The Work I Forgot To Account For

At the end of February, I made a Plan. I’m working on redoing my website and I’m writing the copy myself. I needed to provide estimates for when I’d finish to some other people, so I called on my background creating estimates and handling scheduling delivery in the tech world, and I planned it out.

I broke the task into smaller pieces (“Write this page”, “edit that page”, “make sure it’s consistent with my newsletter intro emails”). I looked at my calendar, I blocked off time for each task. I doubled the estimate for how long the project as a whole would take (because there’s always something). I knew what I needed to do when, I had time to do it. It feels good to have a plan, y’know? It’s reassuring to have it all laid out like that.

Until the first chunk of time came and went, with no copy written. And the second. And the third. The first week. Then two.

Oops.

I tried bouncing ideas off friends. I tried putting my phone away to focus. I tried going for a walk to clear my head to get ready to write. I tried prioritizing it first thing in the morning, and I tried slotting it into the last thing in the evening. I tried writing in the bathtub, and writing at my desk, and writing on the couch.

Nothing was working. The words wouldn’t come, and it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t make myself sit down and focus, and I couldn’t force words to appear.

So, I took some time for curiosity. I asked myself what was happening, and I learned that I was feeling pressure to conform to some “right” way to write. That I felt out of touch with my Self. That I felt uncomfortable in my relationship with my business. That I had surrounded myself with so many voices, so many opinions, so much chatter that I couldn’t hear myself. I couldn’t hear my business talking to me, and I didn’t know what she wanted. I couldn’t hear my own voice, and therefore couldn’t access it to reach out and start a conversation through the internet. (Website copy seems, to me, to be a particularly difficult medium for showing up with humanity and connecting with other humans, so it asks me for extra attunement to myself.)

And I realized that there are tasks I needed to do. Tasks that were prerequisites to anything I’d written down in my original plan. Tasks that involved creating space to hear myself. Cleaning and tidying my space. Reveling in my garden. Delighting in the growing plants and new leaves. Wondering what they’ll become as they grow. Going for a walk. Noticing the flowers. Cancelling the networking calls. Ignoring the business-skills-education newsletters. Waiting. Listening. Trusting.

In the last few days, words have started showing up. I haven’t started typing them, yet - but I’m finally starting to feel inspired about what I want my website to say. I’m finally starting to be able to hear what matters to me, and to hear the start of the conversation I want my website to invite. I’m starting to be able to sit with the quiet, with the questions, and find words from a place of love, desire, hope, and enthusiasm rather than a place of obligation.

I never leave enough time, really, for that sort of task. For the background work, the work of cultivating my own joy and groundedness. I never quite remember, until I haven’t done it, how important it is to account for all of the work that goes into just listening. To myself, to others, to the world around me. To what my business is telling me.

I don’t leave time for it - I don’t account for it - because it’s not the sort of thing our culture seems supportive of putting on a to-do list and checking off. “What did you do at work today?” “I daydreamed, I watched the clouds, I listened to the wind and the rain.” “…you what now?”

And because it’s not the sort of thing that lends itself to being on a to-do list and being checked off, in the first place. Listening never works quite as well when I’m doing it because I feel like I have to, because I want to get it over with, because I’m waiting to move on to the next thing.

I haven’t figured out, yet, how to tell you when I’ll be done with listening. When I’ll be able to hear the whispers of my heart, my spirit, my business, my dreams, my hopes, my calling - or when I’ll be able to translate the language of soul into English to put on the internet. I haven’t figured out, yet, what it means to have deadlines in a world where my job is to be continuously dedicated toward exploration of myself and therefore the ability to listen deeply to others and support their introspective journeys, without trying to force them onto my path.

I still hope to get the words written by the (what I thought was overly padded) date I gave myself - and I also look forward to what I learn as I embrace the work of listening and not just the work of producing.