It was just firewood.
Ten bags. Twenty kilos each. Delivered to the house when we need it because we’re moving into winter in George and the fireplace heats the home.
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I told myself I’d order it. Then something else grabbed my attention. The thought stayed open until later that day, when I saw the fireplace again.
That should’ve been a five-minute task. Order the wood. Pay the money. Wait for the delivery. Done.
I finally put the order in Thursday morning. Friday came and they hadn’t responded. Now they can’t deliver until Monday.
We can pick some up from the store if we need to. Everything’s fine. It’s the kind of thing I’m talking about though. A five-minute task became another errand because I didn’t handle it when it first came into my head.
That’s how something small can turn into something annoying. More steps. More time. One more thing in a day that already had enough.
I saw the pile getting low and felt annoyed. The firewood itself was small. I was annoyed because it reminded me of all the other things I might be forgetting.
There’s always more than I can hold in my head right now. Visa stuff. Home stuff. Money stuff. Sponsor stuff. Flexara stuff. Ostomy supplies. Content. Email. Paperwork. Follow-ups. Calls. All the little things that go into keeping a house running. All the little things I need to do to get a business off the ground. All the little things that make me feel like I’m either on top of my life or slowly drowning in it.
I can handle unfinished things. I have a harder time with unknown things.
That’s what I’ve been learning this week.
A lot of open loops can wait. Some of them should wait. The stress comes when I don’t know where they are. When they’re loose and bouncing around my head, then something jogs my memory, it makes me realize this is a pretty untrustworthy system. Forgetting one thing makes me wonder about everything else I’m forgetting.
None of those thoughts help me do better work. They take energy before the day has even started.
And this is what I’ve realized it all comes down to.
Energy.
Since my proctectomy, the pain is better. I’m grateful for that. For a long time, pain was one of the main things I managed. Deep pelvic pain. Fistula pain. Abscess pain. Drain pain. The pain of sitting, walking, flying, competing, and honestly, just living in this body that always seemed to break down.
It’s so nice to not constantly be worrying about that now.
The fatigue has become a new worry.
The Crohn’s fatigue is still there, and on many days it feels like I have good energy to start with, but then it quickly drops off a cliff when I start actually doing stuff.
With my body no longer being in unrelenting pain, part of me expects more from it. I’m out of the worst pain, so I want that to mean I’m back to full capacity.
It doesn’t feel that simple.
I’m not on biologics right now, and I like that. I like being off heavy medication. I like being away from the side effects and the mental weight that came with needing those drugs. I also wonder if there’s a way to solve the chronic fatigue that still comes with Crohn’s.
I hope there is.
For now, I’m managing the best I can.
That means my energy has to be protected on purpose.
I don’t have much room for sloppy.
I can still do a lot, which is part of what makes this tricky for me. I can work, create, train, send emails, take calls, build Flexara, film content, and push through the tired feeling while telling myself it’s fine. For a while, it looks like I’m getting away with it.
Then it catches up somewhere else.
My body feels it. My mood feels it. The version of me that shows up at home feels it.
I don’t want to keep repeating that.
I’m newly married. I’m in a new country. I’m building a home here. I’m trying to learn Afrikaans. I’m trying to build Flexara. I’m trying to create short-term income through partnerships while building a long-term business asset. I’m trying to take care of my health. I’m trying to become a better partner than some of my old patterns would let me be.
That takes capacity.
A relationship takes capacity. Conflict takes capacity.
I used to shy away from conflict. Big time. I thought avoiding it kept things calm. I’ve learned that avoiding conflict usually buries things. Then resentment gets room to grow.
Conflict is required. I believe that now. I don’t always like it. I don’t always feel good at it. I still have old patterns that show up. Being in a new place with a new life doesn’t mean I left myself behind.
My patterns came with me.
Marriage requires energy and enough mental space to listen. It requires enough emotional room to stay present. It requires enough energy to keep working on the things that strengthen a bond after the work is finished.
If I burn through all of that on email, sponsor outreach, Flexara tasks, content, and a hundred open loops I never wrote down, I should expect to have less available for the rest of my life.
I’m trying to change that.
Therapy this week was about stress and overwhelm. It was also about the fact that I knew I needed to change something, then didn’t do a great job changing it the week before.
That’s annoying to admit because I can usually explain the problem pretty well. I know the pattern. I can talk through it. I can see how too many open loops make me scattered, tired, reactive, and less sharp.
Knowing the pattern doesn’t mean I’ve solved it.
The last few mornings, I’ve been doing a complete brain dump on paper.
Nothing fancy. No app. No tracker. No dashboard. No productivity system I spent three hours building so I could avoid doing the actual work.
A notebook.
I’m being very analog and caveman right now because that’s what’s working.
I write down everything that feels open. Then I put it into three categories.
Life. Money. Create.
