How a (Parenthesis) Helps You Avoid Overwhelm and Achieve
Your Writer’s Life
By Thea Sheldon

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” That’s what Annie Dillard explains in her book The Writing Life.

If you’re like other AWAI writers, you want more than anything to spend your days living the writer’s life — a life where you thrive. Your dreams fulfilled — you in control, calm, creative, and competent. You’re proud of your work and confident your contribution matters. And you get to have fun.

Unfortunately, just like the rest of us, you may have some days that spiral downward — drowning you in distractions as you fall. You quickly feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and don’t know which way to turn. Worse, the days when you haven’t gained a shred of precious momentum on your dreamed-for writer’s life. Ugh!

The good news is, there’s a trick to help you take charge and handle the overwhelm. Better yet, to prevent it in the first place. And there’s a bonus — beyond just handling overwhelm, this trick (when consistently used) will set you up for success and productivity every time you sit down to work.

The strategy is to create an intentional parenthesis around your day. It’s simple. And you can do it!

Paying attention to how you begin and how you end your workday is the key. Just put an intentional parenthesis around it.

This strategy helps you open your day with intention, and then close your workday feeling complete, fulfilled, and confident about tomorrow. Soon, you’ll realize you’re living the writer’s life — with ease and plenty of energy.

Here's how it works …

The Beginning

When you sit down to open your workday … stop!

Then take a few minutes to run through these three steps and bring focused attention and intention to your day.

1. Rekindle: Reflect, recalibrate, and rekindle. Remember your WHY. Say it out loud if you want to. Get in touch with your passion. Feel the fire in your belly that drives your desire for the writer’s life. Your WHY reflects the values you hold dear. When you honor your values, you know exactly what to do next, what’s important, and how to decide.

2. Tweak It: Take another minute and check in with the list you made at the end of your previous workday (we’ll talk about this more later). Does it need tweaking? If so, rearrange your list to fit what’s important for today.

   • Write your list down. What gets written, gets done (more often than not).

3. Find Your Focus: It only takes a few more seconds to set your intention for the day. Your intention might simply be to check off your list at the end of the day. Or to ride a new creative edge and play with it. Maybe it’s just to enjoy the day!

   Tip: Whatever you choose, let it guide your actions all through the day.

This three-step pause takes less than 10 minutes. It may well be the most important thing you do to set yourself up for success. Every day.

The Middle

This is what comes inside your parentheses. The middle of your workday is like the body of an article (after the introduction and before the conclusion). It’s the part where you get to show your stuff and spend your day doing the work you love.

The middle is also the place where you can drop down rabbit holes, get distracted, and begin to feel hopelessly overwhelmed. A lot comes at you in a day to push you off track.

Tip: If this happens, stop. Take a breather for a couple of minutes. Go back and briefly Rekindle, Tweak It, and Find Your Focus. Remind yourself of what’s important and do that.

Tip: Another action to refresh your focus and creativity is to get moving. Take a walk-break, preferably outside or on your treadmill.

A Stanford University study claims that, “Taking short walking breaks … can allow individuals to return to their tasks with renewed energy and clarity.” Walking also boosts creativity. Who doesn’t want that?

As you complete your work and get ready to wrap it up for the day, remember — the best is yet to come.

The Ending

Someone once told me (when I was quitting a job) that endings are just as important as beginnings, maybe more so. The way we leave things at the end of the day can create chaos or clarity for the next day … or the next job.

Here’s how this part of the intentional parenthesis process works.

After you’ve tidied up the files, emails, and maybe your physical workspace, pause. It’s time to set yourself up for another successful day tomorrow by closing up with three quick steps:

1. Take Stock: Did you fulfill your intention? What worked and what didn’t? Check off what you accomplished on your list. Decide what to do with the things that didn’t get done. Reflect, make notes, and think of what’s next.

   Tip: Keep a Done Journal. One of my coaching clients puts her list on Post-it^® Notes, one item per Post-it^®. When the item is completed, the note gets pasted in her Done Journal. The visual helps her see the volume and value of her progress. It’s a slick system.

2. Celebrate! Take a minute to remind yourself that you’re awesome. There may have been glitches … but you knew how to handle them. You’ve spent your day gaining momentum on your writer’s life. Woot-woot!

   Tip: When you celebrate what’s working, you often discover more things that work.

3. Write Tomorrow’s List: Look at your notes and write down the three or four important tasks for tomorrow. (You can always add more.) Your intentional parenthesis is wrapped around this workday, and you know where you’re going tomorrow. Now it’s time to relax.

   Tip: Take 30 more seconds to set your intention for the rest of your day. That’s part of your writer’s life, too!

It takes less than 10 minutes at each end of your day to rein in the chances that overwhelm will take over your show.

Putting an intentional parenthesis around your workday helps you stay focused and productive during the middle part. You can even sail through overwhelm and chaos if they occur.

I believe it’s true, the way you spend your days can, indeed, move your writer’s life from dream to reality.

Try it for yourself and let us know what happens.

Last Tip: Street wisdom is that it takes 21 days to build a new habit. So give the intentional parenthesis strategy a little time before you decide, okay?