Work, Overwhelm, and the Refrigerator

I've recently started managing programs at work that I know nothing about. It's a bunch of tedious, manual work that involves me looking at individual part serial numbers and figuring out where things are as they move through a factory. I'm not a tedious work type of person, I'm more big-picture.

But, I'm doing it. I need a paycheck. One of my weekly tasks is to use an auto-generated report with thousands of lines to fill out another report, by hand, with hundreds of lines. Ok, cool.

My boss requested last week that I make him a special report. Not the one we have, but one with a bit of the same data and some different data - ok, fair enough. It's legitimate data.

This morning, I opened my big report with thousands of lines, opened my boss's text with what data he was requesting weekly, wrote it down, spun around in my chair, got up, and started walking downstairs.

Then I froze.

When did I make the decision to get out of my chair? Why was I up? I was supposed to be working on that report. I just had breakfast, why was I walking to the fridge?

I wish I could say that the above is really what stopped me, but in actuality something else happened. At some point, while my brain subconsciously was saying, "no, don't want to do this, it's overwhelming, I don't understand all of the data and don't know how to give my boss what he wants so I'm going to the fridge" my conscience mind said "wait, we don't have any sweets, remember? You bought a brownie mix and you haven't made it yet." That is what stopped me. Not having sweets in the house. Not the motion of getting up or the fact that I had something else to do. I stopped only because we lacked sweets and some part of my brain was telling me to stuff my mouth with sugar.

So this is how I procrastinate. No wonder I have so much trouble losing weight.

Sending you strength (and maybe snacks),

Kristian

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Kristian is a mom of six, Program Manager by day, active Professional Photographer by trade, and a big believer in finding beauty in the everyday chaos.

Life in our house is loud, messy and full of literally everything. Love, noise, laundry, laughter, and definitely could use a bit more grace. I'm happily married to my best friend, grounded in my Catholic faith, and fueled by five to six hours of sleep per night and adrenaline.

I try to find joy in the everyday — even when it's wild, because without the little bit of joy, this life would be unbearable. This space is for the moms in the middle of it all: the ones juggling family, faith, work, and wonder. The ones that need someone else's messy life to make their own seem better or somewhat normal. You're not alone, and you're doing better than you think.

Welcome to Six Sweet Smiles — where we celebrate the mess, the miracles, and everything in between.