by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n
Frenzied paralysis – so many things in my mind that I cannot do any of them. I make a list to clear my mind and move from paralysis to action.<\/strong><\/p>\n I can’t think. Well, that’s not true. I guess the problem is that I am thinking too much. Well, that is not true, either. I guess the problem is that I am thinking about too many different things. Each second I think about ten different things. Round and round and round and…When will this stop? When will I be able to focus on few enough things so that I can write or read or just get up off the couch and do one constructive thing?<\/p>\n Panting, staring, motionless.<\/p>\n A solution for me:<\/p>\n Make a list.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Make a list? That doesn’t do anything. True, it doesn’t do anything physical, but, for me at least, it does a great thing both mentally and emotionally.<\/p>\n Making a list clears my mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n All those ten-things-per-second that are jumping in and out of my mind are now on a piece of paper. They are out of my mind. My mind is left with only a few items that I can manage without falling into panting, staring, motionless and other such frenzied paralysis.<\/p>\n All those ten-things-per-second that were jumping in and out of my mind were important. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in my mind. I have not erased them; I have not discarded them. I still have them, but now they are on a piece of paper. I can now work on them one at a time or I can leave them on the paper and later decide that they were not that important.<\/p>\n Every few weeks in my journal I find a list of items. I also read words of relief after the list. Every few days I make a list on a sticky note on my desk. My trash can has many of these crumpled lists with lines scratched through each item.<\/p>\n This technique of clearing my mind by making a list works wonders for me. I can’t say if it will do any good for any other person. I suggest you try it. If it works, please use it. If not, try something else until you find what works for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Dwayne Phillips Frenzied paralysis – so many things in my mind that I cannot do any of them. I make a list to clear my mind and move from paralysis to action. I can’t think. Well, that’s not true. I guess the problem is that I am thinking too much. Well, that is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,43,8,61,15,60,58,5],"tags":[135,165,131,181,137,180,178,128],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-ideas","category-journal","category-magic","category-notebook","category-reframe","category-systems","category-writing","tag-design","tag-ideas","tag-journal","tag-magic","tag-notebook","tag-reframe","tag-systems","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":439,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/workingup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}