The Cinderella phenomenon

I can't get anything done until everything's done. Anyone have this problem?

On the edge of the blue velvet couch that bookends my bedroom sits a stack of clothes I find myself frequently trying to ignore.

On good days, the pile looks manageable, a task I can add to my to-do list and eventually check off. On bad days, the pile becomes a symbol of everything wrong with my life: the texts I haven’t responded to, the proposals I haven’t sent out yet and the deadlines I still need to meet.

This pile has a longer name: the ironing pile. I haven’t worn some of the clothes in this heap since the holidays. That’s how long they’ve been sitting there. At last count — today’s — there were more than 50 articles of clothing in this pile. 50 pieces I had yet to iron.

My view of things I don’t want to do in life is generally: I’ll do it when I absolutely can’t stand it anymore. That’s how ironing usually goes for me. I look away, I avoid, I ignore its presence until I just can’t ignore it. The problem — the anthropomorphic ironing pile staring me in the face — is bigger than its effect — my hatred of the tediousness that is ironing.

But in the last year or so, that time of life we call quarantine (though Floridians don’t have quite as much of a right to call it that as those in other states do), I’ve found an altogether different phenomenon arising. It’s not just that I don’t want to do things and so I don’t get them done. It’s that I now feel I literally can’t.

Because our home is now our office and our office is now our home, I’ve become trapped in a cycle where I feel I can’t get anything done until everything’s done. Do I have one email left to send out? Don’t even think about the ironing. What about a phone interview to prepare for? The ironing doesn’t stand a chance.

Even on days when I’ve purposely put ironing at the top or middle of my to-do list, it inevitably gets bumped off. No one lives or dies by my ironing. I won’t lose a paycheck, my reputation or a story if I don’t finish my ironing. When it comes down to what’s essential, ironing always loses the battle.

I’ve found this applying to other parts of my life as well. In my pre-COVID world, I might have comfortably left the office knowing that I hadn’t finished everything for the day. And, sure, I might have tried to get ahead that night or morning. Journalism is certainly not a 9-to-5 job. But I was able to delineate home from office. I was able to leave the office at 5:30 or 6 p.m. to go to the gym and not feel (incredibly) guilty about it.

Now, some days I look at the clock and realize it’s mid-afternoon and I haven’t even left the house. It’s not that I don’t want to. Just as with the ironing, it’s that I literally feel that I can’t. What right do I have to leave the house, to get a little fresh air, when my to-do list has at least four more tasks to be completed? I recently made it a goal for myself to leave the house each day (!!!) because this had become so much of a problem.

I like to think I’m not the only one who feels this way. My running theory for why this is so much of an issue comes down to one thing: our fear of uncertainty. We can’t tolerate the discomfort associated with knowing we have tasks hanging over our head. Even though on some cognitive level we realize that exercise or completing housework is good for us, even just as necessary as professional work, our brains read our incomplete work as a problem that needs to be solved. Our brains tell us: don’t you dare think about getting up from that desk chair to call your friend or go for a run until you’ve finished everything you said you were going to do today.

Of course, I exaggerate here. It’s not like I don’t ever stop for a midday coffee or go for a bike ride. But I find that the guilt associated with these tasks is so much higher for me than it used to be. I loved getting lunches with friends when I worked in an office. I enjoyed that time. I didn’t spend every second checking the clock, wondering what I might not finish because of the break that I didn’t feel entitled to.

I’ve titled this the Cinderella phenomenon because it feels so much like what I imagine Cinderella felt. “You can’t go to the ball until you finish all of your chores.” The problem is that the chores are insurmountable. The work never ends. The hamster wheel continues. We’ll never reach inbox zero.

Instead, we’re like Sisyphus, rolling our stone up the mountain. The only way to break the cycle is through acceptance. We learn to deal with the uncertainty. We accept that to get up from our desk and prioritize our self-care is not something to be done when we’ve finished everything else. It’s a purposeful choice we make. It’s a decision to live comfortably within our uncertainty.