Harry Bailey

This post is part of my plan to write at least 300 words a day on tech, wellbeing, productivity, agile methods and a little about me.

For me anxiety comes in two flavours. Both are equally impactful in their own attention grabbing ways.

In the last twelve months, since I returned to working for myself, they’ve made themselves known at least ever couple of weeks. Reducing anxiety is a focus for me in 2019.

The first flavour of anxiety I experience is a spike. An chest-tightening worry which can last up to two hours. It makes doing anything very difficult.

The second is a mild background anxiety which continually pulls my attention back to it and has been known to ruin time with family, friends and even my sleep.

I’ve got a good idea of the different triggers for the two.

Spike anxiety is caused by a sudden realisation, or discovery of something I didn’t do, or didn’t get quite right.

If you’ve ever experienced the “heart-sinking” feeling of forgetting something important, then it’s just like that, but doesn’t stop after the usual second or two.

Mild background anxiety comes at me slowly. It builds up as I dwell on something that wouldn’t be a problem if I weren’t to build it up in my head.

Dealing with them is less of a science than I would like.

Spike anxiety comes from nowhere, and the best defence I’ve found against it is to take action on the thing causing it as quickly as I can.

That could mean contacting somebody, putting a reminder in my diary or writing some notes to help make sense of the worry.

Mild background anxiety is more of a battle. To halt it I have to stop my brain from dwelling on the thought for long enough to bring the focus of it back down to size. So a good positive distraction is required.

That might be a good tv program, singing along to music I know well, a phone call which requires focus.

Long term, I think it’s possibly to reduce my general anxiety by changing things in my life, and working to be calmer and more considered when things do come along.

For me, this might mean avoiding some situation, and even people. Beyond that possibly meditation or other mindfulness techniques.

I’m keen to continue improving my writing in 2019, both quality and quantity. I’d like it to become something I do daily, and something I lean on to fill gaps in days that I have, rather than defaulting to social media browsing. It’s right up at the top of my list of focuses for 2019.

I’ve decided on 300 words as it seems a fair target. A target I can hit on a commute, on a lunch break, between pieces of work, before heading off to bed in the evening.

I’m not setting any boundaries when it comes to subject matter. That being said, I’ll likely mostly stick to tech, wellbeing, productivity, agile methods and a little on me.

I’ve written fairly frequently over the last ten years. The destination for the content I was writing were pretty broad and the length very varied. I’ve written short tech blog posts detailing a process for completing something technical. I’ve written marketting pieces sharing the benefits or details of a product or service which I was involved with and wanted to sell. I’ve written for social good campaigns that I’ve supported. I’ve even written some pretty heavy lifting specification documents.

I want to get away from all of that. The writing I do in my 300 word pieces is likely to be opinion focused, and a way to voice my thoughts without spending a huge amount of time on the data and the detail.

If conversations are triggered, then that would be great. Occassionally the 300 word articles may lead to more detailed writing on the same or similar topics.

Just enough process. As few rules as possible. Learning as I go. A great outlet for my thoughts, and possibly placeholder for projects or longer form writing. A great way to just practice my writing, often.