Age Dysphoria

It’s hard to summarize what I do. 

“It’s even harder for me,” my mom informed me.

When my wife and I bought our house, she told an inquiring new neighbor that I “go to the library sometimes”. (At the time, I was volunteering there weekly.) 

A family friend once offered that I “really like to write in my journal” and, despite being about to publish my then secret third book at the time, I smiled, nodded, and agreed.

I do a lot of different things, don’t have a nine to five, and a lot of what I do is tied up in adult subjects that, even with adults, isn’t always polite small talk material. Even one of my more PG13 projects is still essay blogging about the deep dark corners of my mental illness.

Besides that, though, step one is convincing people I’m not in high school. 

I was lamenting this recently to two friends. “Yeah, you don’t look twenty-two,” one said. 

“I’m twenty-four,” I groaned. And, a few moments later, “How old do I look?” 

“Seventeen,” they said in unison.

Baby face. It’s a real thing. A blessing and a curse.

Besides my love of SPF and good skin genetics, I’m very aware of minor behavioral quirks. I glance around the coworking space I’m a member of, wondering if anyone’s noticing the Harry Potter decals on my Moleskine (filled with future class content, blog posts, and fiction—mostly erotica), which feel suddenly childish. From the same vantage point, though, I overhear a young man in an expensive suit tell his matching companion, “Remember, it’s just like on SpongeBob. You’re the manager now.” 

Or, I have to note the look on a mother’s face as I hop off the swingset at the park, hit the ground, say, “Sir, I asked you to schedule with the tenants,” into the phone, pacing away from the playground. 

I squint at my hanging lanyard of Disney pins and a few stuffed animals placed in nooks before someone new sees my home office for the first time, then turn around and see my collection shelf of filled notebooks, emptied pens, and copies of the six books I’ve published, along with my wedding dagger (just rings seemed a little blasé). 

But is any of that important? 

I don’t know what age I feel. My wife and I have nicknamed the confusion my age dysphoria. Everyone experiences it to some extent in their early twenties, I think, and the fact it’s somehow been 2020 for like two and a half years now doesn’t help anyone. We also live in a time when the majority of young adults live with their parents again, when the average age for major milestones is shifting later. I struggle to see which age group I should, on average, seek out as peers.

In a way, I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot of the big things. I should be thrilled. I’m happily married to the love of my life. I own a nice home, drive a nice car. I’m opting out of the having kids thing, and have two healthy, adorable cats. I’m self employed, love what I do, feel accomplished, feel like I’m making a difference that will outlive me, and am financially comfortable. My affairs are in order. Bring it on, twenty-five. 

And yet I debate a lot of things with myself. Ask if it’s all just luck (the matter of privilege in productivity is a future post in the works—inheritance, the housewife versus primary breadwinner thing—but while I’m very lucky, luck is far from everything), or if there’s some milestone I need to be hitting that I’m missing (does none of it count if I don’t have kids or if the home I live in isn’t the one that’s paid off? I’m going with no.) Or I set arbitrary milestones. I tell myself I’ll feel like a real adult after I publish a book. Okay, two, because, y’know, the first one could be a fluke, and a recent first makes me a beginner, right? Okay, two books down. Well, y’know, third time’s the charm, maybe sixth time’s the charm—

Sometimes I suspect it’s all some kind of delusion about to come crashing down—a fun mix of rather common imposter syndrome and somewhat rare paranoid schizophrenia.

Or, I think it’s just all happened so fast I’m in a form of shock, that I can’t let it all sink in yet, and that it will sink in slowly with time—or, at least, acceptance that it will never completely sink in will come with age.

Only time will tell. 

And what now? Do I hit pause, sit back and enjoy it, take a break, seek out novelty and fun? Basic milestones covered, do I rush to accomplish more and more? Do I sit and review and accept the past, improve on what I’ve already done?

Relatively recently, having hit a major milestone (one that actually came to me late, due to health issues: getting my driver’s license), my mom asked me, “What’s next?” She said that I always had something big I was working towards. So now that I finally had my license in hand—whats next? We discussed that at this point, even publishing another book doesn’t seem like what’s next. What’s six books or seven, or seven books versus eight?

