POV: A Haunted House, But It's Just Your Free Hour
Picture this: A spontaneous free hour appears in the middle of your to-do list tsunami of a life.
Your kid's playdate runs long. A meeting gets canceled. Your partner takes the dog out. Suddenly, miraculously, you have sixty unscheduled minutes stretching before you like a gift from the universe.
And you... freeze.
Should you exercise? You've been saying you need to move your body. But wait—you should probably catch up on those emails. Or maybe this is the time to finally watch that marketing course you bought three months ago. Or tackle the laundry mountain. Or meal prep. Or journal. Or actually rest because you're exhausted and isn't self-care supposed to be a priority?
The voices start:
"This is your chance! Don't waste it!"
"You should be using this time productively."
"But you're so tired. Just... rest?"
"How can you rest when there's so much to do?"
"Okay but WHAT should you do? Pick something. Anything. JUST PICK."
And then, like walking through a haunted house where every door opens to reveal another half-finished project, another obligation, another "I really should," you start cycling through your mental catalog of everything you're behind on. The browser tabs of your life. The courses. The systems you tried for two weeks. The unopened books on your nightstand. The texts you haven't returned. The closet that needs organizing. The goals you set in January that are now gathering dust alongside your abandoned sourdough starter.
Forty-five minutes later, you're still deciding. You've looked at your phone seventeen times. You've made coffee and stared out the window. You've opened your laptop and closed it again. You've walked to three different rooms of your house like you're searching for something you can't name.
And then—the hour's gone.
You accomplished nothing. Rested not at all. And now you feel worse than before: exhausted and guilty and confused about why this is so hard.
Welcome to the most common haunted house in modern life: the paralysis of unstructured time in an overscheduled existence.
I work with brilliant, capable people who've spent years building their capacity to do more, achieve more, and optimize more. They're entrepreneurs, parents, creatives, and leaders. Many are neurodivergent. Almost all are overthinkers who've mastered the art of productivity but never learned how to actually stop.
And the thing that brings them to coaching? They're exhausted. Burned out. Their brains feel foggy, they're snapping at people they love, and they can't remember the last time they felt genuinely rested.
There are two distinct versions of this problem, and they need completely different solutions.
The Two Types of Time Paralysis
Type One: The Overwhelmed Optimizer
This is the person who has a million interests, goals, and to-dos swirling around in their head at all times. When they get free time, they want to use it well—they really do—but they can't figure out what "well" even means when there are forty-seven equally urgent and important things competing for attention.
One of my clients (let's call her Maya) described it perfectly: "I have all these pockets of time I worked so hard to create, but when I get them, I just freeze. What do I even DO with free time?"
Maya has ADHD. Her brain wants to do everything. Time blindness says she can do everything. At one point in our session, I heard her say something that stopped me cold: "If I just had an hour... or maybe a day... to get organized, for once, I'd feel more in control. It'd all be okay."
This is what I call the arrival fallacy—the belief that once you reach some future state of organization or completion, then you'll be able to relax. Then you'll have earned it.
But more time isn't the answer.
There will always be more to do than you have time to do it. Always. You could have a year of completely free time and you'd fill it with new projects, courses, and goals faster than you can say "I should probably rest."
The real skill isn't getting better at time management. It's getting better at tolerating the discomfort of knowing that there's time for anything, but not everything.
Your to-do list? It's a menu, not a mandate. You're not going to get through it all. You're not supposed to.
Type Two: The Hypervigilant Achiever
Then there's the person who can pick what to do—they just can't seem to actually relax while doing it. Even when they're "resting," their nervous system is still scanning for threats, running through worst-case scenarios, or mentally cataloging everything that's not getting done.
Another client (we'll call her Lucia) is an Army veteran and mom of tween girls. She came to coaching asking, genuinely confused: "I just... don't know how... to rest, to actually relax. Do other people know how to do this? How do I learn? What's the process?"
For Lucia, rest felt fundamentally unsafe. Her nervous system had been trained for decades that vigilance equals safety. Productivity equals worth. Letting her guard down, even for a few minutes, meant something bad might happen.
Of course she couldn't relax. Her biology was working exactly as designed—just not in a way that served her anymore.
Why This Matters More Than You Think
When you can't rest—whether because you're paralyzed by choice or because your nervous system won't let you—you're running your life on fumes. You might be productive in the short term, but you're also:
Depleting your cognitive reserves (hello, brain fog and memory issues)
Dysregulating your emotions (snapping at your kids, crying over small things)
Compromising your immune system (getting sick more often)
Building resentment toward everything on your plate (cynicism is a hallmark of burnout)
Teaching yourself that you're not trustworthy (every time you promise yourself rest and don't follow through)
The inner critic that drives you to keep producing believes it's keeping you safe. What it's actually doing is creating a toxic environment where sustainable achievement becomes impossible.
