that I had become clutter blind to.
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  But sitting in the corner of our laundry room is a clean pile of cloth napkins
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  that has been sitting there since it went through the washer and dryer after Christmas dinner.
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  The reason it has been sitting there is because these are at least some part linen.
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  I don't know how much, what percentage, but they're a linen type,
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  cloth napkin, and they can't even be put away in the drawer unless I press them.
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  Like they're just, we only use them twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
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  And since there's a really long runway until they're going to be needed again,
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  they have just sat there in the corner of the laundry room.
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  They have become invisible to me until I happen to, for whatever reason,
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  catch them out of the corner of my eye.
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  They're not even bugging my monkey brain husband who, when I leave things that
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  become blind to me, but he's acutely aware of them in the main spaces,
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  he might kindly eventually make some comment.
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  He's actually really great about who he's married to.
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  But this wasn't even bugging him. This wasn't bugging anybody.
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  And for some reason, my eye gravitated towards that. And I was like,
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  this doesn't even make sense.
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  This is not going to further anything whatsoever in my home.
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  It's not going to change a darn thing.
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  And yet I felt myself gravitated towards it. So I scooped them up and I set
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  up my ironing board and I plugged my iron in and I got through ironing four of them.
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  We are a family of 12 when we all eat together. So four of the 12.
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  And I just, I don't know, I felt a little better and I felt a little lighter
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  and my body was up and moving.
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  And I have a visible evidence that I was somewhat productive.
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  And that led me to saying, okay, well, great. Now I can go switch the laundry
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  because I heard her load stop.
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  And the boys are coming home for Easter, so I could strip and wash their beds.
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  That would be nice to come home too.
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  And it got my body in motion towards things that were more productive.
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  And once I started to head back to iron the next table cloth napkin,
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  it hit me I could do a podcast about this, which led me to stopping what I was
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  doing and coming over here and recording this podcast,
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  which I'm going to actually schedule to go out on the Tuesday after Easter.
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  Which is kind of cool because I don't ever get ahead very often.
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  So that's kind of a cool feeling that I'm literally going to go upload this to be edited by AI.
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  And I will, in a matter of 10 minutes, have this scheduled to go out on Tuesday.
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  And I can go relax, enjoy my weekend with my family, do the whole Easter thing,
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  and know that you're going to be getting a podcast next week that I don't even have to stress about.
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  And then I'll go back and maybe iron a couple more. and when it's time to switch
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  the laundry again, I'll do a quick scrub about their bathrooms.
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  And the next thing I know, when they get home tomorrow night,
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  those two rooms and bathrooms are set and I can relax into knowing they can come home.
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  It's making me more energized to know that I'd like to vacuum across the house,
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  which might be the next step.
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  But all of these steps are becoming possible because I did something senseless.
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  And I don't even have to complete that senseless loop. I just,
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  it feels good that I got up and I got moving and I had a visible evidence that I was being productive.
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  Where blowing leaves on a windy day, there's no visible evidence that you were
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  even putting any work out at all.
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  So I'm going to stop here because this got longer than I was expecting.
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  But I just am wanting to say, give yourself permission at times to just walk
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  towards what you're gravitated towards.
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  Start that action without guilt in the knowledge that it's possible it is the
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  hack that will jumpstart you into more action until next time continue to choose joy.