Comfy Business Chronicles
Context:
I live with two chronic health conditions (one neurological, one vascular), which means I experience pain, physical symptoms, and unpredictable fluctuations in energy, mood, and cognitive function. I’m also the carer for my adult son who has additional support needs. I share this background for context, not to invite pity or advice.
Standby Mode – Appointments are my productivity-obliterating nemesis
On Thursday morning I took delivery of a much-needed new mattress (turns out that hip, knee and shoulder pain wasn’t old age, it was a knackered mattress).
They gave us a 3-hour window of when to expect delivery, and I already work from home, so in an ideal world there’d be almost zero impact on my productivity that day.
Sure I’d lose a few minutes stripping the bed, and making sure the route through the house to the bedroom was clear, a few minutes during the delivery and again unpacking the mattress, but all together, on paper, this did not need to be a major disruption to my day.
How my day should’ve gone:
That is not how my brain handles appointments.
How my day actually went:
At 8am I shower, get dressed, clear the bed, bedroom, stairway and hallway ready for the delivery slot.
At 9am I receive a predicted delivery time of 11am.
I should now settle into Work Mode, knowing I can spend the next two hours blitzing through my to-do list.
Alas, instead, my brain immediately enters Wait Mode.
Nothing else besides this mattress delivery existed in time, space, or the inside of my mind.
All Executive Function skills are lost completely. I can’t think straight. I can’t retain or process information. I can’t make decisions. I can’t care about anything besides the new mattress.
- did I order the right size?
- will it be delivered to the right house?
- will it be the right mattress?
- will they get it up the stairs?
- will it be the right mattress?
- what if I actually hate it?
- will it be the right mattress?
Mattress Ruminations is the only track on my mind’s playlist, and it is stuck on repeat.
Aware that I cannot spend the next 2 hours pacing the house while looking at the delivery update info, I opened my laptop.
I tried tackling my inbox.
I managed a few that were obvious decisions to ‘delete’ or hand-off to my team.
I read an email from a friend who said it’d be nice to catch up – so I sent her a garbled voice message on Voxer – because apparently Wait Mode is the inhibition-lowering equivalent of two glasses of wine. We had a lovely catch up.
Son#1 (aged 20, on break from uni) spotted my vacant expression and saw his opportunity for a chat while he was making his breakfast – this was a welcome way to fill the time.
Watching him cook reminded me that I too would be cooking later, and if I could get some of the prep out the way now, I could spend less time cooking dinner this evening, and more time on my computer working (when, hopefully, I had regained some of my cognitive function). So I chopped some onions, carrots, and peppers.
Then it was delivery time.
It was the right mattress.
Appointments are my
Productivity-Obliterating Nemesis
1. Clashing with Peak Focus Time
My Peak Focus Time each day is 8.30-10.30am.
I have a snack, make tea, go back to bed with my laptop and write (yep, don’t shower, don’t get dressed, I’m writing this now all bed-stinky and gross).
I try to make this window of time sacred.
I wouldn’t choose to book appointments before midday because I don’t want to interfere with this magical opportunity to get into flow.
But with personal/health appointments there’s usually little/no flexibility on when they can be booked, and sometimes I don’t get involved in the booking process at all, I’m just sent a letter with the date and time on it.
2. Wait Mode
As illustrated above, once I have an appointment in my diary it becomes such an enormous point of focus I cannot comprehend, or concentrate on anything else, until after it is over.
3. Recovery Time
Afterwards I need to time to recover from the anxiety I experienced before the appointment, whatever interaction, and mental-drain I experienced during the appointment (talking to humans, having various parts of my body prodded and poked, or advocating for Son#2), and from any travelling involved (especially parking the car).
4. There seem to be a lot of them
I don’t know if I have more than an average number of appointments, but I have five coming up in the next six weeks.
I have three medical appointments – Botox for migraine, annual tit-crushing mammogram, and a women’s health appointment. Each one will take around 2 hours in travel time, waiting room time, and appointment time – plus disruption to the day in standby mode, and recovery time when I get back.
And Son#2 (who is 18 and needs additional support) has two medical appointments.
And… I just booked in to have a new piercing.
Should I be cluttering up a work day with a voluntary appointment just to get a new piece of ear bling?
Over the next few weeks I’m going to have my face, neck and scalp injected, my boobs crushed by an x-ray machine, and my legs up in stirrups, and yet I also voluntarily want someone to create a new hole in my ear, and a fill it with something shiny – because for that pain and that appointment, I’ll get something to show for it.
My approach to appointments
1. Reframe
These appointment aren’t getting in the way of my work – these appointments are my priority work, and then my business work needs to squish in around it.
2. Accept
I can’t change my brain (and I don’t want to) so I need to work with it by accepting Wait Mode is gonna happen. I queue up some simple absorbing low focus tasks I can do while waiting – I can peel vegetables, I can sweep and clean the floors. I can’t do anything that requires focus, but I can be productive in other ways (if I choose to be).
3. Allow for recovery time
As much as I’d love to bounce back from the appointment and feel like my time is my own to do whatever I want with it – I will almost always need time to recover from whatever just happened, from the travelling, and to shift gears into work mode. And also sometimes I’m just not going to get back into focus mode that day, which is OK too.
4. Choose appointment times strategically
When I do have a choice about the appointment timing, I try to make it afternoons – so I don’t have to switch back to work mode. I can usually still stay focussed in my pocket of peak productivity in the morning, then feel smug that I’ve got my most important work out of the way before the appointment, and don’t have to open my laptop again all day if I don’t want to.
5. Still book in appointments that I want to do
This is a big one for me. I have lived so much of my adult life avoiding booking voluntary appointments (like getting my ear pierced) because I already lost so much working time to pain flares and unavoidable appointments. I try not to do that now. I do need to be cautious not to overload my schedule, but I don’t automatically say ‘no’ to things I want to do, just because I can’t ‘afford the time’.
What’s next
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I totally get it! You’ve just described my life. And I found your approach to appointment tips really helpful. I’m going to try 1 and 3. I already schedule in afternoons as much as possible.