And the days are not full enough...

I sometimes think my personal motto should be ‘feast or famine.’ As someone who cannot have a packet of chocolate digestives in the house (they’ll be gone within the day), this bipolar approach affects many aspects of my life. Recently it’s manifested in my reading habits. Reading is my go-to activity, as routine as brushing my teeth, but lately things have stalled. Stuck at 10 books this year (I try to average one a week), I’m finding it hard to commit to any one novel. But that doesn’t stop me getting more books.

My bookshelves are packed with library loans and impulse buys. I know I’m not going to get around to the original Jungle Book anytime soon (not when there’s Stephen King next to it), but I still want it there, just in case. I dip in and out of plots, losing the momentum of the story and then when I come back to it, my brain protests as I try and enter the action of two months ago. Reading this way doesn’t work for me but I can’t break the cycle at the moment.

Other areas of my life are following this pattern. After a concentrated career drive in the first quarter, I’ve taken my foot off the pedal. As a result I’ve fallen off the algorithms that promote my medical writing and it’s hard to get back to where I was. With so many different careers strands open (writing, med tech, alternate job searching and GP), like my books, I seem to be trouble making headway in any one.

Some might say this is a consequence of diversification, of having too many things to work on, but I dispute this. Yes, focus can only be directed at any one subject at any one time, but I’ve worked on multiple projects before, prioritising one after the other in short succession to make sure all are kept on track.

But at the moment none of these projects are moving on despite significant chunks of time passing. Luckily, I understand what’s going on. I have been here before and recognise this feeling. An interval of frustrating inaction is part of a process I go through. Previously, I thought it was a failing of mine but now I recognise this downtime as being essential to making progress. This is the fallow period before the new shoots rise and the next chapter begins.

It has taken some time to understand this about myself, but I now realise that I am not a person who can always be ‘on.’ I have tried to be single-minded in achieving my goals, trying to work in a culture of unwavering positive progression but this is not me. Inevitably, I need a time where nothing really gets done, because that allows me to come back with vigour.

And in the meantime the books stack up and opportunities pass me by. But that’s ok. There will always be far more books than I can read and far more things I could be doing. Making peace with this incongruence between personality and productivity culture has made my life much better. As long as there is a crumb of enjoyment in the day (and with the baby there are more than crumbs, I get full days of cake), then it is a life well lived.

Essential reading: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

The infinite pleasure of a full bookshelf