Today I'm feeling 20%
In the early days of my newsletter I posted a link to Maggie Steifvater’s journaling approach, designed to manage uneven energy levels after she contracted a long-term illness that kept her from writing. The original post is gone now—along with the rest of Steifvater’s Tumblr—but the lesson from it has lived with me on-and-off in four bullet journals now. The basic theory is this: before you plan the day, imagine the idealised version of you that’s operating at 100%. The perfect, focused, utterly ready to do all the things version of yourself. Then check in with how you’re feeling right now, and rate your current state as a percentage of that ideal. Or, to put it another way, acknowledge your limits and work with the energy you’ve got, not the energy you wish you had. It’s really easy to resent work when things are off-kilter with your health, whether its physical or mental. Resentment quickly leads to procrastination, which only