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LM: #371: Hurry sickness
When I reflect on my most-intense periods of time management, it’s all kind of a blur.
Like I can open a book on my Kindle I have no recollection of having purchased much less read, and find it’s littered with highlights – so I clearly “read” it.
I recently came across a term: hurry sickness. The definitions vary, but the term immediately reminded me of the times I was most fixated on doing things faster and more efficiently, and whenever possible delegating those things.
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The symptoms of hurry sickness I remember are:
- Constantly rushing
- Impatient, subject to emotional outbursts over minor delays
- Making lots of mistakes
- Poor memory
- An urge to always be in motion
- Thinking about the next task while doing the current one
- Trying (and failing) to multitask
It’s easy for me to say of that self that I should have just calmed down or not been in such a hurry, but it felt like I had good reasons then, and it feels unfair and suspiciously convenient to judge that past self.
I was fighting hard to make it as a writer, didn’t have much other fulfilling things going on in my life, and had a less clear idea of who I was or wanted to be.
I still feel on the edge of hurry sickness sometimes but just being aware of it helps keep me from getting sucked in.
I don’t know what the cure was. Maybe it was having some success, feeling I had proven to myself what I had wanted to, less economic and social pressure living outside the U.S., or some deeper existential contentment. It’s probably all of those.
Strangely, I feel like I’m fighting as hard for my business as ever but am less hurry sick. So maybe hurry sickness really works, or maybe the incentives to be hurry sick feel too out-of-reach to bother with any longer. What feels true to me right now is that hurry sickness is just counter-productive.
Have you ever been hurry sick?
Aphorism: “He who defers the hour of living well is like the clown waiting till the river shall have flowed out. But the river still flows, and will run on.” —Horace
Cool: This is a nice heavy curtain (Amazon) which can help control light and dampen sound when recording video.
Best,
David
P.S. When you’re hurry-sick you’re convinced there’s too much to do.
