Okay so go with me for a moment, what would you do if you only had to work 4 days a week? If you had 3 full days to yourself to do whatever the hell you want, what’s the first thing that come to mind?
For me its sleep and masturbate.
Mostly because I love sleep but I ADORE orgasms.
Recently I wrote a post called S.M.A.R.T Goals, purely because I am just starting to learn about them. One of the questions that I had to ask myself in order to decide which of my goals I was going to prioritize was “How Much Will It Cost?”
Right now the current goals that are on my short term list are all paid for in time, as opposed to money.
A lot of what I worry about is whether or not I am putting in “enough” time on LMBG, because I honestly feel like that since I am still on disability, and not working “a side hustle,” this is my way of giving back to the universe that is taking care of me while I am in the current mental health state that I am in.
I feel like because I am being so well taken care of, I have to give back, instead of just letting myself heal. Again this comes from the stigma of mental health. Like many people who deal with mental health, I feel like I have to prove that I am strong, capable, and that I am not just sitting here doing nothing every day all day.
But then I think about it like this:
If my mental health were a broken leg, then I’d have to sit with it until it heals, no matter how long it takes. I’d have to deal with the fact that I couldn’t walk properly right away because the bones need time to set.
While processing all the reasons that I deal with mental health issues take time, and even though it’s taking longer than I thought, and longer than I want it too, I recognize that it’s going to take as long as it’s going to take and there’s nothing that I can do about that fact.
What I can do however is set goals for myself hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, bi-annually, and annually, that will allow me to address the needs of my mental health, as well as the goals of my work here on Loud Mouth Brown Girl.
One of the things that I have decided is that I am no longer working 7 days a week on Loud Mouth Brown Girl. I am not doing it and I am going to force myself to take time off. I know that there are internet personalities and influencers out there who work 7 days a week, and 20 hour days, but I don’t have the emotional capacity to do that.
I burn myself out a lot when I try to work seven days a week and that means that not only am I burning myself out, but then I don’t have space for all the other stuff that I want to accomplish. I don’t have time or energy to exercise, cook, bath, or meditate, and when I do, it’s always filled with resentments because I am tired and cranky from working on LMBG too much and yes, it absolutely is a terrible cycle that’s difficult to get out of.
Today’s tasks were such:
- Make 3 psitive meme style images promoting mental health and LMBG
- Write 1 blog post for tomorrow (I’ve written two)
- Promote LMBG
- Outline the 4 day work week – Additional Blog post (goes with number 2)
- Rest!
So far I have accomplished 1 goal on this list and when I am done writing this I will try to accomplish some of the others, but the most important thing that I have to remember is that even if I do not accomplish every single goal on the list, I’ve still been productive.
I will no longer be working on Friday’s, Saturday’s, or Sunday’s, because on those days I am going to focus on goals that are just as important as LMBG “work” stuff, but don’t revolve around LMBG exclusively.
Such as my physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional, habits, and goals. That might mean taking a shower, going for a walk, cooking myself a meal, or cleaning up a little bit.
I am still not strong enough to do all of the things every single day, and there might be days when I just lay here and don’t move, but I am allowing myself permission to stop going “well I didn’t work yesterday because PTSD so I have to work twice as hard today.” No fuck that noise, it just sets you up for failure.
Now, ALL of this being said, I recognize that I have the kind of privalege that many people who deal with mental health do not have. I am fully aware that I have a LOT of time on my hands, and not many people who deal with mental health have the ability to say nope fuck it I’m only working 4 days a week, however….maybe we should start normalizing this shit.
Jeff Bezos is still going to be just as rich tomorrow as he is today if you take a day off, and I think that one day I am going to work towards pushing a 4 day work week across as many industries as I possibly can.
I think about how much time it takes for me to decompress from dealing with other people’s bullshit and I’ve come to realize that I need that extra day to just prepare myself to go “into the world” so to speak.
I am not ready to re-enter societies work force, and that’s purely because I am busy doing what I do need to do to build the foundations of what I want my future to look like. For the first time in my life not only am I happy with the place that I am at, but I now am learning actively, how to make this time that I have matter, so that one day I can look back and say “yes, that was the right choice.”
Having a 4 day work week might seem lazy to some, but for me it’s the best possible way for me to be effective when I talk about mental health and healing from trauma. Someone has to normalize stuff before we as a society start actually following suite, and if I get to be that person then so much the better.
So that’s the deal. From here on out 4 days a week I will be focused on working on Loud Mouth Brown Girl, and 3 days a week I will be focusing on my mental health in other ways so that when I come “back to work,” it’s with a refreshed, renewed, sense of purpose, without being exhausted all of the time.
I am going to keep harping on this 4 day work week idea, because I want to track my progress, so you’ll be hearing more about this in the future.
For those of you that have the time and energy to focus on your mental health, what are some goals that you want to accomplish? I would love to be in the know, so leave me a comment and let’s talk about them.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 