I’m not sure if there is something imminently next on that scale. I’m trying to let myself enjoy what I’ve already built. I’m trying to seek out a bit of novelty, even if it’s not a major milestone, taking up new hobbies from hiking to soap making. I’m doing a major sweep of editing past content (including this very post, right now). Still, I overall want to keep moving forwards. Teaching more classes, writing more books, graduating butler school, improving as a housewife, hosting more events.

Time is going to keep moving forwards—confusing as it feels—and so should I.

Balancing Nihilism and Obsession

There are a million productivity pitfalls I see discussed regularly, but I believe there are only two. Yes, I think there are only two things to avoid if you want to be productive. They are both about mindset, not lifehacks, not apps, not anything else. Two. And here they are:

One: caring too little.

Two: caring too much. 

I have an internal battle between nihilism and obsession. If you’ve ever laughed at the joke that anxiety tells you everyone is thinking bad things about you and depression tells you that no one thinks about you at all, you understand the concept. When I’m stressed about the things I have to do—too stressed to do them—I care too much. Then I start telling myself that they don’t matter that much, that I shouldn’t be so stressed. But if they don’t matter, why do them? Why do anything? Then, I care too little. 

My thought process in trying to find a middle ground goes like this:

First, we must start with the idea that nothing we do really, really matters. On a grand scale, one day the sun will swallow the earth, and, very likely, eventually wherever we’ve fled to, if we get there; doomsday will come one way or another, and all mortal human matters will be for not, and all that will be left is the cosmos or the heavens or whatever you believe is Beyond. Right?  

Okay, but then why do anything here on this mortal plane, on this mortal time scale? 

Because the sun will swallow the earth so far in the future that I cannot truly fathom it. No one I have ever met or will ever meet can truly fathom that kind of time scale. We are all not even a true blip on the geologic time scale. The human who lived the very longest is not a blip on that scale. (And maybe we’ll all get wiped out by a freak asteroid tomorrow, but that’s such a big if, it’s not a great concept to live by. If you believe the end is that close, eh, adjust the lifetime thing I’m about to discuss accordingly.) So why, exactly, are we thinking on this scale? 

Okay. So let’s think about time on a human level. My life expectancy is close to ninety years. My grandmother lived to be eighty-eight. I have a family friend who is notably over one-hundred. So let’s stop talking about billions of years. Nothing I can do will matter at that point in the future when the earth becomes star food, or doomsday comes however it does. Honestly, anything I can do will probably stop mattering an unfathomably long time before that, anyway. 

But can I do something that will matter eighty years from now? Ninety? A hundred? Sure. How many things have you read that were published eighty years ago? Ninety? A hundred? 

Perhaps you’ve read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. It was published in 1831. Or maybe you pretend you have, but you’ve only seen the Disney movie. Still, that goes back to something Victor Hugo did almost two hundred years ago. (And that movie? It’s older than I am.) 

So I can do things that matter for a pretty long time. Like, a few times my lifetime. Things that will last a long time on the time scale that I or anyone I’ve ever met can fathom. So the things I do matter.

But they’re also not world ending. The odds the human race survives that long on the geologic time scale, that anything I can directly do will possibly matter that long, are so slim, it’s worse than planning on winning the lottery tomorrow. 

And which things should I do? Ultimately, that seems up to me. If nothing really, really matters, but we have the ability to make things that matter for quite a long time, then we should pick things that we think we can make matter for a long time. Things we love enough to want to make matter that long, things that might matter to many other people one day, things we are good enough at to make a difference with, things that will outlive us. 

And there’s no big scale harm in doing something that just makes us happy or fulfilled, in taking breaks, in making a mistake now and then. 

This is what I tell myself to balance out between caring too little (why do anything, ever, if the world will end one day?) and too much (I have to do everything, now, or the world will end). 

Being productive is about that balance. It’s about caring the right amount, about the right things. Some things still matter more than others. Some things are still more urgent than others. Creating works that will outlive me is more important than if my office is always spotless, and putting out a fire that might kill me is more urgent than outlining my next book. (See also: the Eisenhower Matrix.)

If you don’t know what you care about, if your priorities are in the wrong place, if you care too much or too little: productivity flounders. And there is no app, no lifehack, no list that will save you from that. That’s all mental work. That is why I believe in values based productivity.

