Here’s How Objective Time Can Needlessly Stress You Out.

And what to do about it.

Photo by Tristan Gassert on Unsplash

I have seven minutes per page., I thought.

Today was an early day, since I needed to be at a networking event by 7:45am, and my partner needed to be dropped off at work before that. It meant getting up fifteen minutes earlier than normal so that I could still do some of my morning routine.

I did the yoga. I did the Duolingo. I managed to escape the distracting temptation of social media, email, and Medium stats to pull out my journal and pen. I was determined to get my Morning Pages done.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Morning Pages are a concept from The Artist’s Way that serve as a kind of brain dump first thing in the morning. There are three steps to them:

1. Take out paper and writing instrument.
2. Start writing whatever is in your head.
3. Don’t stop until you’ve filled three pages.

Pretty simple, right? Hahahahahaha. No. It does get easier, but getting past the I’ve got to write something meaningful gatekeeper and the I have nothing to write at all mental tar pit takes some practice. There have been times when pages have been filled with that very sentence, repeated over and over, until I’ve reached step three and can go on with…