Why can’t I get anything done?

Is striving for a perfect routine making me routineless?

Why am I incapable of creating structure in my life?

I think it’s social media’s fault.

I hate to add another essay into the universe about social media, and this won’t really be about social media, I promise, but I have found myself needing to write about this.

I usually feel embarrassed writing “think pieces” like this. Not that I find them embarrassing, but more so that I feel a sense of imposter syndrome when writing them.

Who am I to be a sharer of knowledge in this field?

I quite literally am just brain dumping.

After I wrote my most recent essay for @sexhappens about living with boyfriends, I fear it unlocked this writing bug inside me that wants to infest Substack- sorry, I just got a moth larvae infestation in my yarn, it’s on the mind.

For as long as I can remember, I have had this remarkable inability to create a routine for myself. In my pre-skincare routine youth, it would be hard enough to remember to brush my teeth. I long to be that hyper-vigilant person who wakes up at 6 am and has their self-care morning before they dive into their regular day. Maybe that’s my issue. It’s not just a special thing that happens on special days. That routine IS a part of your day.

There’s a feeling inside me that I can’t seem to shake. It’s not ADD or ADHD; I know people with it, and it’s different. This feeling is easy to conflate with it, though, in the same way people who like to be organized or like their hair a certain way say they have OCD. In reality, they don’t.

This feeling is more akin to the new level of distraction constantly presented to us, with or without our consent.

For me, it’s the feeling of rush. I am trying to get so much done in the span of 24 hours that I will sacrifice the things I need to do to keep myself sane, to keep pushing out content and making more and more art. It’s the feeling that if I don’t have something incredibly cool and viral ready to post, then I am going to fall behind. But in reality, it’s the constant pressure to be productive at all times that’s making me fall behind.

I can’t tell if this is something everyone feels.

Do better.

Do more.

Be even MORE efficient than yesterday.

While this has existed forever, social media is speedrunning productivity and expectations of people in a way I have never seen before. Constantly consuming all this content about being productive and the ways that you can enhance your productivity, while sitting on your phone, ignoring all the “normal” things you need to do.

I think social media has also given people the impression that everything in their lives should be photo-ready. Now, obviously, not everyone feels this, but I think the group I’m talking about, who gets affected by social media this way, will understand. With this other pressure, you spend even more time on something that should be quick, done, and already part of your routine, so you can actually get to doing the things you want and/or need to do for work.

I’m trying really hard to exist in my own world in this next year, not feeling pressured to make everything cute or aesthetically pleasing to others. I have to accept that’s not who I am, and I really think that the more I can let go of that, the easier a time I’ll have waking up in the morning and having my list of non-negotiables.

Here are some of my non-negotiables:

• Drink a glass of water in the morning.

• Wash face/ Skincare

• Brush Teeth

• Jerry Routine

• Put away all dirty dishes in the kitchen. (I get the most distracted during the day when my kitchen is dirty)

• Move everything off my stairs up to my closet. I will deal with it at night.

One thing that’s helped recently is carrying around a little notebook and writing my to-do lists in there, and I can’t move on to the next task until I fully finish the first one. I know you’ll be like “Ella, obviously I’ve tried writing lists. That’s such a dumb suggestion.” I will say, though, when I was first writing a list, I would write everything I could think of that I needed to get done,. It could’ve been a list for the whole week. With this new list method, I put three or four things I know I can actually get done within the timeframe, excluding any cleaning or self-care. I’m trying to make that just a part of my life. I’m keeping it to work-related things or small errands that I can get done and cross off my list.

I think the hardest thing about this productivity issue, or just not being able to finish anything, is that I spend every day feeling like I’ve gotten nothing done, even if I have. It really hurts my confidence in an industry that relies heavily on self-motivation and self-belief. The issue is that I know I can do it, but I need that click moment.

I don’t know what will cause that click moment, but I think, for a start, I’m gonna try to do 10 days straight of my non-negotiables and see if that can build a habit. Isn’t that a thing?

You can build any habit in 10 days.

My first day starts tomorrow, seeing as I already started the day distracted.

What do you guys do to help keep a routine? Any and all suggestions welcomed and appreciated.

Xx Ella