What Are Your Overheads

I was ordering breakfast - sausage sandwich, flat white, hash brown.

When I realised I couldn’t pay for it.

I was away on a course - a qualification that would guarantee me work for the next year. Stop the bleeding at least. Maybe not fix it, but stop it getting worse.

After a quick confirmation glance at my bank balance, I stepped out of the queue to message my brother.

‘Can you send me a few quid? I’m broke and I need breakfast’

The money came through, and I shuffled away with my food.

We grew up without any money, so I knew what it was like as a kid. But being broke as an adult had slightly different shame attached to it.

The thing about debt is you’re not thinking about it all the time.

I’d think about it every time I had to spend money. Guilt when I bought a coffee out with friends. Fear when I heard a noise from my car engine, knowing I’d never cover a big repair.

But then there were other times - random times - when I’d be fine, doing something completely unrelated, and it would sting out of nowhere.

I’d be watching TV, or walking somewhere, or mid-conversation, and suddenly: ‘You’re fucked. You’re stuck. This isn’t going anywhere’

It would sit in my head for hours.

That’s what debt actually is - not the number in your account, but the loss of mental freedom. The way it can hijack your attention whenever it wants, regardless of what you’re doing or how fine you feel in that moment.

The randomness was way worse than the debt was - The way I couldn’t trust my own head to stay clear.

I genuinely think this experience shaped how I think about productivity and overwhelm, because your brain does very similar things.

If you know there’s tasks hanging over you, or you know there are things you should be doing that you can’t remember or you haven’t captured.

OR you are just plain avoiding.

It’ll hit you every time you go to do something else.

It’ll also randomly bite while you’re not even working.

This is why I’m a big fan of an electronic notes system - the fewer tasks you carry in your head, the more your protect your headspace.