Think of it like farming. You can use intense chemicals to force massive yields in the short term, but you'll strip the topsoil and render the land useless for years. Or: gentler, slower cultivation that produces sustainable growth over the long haul.
Your inner critic is the chemical fertilizer. Self-compassion and rest are the sustainable farming practices.
Are You Stuck in Rumination?
Before we go further, let's check in on something that might be eating up your mental energy without you even realizing it: rumination.
Rumination is repetitive, passive thinking about your problems that doesn't move you toward solutions. It's different from productive problem-solving or healthy processing. Research shows that rumination increases depression and anxiety, impairs your ability to make decisions, and keeps you stuck in survival mode.
Ask yourself:
Do I replay the same situations over and over without reaching new insights?
Do I spend significant time thinking "Why me?" or "What did I do wrong?"
Do my thoughts feel like a hamster wheel—lots of activity but no forward movement?
After spending time thinking about my problems, do I feel more stuck rather than clearer?
Do these thought patterns interfere with my sleep, focus, or ability to be present?
Am I spending more than 25% of my waking hours thinking about everything I'm not getting done?
Do I notice physical symptoms (tight chest, clenched jaw, shallow breathing) when these thoughts arise?
If you answered yes to several of these, you're likely ruminating. And that's using enormous amounts of cognitive capacity on thoughts that aren't helping you move forward. Imagine running a computer with 20 programs open in the background—everything else runs slower. That's what rumination does to your brain.
The good news? Rumination is a habit pattern, which means you can learn to interrupt it.
If You're Type One: The Picking Problem
Let's start with the overwhelmed optimizer who can't figure out what to do with free time.
Your core challenge isn't that you have too much to do. You're trying to make every decision perfectly optimized, and you're carrying around the belief that if you just had MORE time or got MORE organized, everything would click into place.
That's not how it works.
Understanding Your Parts
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we talk about different "parts" of ourselves that hold different roles, beliefs, and protective strategies. You've got a part that sounds something like this:
"You'll never finish this. You always start things and never complete them. Your life is a haunted house of unfinished projects. Look at all these browser tabs, all these courses you bought, all these systems you tried for two weeks. You're never going to amount to anything if you can't even pick one thing and stick with it."
That's a part. Not the truth about who you are. A part that learned somewhere along the way that harsh criticism was the only way to motivate you into action.
You might also have:
A part that insists everything is equally important and urgent (genuinely believes that if you don't do ALL the things, something terrible will happen)
An exhausted part that just wants to rest (but every time it speaks up, the critic shuts it down)
A part carrying time optimism (the ADHD brain's beautiful but challenging gift of believing you can do everything)
These parts aren't your enemies. They're trying to protect you. The problem is they're using strategies that worked when you were younger but don't serve you now.
Start With Your Big Rocks
You've probably heard the parable about the professor who brings rocks, pebbles, sand, and water to class. If you pour the sand in first, the big rocks won't fit. But if you put the big rocks in first, everything else finds its way around them.
Your big rocks are the 3-5 things that actually matter most to you. Not the things you think you should care about. Not what would make you look good on social media. The things that, if you did them consistently, would genuinely move you toward the life you want to be living.
For most people I work with, big rocks include:
Moving their body in a way that feels good
Basic maintenance that keeps life running (dishes, laundry, meal prep)
Deep work on their most important project
Quality time with people they love
Sleep
Notice what's NOT on that list: answering every email, taking every course, optimizing every system, achieving inbox zero, or learning the seventeen new skills you bookmarked last month.
The Daily Energy Scan Practice
Here's what works better than elaborate planning systems: a simple daily check-in that takes 90 seconds while you're already doing something else.
Pick an existing habit (brewing coffee, brushing teeth, unloading the dishwasher) and add this quick mental scan:
1. How's my body today?
How did I sleep?
What's my energy level right now?
Any physical tension or soreness?
2. How's my emotional state?
Were there any heavy emotional days recently?
Big stress at work or in relationships?
If yes: your body had a literal workout—today might need to be a rest day so you can come back strong tomorrow
3. What are my 3 big rocks for today?
What genuinely needs to happen?
What will move me toward my goals?
What will help me feel good in my body and relationships?
That's it. No journaling. No elaborate systems. Just a quick scan tied to something you're already doing.
Why this works: Consistency comes from habits, not motivation. You're building a skill. The more you practice this quick check-in, the better you'll get at knowing what you actually need—not what the critic says you should do.
Working With the Critic
When Maya got time to herself, her first question was always "What SHOULD I do?" We changed it to "What do I WANT to do?"
This shift matters because "should" keeps you trapped in external validation and obligation. It's the voice of everyone you've ever tried to please, every expectation you've internalized, every comparison you've made to people who seem to have it all together.
"Want" reconnects you to your actual self. Your values. Your energy. Your body's wisdom about what it needs right now.
