The productivity meter (as a poem)

and on allowing myself to be a writer

Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a cozy homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. Here, you’ll marvel the mundane and wish for your wild, while reveling in rest.

You’ll learn about how to support your habitual travel adventures alongside your happy home base (even the one inside your own head). Cool kids subscribe. I appreciate you!

day in the life (must be a writer’s life since I’m a writer)

The writer’s life is regularly romanticized.

Picture steaming mugs of coffee and tea, a light breeze blowing in from some sea, and a collection of haphazardly stacked books that always look like they could topple at any moment, but never do.

This is… fiction.

The value of being productive

Before being laid off earlier this year, I had said I wanted to write full-time, and whined (albeit, poetically) that I had a job taking time away from writing time. Now, poetically, I don’t have the job keeping me from writing.

But days, weeks, and now months in, I still catch myself trying to prove my productivity (re: worthiness) by ticking off each finger the check-list of helpful things I do around the house. See, I did the dishes today! See, I balanced the budget today! See, I dusted cobwebs today!

And I’m talking to myself when I say this.

Then in an anxiety-fueled flurry, I start seeking copywriting and copyediting gigs, and freelance and content coaching gigs. Gigs upon gigs. When people ask what I’ve been up to, my knee-jerk reaction is to tell them about the clients I’m working with instead of telling them, simply: I’m a full-time writer.

I also feel the need to include the caveat that while I’m not bringing in the same income I was, I’m still bringing in an income. (Don’t worry about me! I’m contributing to society by making money!) Weird, right?

Poem In Which I Prove My Value

Dished, laundered, and cleansed

inbox zero. Wiped counters, balanced 

budget, purged drawers, and texted mom. 

Watered plants and lifted weights, then weighted choices, 

and watered myself. And appropriately repented

for lunchtime spent with Gilmore Girls.

Gave monetary value to each action, shopped 

for groceries, and vacuumed floors. Then, watered 

the plants again. Because more must be better.

---

In theory, this list of to-dos is meant to demonstrate my productivity and illustrates how my brain attempts to show that I’m being valuable. How I’m being of value. How I’m being value.

How I’m valuable.

Is how I value myself only based on actions I take during the day? Maybe. I want that action to be writing, and for my brain to accept that as just the right amount of productive.

---

If you’re new here…

Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. It’s a travel blog / poetry newsletter / attempt to understand my inner world a bit better each day.

Subscribers can expect weekly-ish newsletters from me (and my forever undying gratitude!)

You might also like…

A writer and a doctor walk into a bar

The salesman says this is the best computer for creating [content]

Life isn't meant to be figured out