I KID. I KID.
But no, really.
Oh, 2020. The year that lasted 84 years and 19 minutes, all at the same time.
Here’s a breakdown of the year from this angle:
I started working from home.
2019 was really rough on me, work-wise. My day job was overwhelming and stressful and...honestly just a really just a very unhealthy place. My mental health suffered from it. My physical health suffered from it. My work/life balance was non-existent, and crying—no, not crying, openly bawling—at my desk was a daily occurrence. I remember telling a friend this time last year that I felt as though I was being held hostage, because thirty minutes after I was scheduled to leave, I was still being handed things to do.
And this was not a once in a while thing, either. This was every day.
Then the pandemic happened, and I was allowed the opportunity to work from home.
And I love it.
I love having my own space and being able to work in an environment that is conducive to how I work best. I like that I can get more done without wasting time on worrying about what I’m going to wear (yoga pants, hell yeah) or if traffic is going to be backed up or if it’s snowing. I like that I don’t feel as though someone is breathing down my neck all the damn time. I like that if I have a headache, I can take a shot and lower the lights.
I won’t lie: the pandemic hit me hard, and there are still lots of things about my job that need to be addressed in 2021. But being able to work from home for most of the year, even if I still cry about work from time to time, is probably the only reason I’m not trending on TikTok for “woman quits job via carpool karaoke mic.”
What’s in store for 2021: As much as I love the function of my job, it’s become clear that the negative parts of it—the overwork, overwhelm, stress, and demoralization—aren’t going to change. So I would like to find something in 2021 that doesn’t make me cry and doesn’t make me sick and doesn’t undermine me as an employee or undervalue me as a person. It’s sad and it’s scary, but it’s time.
I had, like, a lot of surgeries.
OK, so maybe not, like, a lot of surgeries. But more than one, which is big to me, since before 2020, I’d had zero surgeries ever in my life.
My 2020 Word of the Year was Heal. I don’t think I talked about it a lot, because I kind of thought it was a boring word. Heal to me means slow down, rest, take care of your self, and I’m more of a do All The Things!, conquer the world type of person.
Problem was, I’d burned myself out doing All The Things! and conquering the world, so in 2020, my body had enough and flipped me off. In the end, I had six biopsies, underwent 4 surgeries, lost two organs, and spent a cumulative total of 11 days in ICU (spread over 3 visits).
It’s easy to make light of it now that I’m on the other side of it, but I think I have finally learned to put myself first and take my health seriously.
I have also learned how important it is to advocate for myself and make sure others—doctors, friends, family, co-workers, insurance claims adjusters—take my health (and my time and my boundaries) seriously, too. There is a difference between “team player” and “self-sacrificing.”
What’s in store for 2021: I’m already feeling so much better. But I’m not out of the woods yet. I still have a lot of work to do, both in terms of bloodwork numbers and making sure I take time for myself. One habit I would like to adopt in 2021 is to make sure I’m taking my medications as prescribed. Such a small thing, but I am so bad at it.
8,760 hours.
A big revelation I had in 2020 was how I relate to time and how that informs my tendency to procrastinate.
I have kept excellent writing records for years, and I always work with a daily writing goal in mind. I set goals for both words and minutes, short term and long term. I know the projects I want to work with and what I want to get done. And I know that things come up (like all the health stuff above) and not to count on a 365-day work year.
This has worked out for me OK in the past. Not great, but not horribly. But I always seemed to hit patches where I had to cram a lot of work into the last few days of a deadline to reach the finish. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing that’s probably not very conducive to cutting stress and achieving work/life balance.
Then a friend suggested instead of looking at my productivity based on a working hour, I look at my productivity based on the number of hours in a year. The idea is that this will give you a better estimate of how many days it will take you to finish a thing, based on your current rate of working on said thing.
I like this because when I’m especially stressed or tired, I tend to push things off until later. Say, needing to write 5,000 words in 2 days because I was too tired/stressed/whatever to write 500 words a day for 10 days.
Now I have a spreadsheet that tells me in plenty of time if I’m struggling to meet a goal and what I need to do to course-correct. And let me tell you, it is so much easier to stomach adding 50 words to your daily goal than 5,000.
What’s in store for 2021: I won’t lie, I would love to sell a thing in 2021! More than one thing! More than one type of thing! But since that’s out of my hands, I’m going to be more intentional about what I can control. I can control how much I read. I can control how much I scroll Twitter and TikTok. I can control how wisely I use my time and how much attention I pay to the details of craft and language. Books don’t just happen, they are carefully cultivated out of time intentionally spent working on them. And I would really like to free myself up enough that I can write something I love without constantly fearing the person who reads it is going to hate it.
A new word for 2021.
Imperfection.
This year of healing has allowed me to see and understand parts of myself that I have ignored for far too long. In a private goal-setting group, I made a comment that every year, I come up with 4-6 areas of life I want to work on, and as I dig deep in these areas, I always find a common theme tying them all together. This year’s common theme is emotional trauma.
I’ll just say it like it is: there’s a lot of shit that I haven’t dealt with healthily or in some cases at all, and carrying that baggage from relationship to relationship, job to job, book to book, friendship to friendship, is the number one reason why these areas of life need improvement.
Another harsh truth: I’m in a very unhealthy, abusive relationship with myself. And it’s not entirely my fault; I’m only repeating what I experienced when I was younger. There’s a voice in my head that came from someone else that doesn’t need to be there anymore. Now that I know it’s there and how it is negatively affecting my life, it’s my responsibility to silence it.
What’s in store for 2021: I want to learn how to be better to myself. Kinder to myself. More compassionate and accepting of myself. I want to learn how to let others struggle with their own bad decisions without stepping in to clean up the mess. I want to learn how to set firm boundaries that protect the time spent pursuing my dreams. I want to know my own worth and refuse to settle for anything less.
But mostly, I want to learn how to let my best be enough.
2020 Stats
Words written: 160,880/150,000
Books finished: 2
Books published: 0
# of days written: 256
Longest writing streak: 62 days
Average words per day: 712
Average minutes per day: 70
Average words per working hour: 582
Average words per hour: 18.3
Most productive days: Sundays and Tuesdays
Least productive day: Thursday