When you wake up in the morning and that voice says "You should exercise," pause. Get curious:
Is that true?
Do I want to move my body today?
What kind of movement sounds appealing?
Maybe the question becomes: "When do I get to move my body today?" This reframes exercise from obligation to opportunity. It lowers the bar from "I must do a full workout" to "I get to move in whatever way feels good."
We talked to Maya's critic directly. Not to banish it or fight it, but to thank it and offer it new information:
"I hear what you want me to do. I want that too. Can we do it more gently? Because here's what I know now: I'm going to thrive in gentleness. I'm going to be productive, achieving, and brilliant in gentleness. That's my soil."
The critic and the arrival fallacy work together to keep you perpetually striving. They believe that's what keeps you safe. Your job is to show them, gently and repeatedly, that self-compassion actually produces better results.
Research from Kristin Neff confirms this: self-compassion is associated with more achievement, not less. When you're kind to yourself, you're more motivated to pursue meaningful goals, more resilient when you face setbacks, and more likely to maintain sustainable habits.
Plan for 60-70% Capacity
Whatever you think you can accomplish, cut it by a third.
This goes against everything the productivity culture has taught you, but it's essential. When you plan for 100% capacity, you're not accounting for:
The time you'll spend deciding what to do
The inevitable interruptions
The transition time between tasks
The fact that you're a human with a nervous system that needs regular breaks
Plan for 60-70% of your perceived capacity. Then watch what happens: you'll probably hit it, feel accomplished, and have energy left over.
Practice Generous Exclusion
Every "yes" to something is a "no" to something else. When you say yes to everything, you're actually saying no to focus, depth, and rest.
Generous exclusion means being intentional about what you exclude so you can be fully present for what you include. It's generous to yourself and generous to the things you choose, because they get your full attention rather than scattered energy.
The discomfort of missing out is temporary. The relief of having space is sustaining.
If You're Type Two: The Nervous System Problem
Now let's talk about you, the person whose nervous system interprets rest as danger.
Your challenge is different. You might be able to pick what to do—you've probably got systems and schedules down to a science. But even when you're "off," you're not actually off. Your mind is running. Your shoulders are tense. You're mentally cataloging everything that still needs attention.
This isn't a willpower issue. This is biology.
What Happened to You
Dr. Bruce Perry's work on trauma and the developing brain helps us understand this. Your nervous system developed in response to your environment. If you grew up needing to stay alert to stay safe—whether that was an unstable home, a demanding parent, a chaotic school environment, or something else—your nervous system learned that vigilance keeps you alive.
It's not being difficult. It's doing exactly what it was trained to do.
Bessel van der Kolk's research on how trauma lives in the body shows us that these patterns aren't just mental. They're stored in your nervous system, in your muscles, in the way you breathe and hold tension. You can't think your way out of them. You have to work with your body.
If you've ever tried to "just relax" and found your mind immediately spinning with anxious thoughts, that's your nervous system sounding the alarm: "Hey! You're supposed to be watching out for problems! Get back to work!"
Understanding Your Protective Parts
In IFS terms, you've got parts that are stuck in what Dick Schwartz calls "extreme roles." You might have:
A Manager part that keeps everything organized, controlled, and running smoothly:
Believes if it lets up for even a moment, everything will fall apart
Makes lists, checks things off, stays three steps ahead
Equates productivity with safety
A Firefighter part that jumps in when emotions get too big:
Pushes you to keep working when you're exhausted
Stopping would mean feeling all the feelings you've been avoiding
Exiled parts that hold pain, fear, or shame from earlier experiences:
These are the parts your system is working so hard to protect
They carry the belief that you're not safe, not enough, not allowed to rest until you've proven your worth
These parts aren't bad. They're trying to keep you safe using the best strategies they had available when they formed. But what kept you safe at seven doesn't serve you at thirty-seven.
Your nervous system doesn't know that, though. It's still scanning for danger, still believing that the moment you relax, something bad will happen.
Titration: Building Capacity Slowly
For Lucia, we didn't say "Stop being a tool of the productivity machine! Throw out your to-do list!" She's a former Army officer. That approach would've failed immediately and confirmed her suspicion that rest isn't for people like her.
Instead, we started with 30 seconds.
Before deciding what to do next, she'd:
Put her phone down
Do two physiological sighs (two inhales through the nose, one long exhale through the mouth)
Stare out a window for 30 seconds
No goal. No "I have to think no thoughts!" Just: stare, breathe, exist.
That's it. That's the practice.
You might be thinking: "30 seconds? That's nothing. That won't help."
But the act of pausing, of interrupting the self-reinforcing loop of "productivity equals safety," is profound. You're teaching your nervous system, in the gentlest possible way, that it's okay to let your guard down. That rest isn't a reward you earn after completing your to-do list—it's a requirement for sustainable living.
