Friday Feature: Pondering Pandemic Productivity (or the lack thereof)

It's after 4:30 on Friday afternoon and I'm just sitting down to write this post, trying to squeeze it in before my family returns from an errand, ready for the dinner/Target ritual we've been able to maintain in spite of the pandemic.

In spite of the pandemic.

In the past seven months, a lot has fallen by the wayside. Time and a desire not to descend into self-pity, (along with a certainty that you know what I mean) prevent me from going into detail here and now. Still, I can't help but notice that eleventh-hour posts on this and my Organizing by STYLE blog have become more the norm than the exception, and that my writing, once front and center, has taken a serious back seat to, well, everything else.

I haven't lost my motivation entirely, nor can I say I'm not being productive. I can, however, say that everything seems to take longer, require more effort and, in the process, offer less joy than before. 

And I'm exhausted.

Lest you think this is a self-pity party, let me reassure you. It's an introduction -- my way of tossing out a question ubiquitous on social media.

Just me?

Apparently not. In his article, "7 Months Into the Pandemic and I'm Losing Motivation. Help!" Tim Herrera points out that expecting to be productive and motivated under the crushing weight of everything that's going on is, perhaps, expecting too much.

A bit deeper into the article, Dr. Danielle Hairston nails it (in my mind, anyway) in a single sentence. "This country is going through a collective grief."

Grief doesn't motivate us. It doesn't make us productive. It makes it hard to get out of bed, and it makes us less patient with delays and processes, ourselves and those around us. It makes us feel as though everything takes longer, requires more effort and offers up less joy in the process.

So perhaps we need to be a bit kinder and gentler, not only to others, but to ourselves as well. It's easy to say, hard to do and, arguably, incredibly necessary. Taking just a moment for mindfulness, gratitude or even to throw a masked smile in the direction of a stranger (or an unmasked one in the direction of a loved one) might give that motivation the booster shot it needs.

It certainly couldn't hurt.