You need to build a steady trickle of small wins outside of your work environment. These can be anything as long as they can be broken down into small, timeboxed, digestible, repeatable, and rewarding bits.
For example: find a local plant store, pick up some pothos[0], and get some roots going. Get two: one that's a little more established in soil and one that's just a bare cutting. All you need is a jar/glass/mug/bowl of water and a sunny spot.
Do not plan! Stop making plans and checklists and calendar events! Feel free to block off time on your calendar for self-care, which is your plant-tending experiment. No more lists or plans after this. You can plan this all in your head:
1. A plant piece (money optional)
2. A humid container (plastic lunch bag? old yogurt tub? something out of the recycling bin? use trash)
3. A sunny spot or a bright light (sun is free)
Just get some vines get the things to grow some roots[3]. Ask the friendly plant store person for some light nutrient solution, or get a tiny amount of Miracle-Gro and dissolve it in water. You don't need anything fancy, this is just an experiment.
Eventually the vine will start growing. After it forms roots and a few new nodes, you can cut it apart[1] and grow more roots. Keep repeating this process and propagating your vines. Do not stress about messing it up. There is an infinite amount of pothos vine out there. It propagates itself. Try rooting small sections until you can do it confidently.[2]
Take more cuttings, root them, grow them out, gift them to friends, give them away, etc.[3]
Alternatively: ask your plant store for leafless scraps of pothos (or philodendron, or similar) and try propagating from nothing[4]
Yes, your work output will suffer, and it should suffer considering the amount of suffering you've done for it!
What helped me was accepting that there was an infinite amount of work to be done in the world, and that working generated more future work. There is no shortage of pending work, and the overall to-do list is endless much like a river is endless. You don't need to tame the river, but it is useful for navigating the environment. Don't hyperfocus on the river, don't fetishize the river, and stop trying to rapidly get to somewhere else via the river. Splash around, do the basic chores, and hang out by the riverbank and watch things happen.
This probably sounds very stupid right now. Feel free to email me. There are some chemical shortcuts one can take, but that's outside the scope of this post.
For example: find a local plant store, pick up some pothos[0], and get some roots going. Get two: one that's a little more established in soil and one that's just a bare cutting. All you need is a jar/glass/mug/bowl of water and a sunny spot.
Do not plan! Stop making plans and checklists and calendar events! Feel free to block off time on your calendar for self-care, which is your plant-tending experiment. No more lists or plans after this. You can plan this all in your head:
1. A plant piece (money optional)
2. A humid container (plastic lunch bag? old yogurt tub? something out of the recycling bin? use trash)
3. A sunny spot or a bright light (sun is free)
Just get some vines get the things to grow some roots[3]. Ask the friendly plant store person for some light nutrient solution, or get a tiny amount of Miracle-Gro and dissolve it in water. You don't need anything fancy, this is just an experiment.
Eventually the vine will start growing. After it forms roots and a few new nodes, you can cut it apart[1] and grow more roots. Keep repeating this process and propagating your vines. Do not stress about messing it up. There is an infinite amount of pothos vine out there. It propagates itself. Try rooting small sections until you can do it confidently.[2]
Take more cuttings, root them, grow them out, gift them to friends, give them away, etc.[3]
Alternatively: ask your plant store for leafless scraps of pothos (or philodendron, or similar) and try propagating from nothing[4]
Yes, your work output will suffer, and it should suffer considering the amount of suffering you've done for it!
What helped me was accepting that there was an infinite amount of work to be done in the world, and that working generated more future work. There is no shortage of pending work, and the overall to-do list is endless much like a river is endless. You don't need to tame the river, but it is useful for navigating the environment. Don't hyperfocus on the river, don't fetishize the river, and stop trying to rapidly get to somewhere else via the river. Splash around, do the basic chores, and hang out by the riverbank and watch things happen.
This probably sounds very stupid right now. Feel free to email me. There are some chemical shortcuts one can take, but that's outside the scope of this post.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epipremnum_aureum
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5FfQ_nWrxo
[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D89Ia_phck
[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uihDjFj3X8
[4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uihDjFj3X8