My Morning Routine Meltdown
Woke up feeling that heavy Virgo energy – brain buzzing with that stupid meeting at 10 AM and my to-do list looking like a monster. Grabbed my phone first thing, bad habit, totally overwhelmed by work emails already piling up. Felt my shoulders tighten.
Made coffee, spilled grounds everywhere. Typical. Sat down with my notebook and my laptop fighting for space. Started scribbling down everything swirling in my head: project deadlines, unanswered Slack messages, that report I keep putting off, even that weird chat with my boss yesterday I’m overthinking. Just dumped it all out onto paper. Called this my “Brain Dump” step.
Step 1: Brain Dump
- Got a physical notebook
- Wrote down every single work worry and task, big or tiny
- Stopped when my hand cramped
Felt slightly better getting it out, but the list was terrifying! Looked like pure chaos. Couldn’t handle tackling any of it. So I hunted for my highlighters. Yeah, highlighters. Needed to see things clearer. Picked three colors.
Step 2: Color Code Chaos
- Red = Urgent (Do today or fire starts)
- Yellow = Important (Big picture stuff, but not on fire… yet)
- Green = Later/Waiting (Stuff stuck with other people)
Started going through my messy list, one item at a time. Marked “Prepare slides for 10AM meeting” RED immediately – that sucker was coming fast! Highlighted “Follow up on budget approval email” YELLOW – needs doing, but meeting eats first. Pushed “Research new software options” GREEN – big task, no immediate deadline. Felt way less chaotic just seeing the priorities sorted visually.
Next step? Attack the reds. My meeting prep was top of the heap. Set a clear tiny goal: Outline the 3 key points. Not the whole deck, just the skeleton. Knocked that out quicker than I thought. Felt a tiny bit of smug satisfaction. Then dove into answering the two most pressing Slack messages flagged yellow. Kept replies super short – “On it!”, “Will update by EOD”. Cleared the immediate noise.
Midday Reality Check
Okay, the meeting happened. Survived it. But then the post-meeting tasks landed – classic. Instead of just adding them to the ever-growing doom list, I stopped. Did my mini ritual: pulled out the notebook, wrote down the two new actions (“Update project timeline with Steve” / “Send resource request to finance”). Grabbed the highlighters. “Update timeline” landed under YELLOW, “Resource request” went RED because they needed it yesterday. Backlog managed without the spin.
Hit my usual 2 PM wall hard. Brain fog like pea soup. Instead of drowning in emails like usual, I remembered to block time for nothing. Just put a reminder on my phone: “Deep Work Block: NO Slack, NO Email”. Told my team I’d be unreachable for 30 minutes. Focused only on that damn report I’d been avoiding. Couldn’t finish it, obviously, but chipped away. Felt progress. Small, but progress.
Wrapping Up Without Tears
Around 4:30 PM, inbox dread started creeping in. Made a deliberate choice NOT to open it for a final reply frenzy. Went back to my highlighted notebook instead.
End-of-Day Ritual
- Checked off the completed tasks (felt damn good marking that RED finance request as DONE)
- Reviewed remaining YELLOWs and REDs – carried the unfinished YELLOWs to tomorrow
- Scanned the GREENS – no surprises brewing
- Set ONE clear RED priority for tomorrow morning: “Email Steve updated timeline BEFORE standup”.
Closed the notebook. Physically. Shut the laptop. Did a lame but real deep breath.
Was it a perfect day? Hell no. Got interrupted a million times. Still late sending that follow-up. Forgot one small task entirely. But here’s the difference: it didn’t feel like chaos won. It felt managed. Like I steered the ship through rough water, not capsized. Virgo brain likes that. Little steps, messy tools, actually worked.