After balancing nihilism and obsession, after choosing what you value and therefore what to do, getting your priorities in line, after sorting your way through why and the big whats that serve your why, then, and only then, can we really start productively worrying about how and details. 

Our values are the final destination. We may meet deadlines and reach milestones and achieve goals along the way, but we never really arrive at our values. But when we’re gone, people will be able to tell what we valued by what we did, and hopefully remember us as the values we had in mind. I will never achieve creativity or innovation or storytelling; I’ll post a chapter, finish a piece, publish a book. But publish enough books, and when it’s over, people talk about you and your creativity and innovation and storytelling.

Sometimes, on bad days, especially as someone with anxiety that sometimes acts like depression, I need to rethink my way through all of what I said above, to stop caring too little or too much or about the wrong things. But, eventually, I always do. And having thought my way down this same path over and over, I thought I’d write it all out and share it with you as a shortcut.  

Because it’s at the end of that path that we can start talking about the typical productivity things. SMART goals and habit tracking and and project planning and calendar apps and filing systems and self reviews and all of that good stuff. And I love those things, but I like to emphasize that they do not come first, that part of why they vary greatly person to person is based on the whys and whats that come first.  

After that, we can have the typical productivity nerd fun. 

On Conflating Skinny and Productive

It’s a long story, and, while crucial background, it’s not the main point of this post, so to give a quick summary: I’m schizophrenic, I’m a fiction writer, my line between character and self is a fine one, I kind of absorb my characters’ traits with time, I accidentally sort of, kind of absorbed one of my characters’ anorexia.

(That was a lot. I know. Bear with me.) 

Seeking support, I joined a few online communities for people with eating disorders. One discussion topic I saw posted really got my mental gears spinning: 

Why do you really want to be skinny?

Because eating disorders aren’t really about food. 

The answers held all kinds of insights. To be desirable, or even lovable. To feel in control. To make their struggle visible. To be special, or good at something, or have an identity as the skinny friend. To prevent aging. To fit in with their gender identity. To self harm via starvation. To cope with prior food insecurity. To take up less space in the world. 

And what does skinny really represent to me? 

Productive.   

I wasn’t the only one, either. It’s not too hard to see where the idea comes from. 

My romanticized toxic ideal was the workaholic who’s too busy for meals, who happily gets wrapped up in work and forgets to eat, who’s a little nauseous with stress and excitement and caffeine, who turns to long walks or runs as moving meditation and to burn off nervous or excited energy, the tortured artist who self neglects. That image is common in media. Even I’d written that before.  

And I fell into that somewhat organically. But when the organic level only took me so far, forgetting to eat in a fit of inspiration became “forgetting” to eat as I stared at the wall, thinking only of food. I chased the external look anyway. Fake it till you make it mentality. I wanted to be that. I knew it wasn’t entirely healthy, but most tropes come with both pros and cons, and the pros were things I’m a sucker for: extreme productivity, psychosis influenced creativity, passion on the verge of obsession. 

But the cons were big Catch-22s. It’s hard to be productive when you’re hungry, when all your energy is going to re-counting calories and exercising, when you’re scrolling eating disorder memes to cope. 

And if what skinny meant to me was productive, could I lose the obsession with skinny by focusing on productive itself? By telling myself I needed to eat in order to be productive, that productive was the important part of skinny? 

Kind of. That’s been my most convincing thought process when I need to reconnect with why I’m recovering. I’m not sure if recovering is the word, but at least mostly trying to turn down the urges for disordered eating. But eating disorders—especially ones born of psychosis—aren’t quite that simple. 

And the skinny equals productive image is still out there. I recently threw myself back into productive—not just being productive on my actual projects, but reconnecting with my passion for productivity itself. I drafted and taught a webinar on the subject with great results, and got some fresh reading material on productivity, as I started this blog.

But something keeps catching my eye in the productivity books I’m reading. When talking about goals, weight loss keeps coming up as an example. Creating a habit of eating healthier, or less. Exercising more. Even routine weigh ins seem to come up constantly in morning routine lists, food logging in information system ideas. The idea of eating sweets only as a self reward (and not as a reward for weight loss).

All things I’m mostly trying to do the opposite of now, because I’d gone too far. 

And why do those things need to keep coming up? Why is there the assumption that someone reading a book on productivity wants to lose weight, eat less, exercise more, weigh themselves more, think about food more, treat food as a reward? There are so many other ways to be productive. Can people who are already in a healthy place—or too far down the other end of the spectrum—not be interested in this book on productivity?

