I Give Up... Or Not Really: Overwhelm and the Art of Ruthless Reprioritization
Published: December 28, 2025 - 5 min read
You see, these past few days, I haven't been as productive as I wish to be or as I normally am. Now you may be thinking, Prisca, it's the holidays, no one's meant to be productive around this time, but umm, if you have been following my journey through reading my blog posts, you will understand that "not being productive" can't be in my vocabulary. At least not for now. My family is also not with me, so Christmas season doesn't have its usual charm. But that's just by the way.
The Two Types of Unproductivity I Experience
1. Sitting in Silence
This could be forced when my IBS pain gets really bad and every form of entertainment feels like noise. However, it could also be willful. After a very busy day, I find myself just sitting in silence, processing my thoughts and the many pieces of information I may have consumed that day or week. I also try to entertain myself in my head with positive possibilities of how my life may turn out and sometimes plan my next day in my head or reassess my priorities.
Honestly, a lot happens when I sit in silence, and I actually like this type of "unproductivity."
2. Distracting Myself
This is when I run away from work either by scrolling mindlessly on social media, binge-watching shows, doing everything but work. When I find myself going down this path, my work is not the only thing that is affected. I'm more likely to eat carelessly, avoid physical activity, eat in front of screens, make impulsive purchases, etc.
What's Actually Going On
These past few days, I find myself "Distracting Myself" more and more and not getting as much done as I wish to. I had to pause and check in with myself to figure out what is going on because I didn't feel this way at any point during my SDR Era.
Now, I think I understand what is going on...
I feel overwhelmed.
The Montreal Move
I am about to move to a whole new city, Montreal, and normally, one is supposed to feel excited about that, right? Well, I don't. I'm still scared and I don't really know what to do with that fear. My brain keeps picturing everything that could go wrong instead of things that could go right, and I'm still not sure how to stop my brain from doing that.
The Challenge That Was Born Out of Fear
Then there is the challenge I gave myself to build and sell one product. I think this has been my biggest source of overwhelm.
Upon careful reflection, I think that challenge was born out of fear.
I've done the math and I know that I technically would be fine financially for up to 6 months, and this challenge of positioning myself as a Consultant is only for four months. If it all goes badly, I would have grown in so many ways, that's for sure. But I will also still have 2 months. 60 days to re-strategize.
I've had to pause to remind myself of who I am, particularly how resourceful I am.
Even if somehow some emergency comes up that leaves me with only 3 months from today to figure things out, I am very resourceful. I can rise to any challenge. I can learn skills really quickly. And I can also fall back to old skills like braiding. In moments of pressure, my eyes and brain become acutely aware of hidden opportunities, and I'm able to make something out of nothing.
Why I'm Writing This
So yeah, why am I writing all of this? It's to remind myself.
I need to not make decisions out of fear that will cause me to act unstrategically towards my goals.
Trying to sell the Alex Bennett MCP meant that I would have to reach out to numerous people online, on LinkedIn, asking what their struggles are with posting consistently and then presenting Alex Bennett as a solution. However, I could also simply keep posting consistently, working with Alex Bennett, so that I can have a LinkedIn page myself that acts as proof of what Alex can help any other person do.
It's also very important to me right now that I build strategic and meaningful connections with people on LinkedIn, and texting random people is not the best way to do that. I need to simply engage with the smart people that are showing up on my feed everyday.
The Decision: Dropping the Mental Load
So yeah, I am officially taking off that mental load of selling Alex Bennett to just anyone.
I'm going to focus on sincerely engaging with people on LinkedIn for now and building meaningful connections. I believe a side consequence of this would be truly learning and identifying their problems and then building real solutions that help them solve those problems.
I will continue to further improve Alex Bennett, yes. Like always, I already have ideas to improve him. And when the time is right, I will share him publicly.
I will also use him as my personal gateway to fully understanding MCPs, because I know without a shadow of doubt that Alex is the beginning of many, many great products.
What I Learned About Overwhelm
I have officially identified the feeling of overwhelm as one of my biggest threats to productivity.
The reason I felt overwhelm was because I was not ruthless in reassessing and reprioritizing. This cost me hours that I could have spent learning because my reaction was to avoid the work I was supposed to do. I simply could not decide to drop the unnecessary work.
It's good that I have identified it now.
Now I understand that I really do have to act ruthlessly when making decisions, especially once I notice that they are having a negative effect on my productivity. I have to be able to make decisions quickly but also change my mind as quickly once those decisions seem to not bear their intended fruit.
What's Next
Now, I want to spend the next few days learning as always (my favorite thing), writing too (my favorite thinking mechanism), packing my stuff to prepare for the move (not fun but necessary), researching a bit about how transportation works in Montreal (I'll need to know how to move around before I get there), and most importantly, saying goodbye to the family I have built in Peterborough.
As always, thanks for reading!