{"id":22145,"date":"2026-03-22T00:39:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T23:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/?p=22145"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:59:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:59:30","slug":"daily_4036_-_tunnel_vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/2026\/03\/22\/daily_4036_-_tunnel_vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily: 4036 – tunnel vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

When there’s too much “stuff” going on around me, my executive function just shuts down and I do nothing. It happens mostly when I feel like I have no control over my time. One child wants to be woken so that we can have breakfast together. The other needs lunch to happen at a particular time, and then to be driven somewhere straight after. And then some more in the evening.<\/p>\n

It’s not that it takes up a big part of the day. And it’s not at all that I don’t want to do these things. I am happy that they still prioritize mealtimes with me instead of being away with friends.<\/p>\n

These fixed points spread out through the day chop it up and I feel like it all slips away from me. Then it feels like there’s no point even trying to take any control over the rest of it, and I just let time pass between those moments.<\/p>\n

The mere knowledge that I could be interrupted at any time is almost as bad as actually being interrupted. When the day is over and everyone else has gone to bed and I know that nothing more will happen, that’s when I finally breathe out, look up, and feel like I could actually do something.<\/p>\n

Charles Dickens reputedly felt similarly. “The mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day,” he’s quoted to have written.<\/p>\n

What can I do about this? Make a list. Commit in advance. Remove myself from the situation even for five minutes to get out of the tunnel and clear my head of this illusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When there’s too much “stuff” going on around me, my executive function just shuts down and I do nothing. It happens mostly when I feel like I have no control over my time. One child wants to be woken so that we can have breakfast together. The other needs lunch to happen at a particular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4,768],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dailies","category-observing_the_self","category-photography-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22145"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22149,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22145\/revisions\/22149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}