I’m using the techniques these books teach to do the opposite of their examples, and eat. To stop losing weight at a rapid pace and stay in a healthy range, to stop exercising before I pass out, to not hop back on the scale every thirty minutes, to not count calories, to not think of food as a reward for starvation. 

Why can’t the go-to example be anything else that’s actually tied to productivity for people in a normal, healthy place?  

Then again, normal and healthy aren’t necessarily the same in this case. Just look at the stats of the average American’s weight and how they feel about it, versus the ideals. I get that, and the books may be targeted at normal. And, given that many of these books are also classified as self help, they may assume that there’s some kind of problem. Still, there are other examples like that out there. Why must we continue subtly conflating skinny and productive? Why must I?

Things to think about.

Values Based Productivity/How My System Works

I build my productivity system from my core values up, in four main layers: core values, areas/spheres of life (priorities, roles), goals and projects, and tasks (habits and events). This is written as a guide to building such a system.

Values

As mentioned, we start with values.

  • Values First. A crucial point commonly overlooked in many productivity systems is the question not of how to get your things done but why. Out of anything in the world that you could do, why these things, and what will motivate you to get them done? How do you determine what earns a place in your system and your life? This is why we begin this system with values.
  • Make Your Values List. Take a piece of paper, a word processor document, a typewriter, a whiteboard—any tool that makes you happy—and start listing your values. At this stage, write down everything that comes to mind. We’ll edit later. For now, just brain dump. What’s important to you at your very core? What do you most want people to think of you as? What would it most upset you to fail to be? My list includes things like creativity and innovation, constant growth and self improvement, and being a part of my community.
  • Narrow It Down/Grouping. Okay, now you can start filtering yourself. Eliminate things from the list that you don’t really care about that much. A lot of values out there sound good—are good—but that doesn’t mean they are your personal mission. Pick your battles, pick your values. You might do a little more tweaking of this list in future steps. Also, for ease of reference, start grouping like values, similar keywords, and synonyms together. Your bullet points don’t need to be catchy; they just need to make sense to you.
  • Tweak/But Watch It. Over time, people change. Values change. It’s okay to tweak this list now and then. But if you’re constantly overhauling all of your values, you need to think about what truly matters to you. Before adding things, consider: has this mattered to you for a long time? Do you think it will matter to you for a long time to come? Is it a consistent part of who you are and what you do, not just something generally good? Would it spring to mind if you asked someone close to you what they see you value?

Areas of Life

From values, we go to areas of life.

  • Spheres/Roles/Priorities List. Via roughly the same process as above (brain dump, narrow it down/grouping), make a list of your areas of life. These are areas/spheres of your world, roles, priorities. They should be pretty general and high level, but should be actionable. Some of mine include writing, being a housewife, being an alternative sexuality educator, running Las Vegas TNG, being a butler school student, etc.
  • Must Serve A Value. Each of your spheres must serve at least one of your core values. Otherwise, it probably doesn’t deserve a place on the list. It may serve more than one value, but if a sphere serves multiple values in different ways, consider if it might be better split into multiple spheres. (For example, separating “generating income” to keep your projects going, and your actual passion for your field, if those things could be separated in your ideal world.)
  • Can’t Contradict A Value. None of your spheres should contradict any of your values. If you value stability, settling down, homesteading, starting a family, being close to relatives, etc., then one of your spheres of life probably shouldn’t be globetrotting. You don’t want to contradict yourself. Of course you can take a vacation now and then, but that might be better put under self care or something technically left out of the system.
  • Most Values Should Be Represented. Most of your values should be represented in your spheres. Some may not be—they may be an approach to a sphere. But most of them should probably be represented in actionable ways—otherwise, do they really matter to your life in particular? This can vary between people. For a business owner, “honesty and truth” as a value may mean transparency with your customers and employees as an approach. But if you work or volunteer with a social justice organization, this may map directly to a sphere of life.
  • Values List For Each Sphere (Optional). It may make sense to reframe your values in terms of a sphere, to clarify how that sphere serves your values. For example, I have a values list for writing as a sphere. Any writing serves my core value of creativity, but for it to serve other values, it needs other qualities—ones I list in my writing values list. For example, a commitment to diverse casts of characters, exploring certain themes in fiction/writing education based nonfiction (learning and growth), etc.
  • One Sphere: You. One sphere should be you. You cannot accomplish anything in any of your other spheres without taking care of yourself. One sphere should be a commitment to your physical and mental health, and pieces of life that enable other spheres to happen, like your home environment and finances.

