How I trick my mind to work after returning from sick leave as a writer.
It’s the one thing that always helps me gain momentum in writing when everything else fails.
It’s almost like a rollercoaster. One moment, I’m the best friend of productivity, churning out 2–3 articles in a day effortlessly. But the next moment, writing even a simple tweet feels like moving a mountain.
The other day, I wrote 2 articles, scheduled my tweets for the next day, and spent 1 hour studying a copywriting course. All this while managing my patients in my dental clinic. It was not easy. But it feels good, honestly.
But then, I was down with a cold and fever for almost 2 weeks. Coming back to such a hectic schedule after 2 weeks was stressful, extremely hard, and draining.
So, I did what I usually do when I’m stressed. I took a step back and analyzed.
It was not so difficult to pick where I went wrong.
The thing was, in the hustle of completing long and tedious to-do lists, I was being unrealistic about my goals. This time, I approached this problem differently.
I tricked my mind by making this one change in my way of working-
Taking one step at a time.
At first glance, this seems such an insignificant thing. But trust me, when coming back to your old routine after a long break feels almost impossible, this one thing does the magic.
It’s another of the many perks of being a solopreneur. You get to choose how much you want to work.
Here’s how I incorporated this trick in coming back to my routine, gradually-
- Adding one task to my to-do list at a time.
So usually I create my to-do lists a day before in my Notion. But since this sickness gripped me, I was completely off work and lost all the momentum I had gained over the past few months.
So while coming back to the routine, one major change I did was that I stopped creating to-do lists a day before. This lessened the pressure to tick off all the tasks on the list.
When I’d start working, I’d create a new to-do list with one task.
Do the task.
Cross off the task from the list.
Write another task.
Repeat.
In short, I’d finish off one task at a time, and then move on to other. The article you’re reading right now is the product of the same technique.
Writing that one task on my to-do list helped me focus solely on it, without worrying about all the other pending work.
Ticking off the task after it was done helped me feel like I’m finally getting on track, gradually, and reduced a whole lot of pressure.
2. Starting with smaller tasks.
On normal work days, it’s smart to finish off the hardest tasks first thing in the morning.
But not when your health is at stake.
While navigating my way to normal work days gradually, I refrained from jumping to the most difficult tasks in the beginning.
Instead, I started with smaller tasks to get the hang of working again after 2 weeks of complete rest.
On the first day, the only work I did was stuff like scheduling tweets, writing LinkedIn posts, outlining articles, etc.
This helped me avoid the pressure of completing the bigger tasks, after a long break and avoid any load on my mind and body when I was still not in a good health.
3. Not doing too much work in a day.
Writing every task one by one and ticking off them was the perfect solution to recover from zero work days.
But I also refrained from doing too many tasks in one day. Despite having a lot of time to work, I controlled myself from doing too much in one day.
On the first day after I recovered from my fever, I completed only three tasks. The rest of the day went into relaxing with family, reading, and a lot of sleep.
I didn’t overwhelm myself with all work on the first day itself. Instead, I let my mind focus on work only for 2–3 hours. This helped me to get into the routine slowly and gradually, without compromising on the rest my mind and body needed.
Taking one step at a time is the magic wand that helped me get back to my routine, gradually, without burdening myself.
You see, working more doesn’t mean working best.
The quality of your work largely depends on your mental and physical well-being.
How do you manage to come to your normal routine from zero work days? let me know in the comments.
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