Life is the stuff that keeps me grounded, healthy, supplied, and somewhat functional.
Miracle Morning goes there. That’s the morning routine from Hal Elrod’s book. I’ve done it off and on for years. When I’m the best version of myself, I’m usually doing some version of it. It’s how I check in with myself, get grounded, and remind myself there’s a future I’m trying to build that I still feel excited about.
One hundred kettlebell swings go there.
Studying Afrikaans goes there, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
Firewood goes there.
Ostomy supplies go there.
All of the basic parts of life that have to be taken care of.
Money is short-term income and long-term Flexara work.
Sponsor outreach. Brand deals. Potential partnerships. Replies to people I’ve already been talking to. Packaging. Testing. Website. Email. Product development. The things that create income now and the things that build the business I want Flexara to become.
I’m okay financially right now, and I’m grateful for that. I still put pressure on myself because I want to build something that becomes the engine of my income. I want Flexara to be that. I want a real business asset that gives me more freedom with my time, energy, and resources.
The short-term reality is that Flexara will take money before it gives money back. Inventory. Packaging. Testing. Samples. The money that comes in from brand deals and partnerships matters because I don’t want to pull too much from the business too early.
That’s where I start telling myself a story that sounds responsible.
If I were crushing it financially, I wouldn’t feel like this.
So I need to work more until I get there.
That story sounds true when I’m scared.
The problem is that the more I work from that place, the worse I tend to work. I get mentally stressed. I get overwhelmed. I get physically tired. The fatigue gets heavier. My mind is less sharp. I’m technically working longer and getting less useful work done.
That’s hard for me to accept because I still have a part of me that trusts pressure more than peace.
Create is the third category.
That’s anything I’m bringing into the world that doesn’t exist yet.
Record three reels.
Write the first draft of The Short List.
Create the Flexara packaging guideline.
Build the Flexara waitlist page.
Connect it to an email provider.
Write something. Film something. Build something. Move an idea out of my head and into the world.
Once everything is out, I pick the few things from each category that would make the day feel good if I completed them.
That’s the part that’s helped the most.
A good day means I know what belongs to today and what’s allowed to wait.
I’m used to letting the whole list judge the day. If there are fifty open loops and I close eight, the remaining forty-two still have a way of making the day feel unfinished.
This week, I’ve been trying to give the day a smaller job.
Here are the things that matter today.
Do them.
Stop.
Yesterday, I stopped at 2 p.m.
Some days that might be 5 p.m. Some days it might be earlier. I don’t think the time matters as much as the agreement I made with myself in the morning.
I wrote down what would make the day count. I did the work. Then I stopped.
The strange part is that stopping didn’t make me feel lazy.
It made me feel clear.
I could go outside and chip balls in the backyard with our dog. I could go to the shop with Danélle. I could be there without quietly thinking about the thing I should be doing instead.
That’s the part I want more of.
Presence without the guilt tax.
I don’t always get that. A lot of the time, when I’m doing something fun or normal, my head is still at work. I’m with my wife and part of me is doing sponsor math in the background. That’s a miserable way to live. It also doesn’t make me better.
When I stop at the right time, manage my energy better, and work when I’m physically and mentally sharper, I get more done in less time. I do better work. I’m less scattered. I’m less resentful. I’m less likely to turn a five-minute task into another loose end that follows me around for three days.
I know the notebook isn’t the final version.
At some point, I’ll need a better place for the open loops to live. A loose-leaf notebook probably isn’t the long-term home for everything I need to track.
I also know myself.
I can take a thing that’s working and ruin it by trying to optimize it too early. I’ll create a tracker. Then categories inside the tracker. Then a better view of the categories. Then I’ll start thinking about whether the view is the right view. The system becomes the project and the original problem is still sitting there.
So right now, I’m staying with the ugly version because the ugly version works.
Write it down.
Pick the few things that matter today.
Do them.
Stop.
That’s enough structure for now.
The goal is to stop asking my brain to hold everything.
My brain is good for a lot of things. It’s a terrible storage unit.
When too much lives there, everything starts to feel urgent. The firewood. The email. The sponsor follow-up. The ostomy supplies. The half-built page. The idea I don’t want to lose. The message I meant to answer. The errand I told myself I’d handle.
Once those things have a place, they feel different.
They’re still unfinished. They’re just no longer unknown.
That’s the difference I’m trying to protect.
I’m trying to clear my head because my life needs more from me than work.
I want to have something left at the end of the day for the people and the life I came here for.
-rn
P.S. For the ostomates here, Stealth Belt has become part of my daily routine as I’m training, traveling, or just trying to have one less thing to think about with my bag. I don’t think any product removes the planning that comes with an ostomy, but good support gear can make the day feel a little less mentally loud. I even wear it to bed. It only comes off when I shower.
You can check them out here: Stealth Belt - Ostomy Support Wear
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