Bursts of productivity

My feet are aching. It’s been a very long day and I was fool enough to wear heels for the latter part of it.

But I’m proud to say that I was part of a team that pulled off a successful fundraising event –and in an extremely short amount of time. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of phone calls, emails, lists, meetings, strategizing. But we had around 100 people at our event – with live music, wine tasting and silent auction – and everything seemed to go really well.

I don’t know if I’m cut out for this kind of thing though. Light sleepers should not be event planners – I don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake going over details and making mental notes about who I needed to get in touch with the next day. If I was woken in the night or early morning, my mind would immediately start running over my to-do list, holding sleep at bay.

So while it is wonderful to celebrate the success of the evening, it is also wonderful to celebrate being finished with organizing it. What didn’t get done, didn’t get done. What happened, happened. For example, we’d made up signs to put outside indicating where the entrance was – these were discovered all neatly rolled up at the end of the evening when the sound guy nearly loaded them into his van. Ah well. So they didn’t get up – nothing to do about that now.

But I was reminded of something tonight – that being super busy is like a sort of emotional shield. When I get this hectically busy – i.e. making a phonecall while I type an email while ironing my pants and sipping my coffee – I don’t have time to stop and think about how I feel about things. I don’t have time to get nervous about taking the mic and talking to a room full of people. I don’t have time to get shy around strangers.

I remember using this tactic in university. It produces short-term periods of intense productivity and suspended emotional response. Interesting and useful at times, certainly. But I’m quite happy to move back to a slower, reflective pace now.