Goals/Projects

From spheres, we go to goals and projects.

  • Clarify Projects/Goals. These are like your sub-spheres. Start clarifying goals and projects you have within the above spheres.
  • Must Fit Into A Sphere. Each goal or project must fit into one of the spheres above. This system builds upon itself—values, then areas of life, then goals/projects.
  • Sphere Might Not Have Projects. Some spheres may be more of a maintenance game. For example, my health and housewife duties largely involve doing a lot of the same small tasks over and over again, rather than having projects and goals. Some spheres may not have a project or goal—or might not right now. Don’t worry about it. We can get back to those in the next step. At this stage, you might also realize some “projects” are better off as spheres, because they’re a maintenance game rather than something that ever gets completed, or because they have more projects within them. Make adjustments as necessary.
  • Don’t Contradict A Value. This shouldn’t be an issue at this point, but it’s worth triple checking that no project contradicts any values you’ve listed. You might confirm if it does serve a value directly—especially if it’s in a sphere you made a sub-list of values for. It may or may not, and that’s okay—but most probably should.
  • SMART Goals. Not everything at this level needs to be a SMART goal. If not, it’s probably a project—like a sub-sphere. But goals should be SMART. What does that mean? SMART goals isn’t my original idea, but it’s something I subscribe to. S stands for specific. Your goal must be specific, so you can know when it has been reached and what it is. M stands for measurable. There must be some clear metric—maybe a number—that means a goal has been reached. A stands for achievable. If the goal isn’t realistic, it’s not going to work. R stands for relevant—why this goal? By starting with values, this should already be taken care of. T stands for time bound—there must be a deadline. Otherwise, goals can sit around forever, never to be reached or reevaluated.

Tasks

Now we get into that list we really look at day to day.

  • Habits and Events. I try to make every task into one of two things: a habit (recurring task) or an event (calendar item). Now, it’s not perfect—sometimes, things just come up. But I try to keep everything possible as a habit or an event. This may require some adjusting. For example, a daily habit may be taking time to work on a specific project, and that project may have information systems that tell you what to work on, with once off tasks that actually get checked off forever. I like the habit system even for things like that because I can more clearly see what a habit adds up to in the long run than a list of small tasks.
  • Backwards from Sphere or Goal/Project. To create those habits and events, we work backwards from spheres, or from goals and projects.
  • Every Task/Event Must Serve Project/Goal or Sphere. This means that every task/event/habit must come from a project/goal or a sphere directly. Otherwise, what is it really doing here? Let go of the nonessential.
  • Every Goal/Project and Sphere Gets Done (Via Sticking To Recurring Task List/Schedule). If you stick to your habits and events, every sphere should be seen to, every goal/project completed, automatically. You should not need to frequently revisit goals/projects or higher levels directly, thinking vaguely. Eye on the habits/events, and those things should handle themselves. Break this down into pieces as small as make sense. You want some flexibility, but you also don’t want a huge task set on a monthly basis that you might find yourself staring down on the last day of the month.
  • Can’t Contradict A Value. Quadruple check: you’re not contradicting your own values, right?
  • Assigning to Times. Events probably get assigned to at least a specific day, and probably a specific time, by nature, in whatever calendar system works for you. Your habits should get tied to a frequency. My list has daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, so on. Within those, you may get more specific if it helps. All of my daily tasks are grouped and tied to times, to make them easy to track and remind myself of, instead of keeping track of tons of habits and setting tons of alarms per day. All of my weekly tasks are assigned to a day of the week. Some monthly tasks get tied to a day of the month—like the first or last—because it makes sense, while others simply sit on the “monthly” list to get done when it most makes sense. That doesn’t exactly need to be your system—the point is, assign things more specifically where it makes sense or keeps you on track. But otherwise, give yourself the flexibility you need.
  • Alarms/Reminders. Each day, creating a task list should now be simple. Every night, I check my recurring task list and my calendar to generate my list for the next day, which I create via setting alarms. Things that actually are time bound get alarms set first, while others get alarms set semi arbitrarily, where they fit, to remind me to do them when I have the appropriate amount of time. You might like a physical list, a reminder app, or some other way of doing this.

