When 'Simple' Tasks Aren’t - Reclaiming Basic Productivity After Trauma
Recovery doesn’t just happen. Sometimes, the ‘hard work’ is slowing down and giving some thought to building more sustainable routines or frameworks.
Healing from trauma doesn’t just happen in the background like a cut under a band aid.
Effective trauma recovery takes work and daily effort.
When we’re focused on a healing journey, we often face a reduced capacity for many things, including daily chores.
That’s not “lazy.”
It’s task saturation.
It’s common.
… and it’s something we will tackle today. :)
Photo by Richard Ludwig on Unsplash
On healing journeys, ‘simple tasks’ aren’t always simple. Often, they require a new or different approach to help overcome challenges we didn’t expect or haven’t encountered before.
Along my journey, I found a framework for this and applied it to (among many other things) doing the dishes.
Today’s article addresses ways to reclaim basic productivity based on three concepts:
Recovery doesn’t just happen. Sometimes, the ‘hard work’ is slowing down and giving some thought to building more sustainable routines or frameworks.
You will find the method I’ve developed and use personally detailed in action below.
Also, if you’re recovering from trauma or working through a healing journey and having challenges with daily tasks, this might be an opportunity (or reminder) to give yourself a little grace. :)
It’s probably not laziness… most of us know that feeling.
It’s probably not a motivation issue.
It could be a trauma response.
That’s why my solution for doing dishes looks like trauma recovery.
Welcome to the road From War to Writing. :)
Let’s go.
‘Normal’ Tasks can be Difficult After Trauma
In my earlier writing, I occasionally compared challenges on my healing journey to re-learning things we all learned in kindergarten. When life hands you a situation where you have to build a new framework for just about everything, many simple, common things have to be reevaluated from the beginning.
Doing the dishes is a specific, real, daily task that most of us start learning in kindergarten. It can become an odd challenge when the framework fails.
My scaffolding collapsed when I retired, and it included doing the dishes. :)
Building A Resiliency Framework
My 19 deployments were spread out over about 15 years of my career, but most were clustered in two 4-year periods. During those times, I was gone… a lot. My wife and I became experts at saying goodbye and reintegrating when I got home. She learned to run the house by herself and spent almost 4 years of my career doing so. One of the many realities of that situation was that my wife was left doing all the dishes (and taking care of the kids and house, etc, of course…) while I was deployed.
We had to develop tactics and procedures to handle that type of schedule. We slowly built a framework to survive, and dishes became a central part of it. We mutually agreed that I would do all the dishes when I was home. I was gone so often that was a pretty fair trade. That framework continued after I stopped deploying… because it worked. It stopped working not long after I retired.
Recognizing the Collapse
When the scaffolding fell, I tried to rebuild it the same as it was before. That didn’t work. Typical productivity ‘hacks’ simply would not work on this healing journey. It was time to come up with something new.
I was used to doing the dishes (and didn’t really mind) because it was part of my (our) framework. That job was my responsibility, even though the agreement was almost two decades old, the reasons for that arrangement no longer applied, and we had two capable older children in our house. The arrangement was fine, until it simply didn’t work.
At some point, I just couldn’t bring myself to do the dishes anymore. It didn’t seem to matter what I tried, there was just a mental block.
As I alluded to in the intro above, it wasn’t laziness or a lack of motivation. It was a trauma response. It required a new framework.
Rebuilding a New Framework
After I realized the old scaffolding needed to be rebuilt and redesigned, it took a while to figure out how include the dishes in the new framework.
At some point I realized it was a priority issue. That task needed to fit into my new framework as a priority I chose for myself, because it didn’t fit in the framework based on outdated agreements or as simply a thing I ‘had to do.’
The first time I set priorities and sorted my big rocks I didn’t include dishes. As a result, my family had to do all of them - just as if I was deployed, again.
The next time I reviewed and set my priorities, I ‘fixed the glitch’ and successfully added them back in using the framework in my book.
Back on Task with Priorities, Boundaries, and Alignment
For many things, simply taking a few minutes to slow down and invest deliberate focus can solve problems or illuminate hidden solutions with surprising usefulness.
In trauma recovery, the PBA framework in Chapters 1-3 of From War to Writing can be applied to simple daily tasks — like doing the dishes.
We’ll use my experience tackling this specific challenge to illustrate how the framework applies in real life.
Set Priorities
Priorities - Dishes became a “big rock” when assessing my priorities.
I wanted to do my part… not because I was home from deployment and needed to make up for being gone or keep a deal I made... I wanted to do my part because I wanted to contribute. I just needed to figure out how.
Deliberately deciding that it was my choice to prioritize doing dishes was the first step toward solving the problem.
Manage Boundaries
Boundaries - Without boundaries, it’s hard to stay on track with our priorities. When tackling challenges on healing journeys, boundaries are vital.
Simply deciding to do the dishes wasn’t enough. I needed to establish boundaries to actually do them reliably.
Respect Personal Limits — Sometimes that ‘invisible wall’ still hits, and the simple task seems insurmountable. Respecting that limit looks like asking someone else to help or simply coming back later.
Case in point: My family is quite willing to help… but I spent about 20 years training them they didn’t need to when I was home. Gentle reminders and requests for help land better than silent, misplaced resentment. :)Set Time Frames — Setting a timer to ‘only work for 15 minutes’ is a common and generally effective tool for overcoming task paralysis. Since dishes don’t typically take long enough to need a timer, I set a time frame. Instead of “15 minutes” it was “before bed” or “after dinner” or “around lunch time.” The flexibility built into those time frames provide boundaries that don’t feel like shackles.
Remember it’s my choice — I’m not doing this for people-pleasing or because I ‘have to’ … Remembering that I chose to do this task helps overcome many mental blocks.
Acknowledging personal agency can be quite liberating, and effective for healing. :)
Seek Alignment
Alignment - After setting priorities and managing boundaries, seeking alignment is the verification step to ensure the path we’ve chosen is the one we want to keep travelling. We can check if our priorities and boundaries are working with each other, for ourselves, and with others around us.
If not, we can adjust course.
Some factors to consider:
Other Priorities — Does this fit with my other big (and little) rocks? We can only manage so many ‘big rocks’ at once. Time frames, timers, or similar boundaries can be adjusted to fit together better and allow priorities to coexist in the new framework.
In the case of dishes, it took me a couple rounds through this process to determine reliable times in the day I could focus on dishes without impacting other priorities or adding unnecessary anxiety through tight constraints.
Personal Goals — Do my priorities and boundaries match my personal goals?
Sometimes we’ll set priorities and manage boundaries… then realize our goals may be different than we thought. Seeking alignment is an opportunity to adjust course when needed.
Is this effective? — If something doesn’t work, stop doing it. Honesty with yourself is vital here. You are setting your priorities and managing your boundaries. If those don’t lead to your goals for ‘alignment’ as effectively you want, you can change them.
Wrap
After you set your priorities and manage your boundaries to tackle your target task, seeking alignment is where you adjust and refine.
Whatever ‘seeking alignment’ means to you, remember it is a repeated process, an opportunity to refine your plan, and something you control.
If you have questions about how to use this framework, feel free to leave a comment below or send me a DM. I am happy to help. :)
If you found a way to successfully apply this in your own life and would like to share, also feel free to comment or reach out as well!
Thank you for reading today. I hope this example of the PBA framework in action gave you something useful to apply to a challenge in your life, or along your healing journey.
If you’ve got a ‘simple task’ that’s been a thorn in your side, I wish you luck tackling it.
Until next Saturday, have a pleasant week.
- Terry 8^)