Why can't I do it all anymore?

My midlife relationship with productivity

When I was a young mom, I. was. a. machine.

Even surrounded by small children, I was incredibly productive. I was often working on four or five freelance projects at a time, plus regularly pitching new stories to a variety of publications. Working on book projects. Blogging - for several years, daily - and posting to social media multiple times per day. All that, plus diapering little ones (often two at once!) and nursing babies (for years at a time!) and calming sibling squabbles (many in a day!) and putting dinner on the table (they wanted it every single night!)

I look back now sometimes and wonder: how on earth did I do it all?

The subtext being:…and how come I can’t do it all anymore?

From all outward signs, my productivity has slowed wayyy down since my late 30s.

I shut my blog down in 2015 and it took me more than five years to start a regular writing practice again. Today, it’s about all I can do to get one or two good posts out the door each week.

I went twelve years without even attempting to write another book after my last one, and getting this one written has been a slog. Writing it feels like wading in mud: slow, squelchy, shoe-sucking forward steps; and whenever I look back to learn from the progress I’ve made, it seems my footprints have already filled up and left only the trace of an impression behind. Behind me are remnants of the evidence that I’ve written—but the memory of how I got there, or where I came from? Gone.

And yes, I have been publishing a couple of podcasts a week for years now, but those projects aren’t nearly as time-consuming as they were when my kids were much smaller and when—you would think—I had much less time to devote to planning, recording, and promoting. Yet there I was back then, “doing it all.”

So where did all that drive go? Just when I thought I’d be leaping into my most “productive” years - freed from the incessant needs of small children, but still with plenty of energy and ideas - I’ve found myself in a much more…meandering…sort of mood. Maybe not a “mood”, come to think of it — that word suggests that the way I engage with my work today is a temporary fancy. But I suspect this new relationship with ambition, accomplishment and productivity may be here to stay.

What’s going on?

In this week’s episode of The Tea’s Made podcast, I’m exploring my changed and changing relationship with ambition, productivity, and getting things done. While recording it I realized something pretty crucial: while it is true that I’ve put certain guardrails around my life that naturally limit productivity (I don’t work at night anymore as a general rule; I also don’t jump at every opportunity that falls in front of me) it’s also true that I’m still doing a lot of stuff.

So why do I feel like less of a machine? The reality is, of course, that I never “did it all,” and the outward-facing productivity of my 20s and 30s left less time for inward-facing, private pursuits that I now see as more important and rewarding than career-building or putting money in the bank.

Today, much more of the “stuff” I’m doing is for the benefit of my family and myself, instead of an audience, client, or employer. I’m productive for my own pleasure, not performance. It’s like I’ve finally learned how to ask myself the question

Heather Johnson Durocher

posed in a recent post: “If I can’t do it all, what do I really, really want to do at this specific time?”

The underrated importance of 'white space'

As I say in the episode, I have so much compassion and respect for the younger version of myself. She was trying so hard to get so much done and be so impressive. I just wish I’d gone a little easier on her…that I’d really understood the difference between urgent and important; that I’d understood how little so many of those “accomplishments” would matter later.

Today, when I refuse to open my computer after 8 PM, or when I spend hours on an kitchen project nobody will ever see on social media—and then find myself fighting back the urge to fret over becoming less-relevant or missing out on opportunities—I try to remind myself that I’ve learned a lot since my younger years about how to create a life that feels livable and rich and full in all the best ways…without feeling a need for that frenetic leap from achievement to achievement.

I can’t blame my 30something me for being wrapped up in earning, accolades, or career growth. But in my mid-40s, I’m shifting into a new sort of relationship with productivity. It turns out I really do like to be busy, to create, to accomplish: to work hard, and to get a lot done. I just have more patience with the journey now, and I care a lot less how others perceive my path.

Getting older has taught me a lot about the often-empty promises of scale and growth, and how jumping on a new opportunity is rarely as urgent as it’s often made it out to be. I’m still learning, but finding it easier to slow down and listen to my body, my intuition, and the whispers of my spirit.

Most importantly, as it turns out? I don’t really want to be a machine.