And that’s pretty much it for the system itself. Just wanted to share this as a guide and reference to my system.

The Origins of “A Productive Hannah”

It’s hard to trace where my interest in productivity really began.

I was always the kid with a million extracurriculars and projects, and I always needed a way to keep track of it all—plan to get it all done, ensure it was getting done.

Really, though, I think it might have begun with writing. I decided when I was about three that I was going to be a writer. And I got pretty much right on consuming resources about writing. And a lot of these incorporated elements of productivity. Since writing is, for so many people, a passion project or maybe a side hustle, squeezing it in around the demands of a day job—or school—was a common theme, not to mention handling any eye rolls at trying to prioritize time for the liberal arts. 

I remember, even in elementary school, trying techniques out, like waking up early (before school) to write (still not good at morning writing, I now blame sleep meds), or grabbing at bits of spare time when I finished assignments early in class or was waiting for an extracurricular to start (I stand by this, as it translates to my adult life). I could be found tucked in a corner at any family gathering or in any vacation hotel room, head down, notebook in lap; that was my trademark. That, and I brought cookies. Still true. 

I tried focusing on making my writing needs as mobile as possible, able to be done on the bus (handy), I tried color coding mixed writing and school tasks by priority (eh), I tried hanging giant pieces of butcher paper up in my bedroom with plot outlines and plans (still guilty), I tried one index card per chapter on my corkboard (eh, kind of a hassle), I tried a chalkboard (now a whiteboard person; the chalkboard was also painted directly on a textured wall, eh), I tried study groups (hit or miss depending on the crowd), I tried working in the library after school and taking the late bus (hassle, it didn’t come for three and a half hours after school, and it took another two hours to get home). Bullet journals (yes). Kanban boards (yes). Just about every productivity app (meh) and book (yes) known to mankind. Accountability buddies (yes). You name it. 

Productivity definitely started for me as a means to an end—which it probably should be, and it is. Eventually, though, I really became interested in the process itself. I think that this interest in productivity as its own thing rather than as a means to whatever end I was interested in at the time actually came about when I realized I had a knack for it, within the last year and a half or so. I was getting things done—consistently, well, on time, prolifically. I self published six full length books in sixteen months, including two in one week. In that time, I also taught dozens of webinars, maintained several online writing postings, hosted dozens of events, managed a rental property, worked on butler school coursework, and was a full time housewife. Among other things. (Still letting a lot of that sink in.) 

And so, after wrestling with it for a long time, I didn’t really think about my systems too much anymore. I still drank up productivity books like water, but just because they were still interesting, not because they frequently gave me much to change. But then people started asking me for advice. My inbox became filled with questions, or, Have you considered writing/teaching on this? Friends came to me when they hit a roadblock. Off to the whiteboard. My wife, once my productivity mentor of sorts, came to my productivity webinar and wanted followup: back to the whiteboard. 

I am sometimes slow to accept when I might be good at something—it has taken me most of my life to let it sink in that people other than my mother actually seem to enjoy these words I’m posting on the Internet—but once I do, my first instinct is to share it. Write. Teach. Mentor. 

Besides passion and skill, some people have pointed out to me that I fill a few niches in the productivity world that have openings. Among an important few: I do creativity based work, I’m in a full time alternative sexuality relationship/am a childless housewife, I have paranoid schizophrenia among other mental and physical health challenges. Others: I’m not straight, I’m a woman, I’m under twenty-five, I’m essentially a high school dropout. I definitely realize that “happy and productive” doesn’t look the same for everyone, and that everyone has unique challenges to getting there. 

So here I am. 

More than just the how, I’m mostly interested in the whys and philosophy of productivity. What is productive? How does society shape our idea of what productive means? What do we associate with productivity, and is it correlation or causation? How does privilege play in, and how does it not? How do you choose what to do? Why is it important to be productive at all? What are the correlations and the trade offs between productive and happy? How can a challenge also be an advantage? Things like that.

So that’s a little about me and the angle of this blog (there’s more on the About page if you’re interested). 

Let’s get to it.