You're right! It's that compound effect of all those little daily steps. You're rockin' it!

I love how you have created metrics for yourself in your unique situation. Also, it may be helpful to keep in mind that decision-making and creativity takes glucose. We have a certain amount of optimum energy everyday. Doing the paced breathing exercise may also be of help to you as it naturally produces all the happy chemicals in the brain easily and effortlessly and puts you in a more optimum flow state.

Yes! Writing down everything even though the list can be long is incredibly healthy. When we write things down like this, it does several things - it gets it literally out of our head, it speeds the processing of whatever is on your mind and it helps you to begin to think about the list strategically. Of course asking the question, "What's your next best step, right now?" 🙂

What a beautiful reflection! I love the idea of the bracelets. Having tangible, tactile reminders can be extremely helpful. Some other ideas might be a favorite song or a piece of art. So glad you were reminded and are reconnecting.

I believe that, after navigating the cancer journey since 2022. You have to learn to set aside a portion of yourself, separate from the crisis, or you get lost inside it.

I didn't know that's how you measured, Alicia. How smart is that??

I love this idea, Jennifer. It is hard to be still in a world that moves so fast...and it is SO IMPORTANT.

My solution consists of two pieces, honed over the years.

1. Have a way to measure if my brain is on: I do hard sudokus for a while. If I solve them in under 6 minutes, I stop wasting time doing them, and get to work: we are good to go.

2. And then the key part: I block the internet with Freedom for a specific number of hours. I've trained myself to then go to the file I keep for each scene with all its actions and progresses, see where I am and what needs to be done next, and get to work on the next piece. Somehow or other, most of that blocked time is used to make progress.

Weirdly specific, but it works for me, several mainstream novels later.

The main problem with the brain fog is that I can't make decisions, so an objective measurement has been a godsend.

Sometimes some of those hours are spent in a nap - but it's still not wasting time on the net.