Will it take hundreds of repetitions to fully retrain your nervous system? Yes. Is that still worth it? Absolutely.
Building Your Window of Tolerance
Van der Kolk talks about how trauma narrows your window of tolerance—the zone where you can handle stress, process emotions, and function well. When you're chronically stressed or burned out, that window shrinks. Small things become huge triggers. You're either completely numb or totally overwhelmed.
Rest expands that window. But you can't force it. You have to build capacity slowly, the way you'd rehab an injury.
Start with those 30-second pauses. When that feels manageable (not easy, just manageable), extend to one minute. Then two. Eventually, you might work up to five minutes of genuine rest without your brain hijacking you back to your task list.
Pair it with somatic practices that help your body feel safe:
Gentle movement (walking, stretching, restorative yoga)
Spending time in nature, even if it's just looking at trees through a window
Creative activities with no goal or output (doodling, humming, playing)
Physical touch (hugging your kids, petting your dog, getting a massage)
These aren't luxuries. They're how you complete the stress cycle and signal safety to your nervous system. (More on this in my post about completing the stress cycle.)
Working With Your Parts
You can talk to these protective parts directly. Thank the Manager for working so hard to keep everything together. Acknowledge that it's been doing this job for a long time and it's exhausted too.
Then offer new information: "I know you're trying to keep me safe. I want that too. What if there's another way to feel safe that doesn't require constant vigilance? Can we try something small together and see what happens?"
When the part that says "Rest is dangerous" pipes up, get curious:
What is it protecting you from?
What does it think will happen if you rest?
Often, there's an exiled part underneath carrying old fears: "If I let my guard down, I'll be hurt / abandoned / criticized / proven worthless."
You don't need to dive into trauma processing on your own. But you can start building a relationship with these parts, thanking them for their service, and gently offering them the truth: you're an adult now. You have resources you didn't have as a child. You can handle things differently.
Challenging the Productivity-Worth Connection
You probably have a deeply held belief that your worth comes from what you produce or achieve. This belief might be running so deep that you don't even recognize it as a belief—it just feels like truth.
It's not.
You are inherently worthy. Full stop. Not because of what you do, but because you exist.
The most successful, accomplished, admired people in the world prioritize rest. Not because they've earned it by finishing their to-do lists. Because rest is part of the work.
Athletes know this. You don't get stronger by working out constantly. You get stronger during recovery, when your body repairs and rebuilds. Push too hard without rest, and you get injured.
Writers know this. Many of the most prolific authors in history had strict boundaries around their working hours and fiercely protected their rest time.
Your brain works the same way. You don't make better decisions, generate more creative ideas, or solve complex problems by grinding harder. You do it by giving your brain space to wander, make connections, and process.
Bringing It All Together
Whether you're Type One, Type Two, or some combination of both, remember this:
Rest is not something you earn. It's how you sustain yourself.
You wouldn't wait until your car runs out of gas to fill up the tank. You wouldn't wait until your phone dies to charge it. So why are you waiting until you're completely depleted to rest?
Usually, it's because you don't trust yourself. You don't trust that you'll get things done if you're not constantly pushing. You don't trust that rest is actually productive. You don't trust that you're enough as you are.
This is where self-compassion becomes radical. Not as a soft, fluffy concept, but as a practical tool. Self-compassion means treating yourself the way you'd treat someone you love who was struggling. It means recognizing that you're not superhuman, that you're doing your best in challenging circumstances, and that you deserve gentleness—especially from yourself.
Your Action Plan
Different recommendations depending on which type resonates more:
If You're Primarily Type One (Overwhelmed Optimizer):
✓ Do the daily energy scan practice
Pick an existing habit (coffee, teeth brushing, dishwasher)
Add 90 seconds: body check, emotional check, identify 3 big rocks
Build the skill through repetition
✓ Ask better questions
Replace "What should I do?" with "What do I want to do?"
Try "When do I get to move my body?" instead of "I should exercise"
✓ Plan for 60-70% capacity
Whatever you think you can accomplish, cut it by a third
Watch what happens to your stress levels and actual achievement
✓ Practice generous exclusion
Give yourself permission to say no to good opportunities so you can say yes to great ones
Remember: the discomfort of missing out is temporary
✓ Work with your inner critic
When it pipes up with "shoulds" and "not enoughs," thank it for trying to keep you safe
Offer it the truth: gentleness is your soil for growth
If You're Primarily Type Two (Hypervigilant Achiever):
✓ Start with 30-second pauses
Between tasks: put phone down, two physiological sighs, stare out window
No goal, no meditation Olympics, just pause
✓ Build gradually
When 30 seconds feels manageable (might take weeks), extend to one minute
Then two
No rush—you're retraining decades of nervous system patterning
✓ Track your capacity, not your productivity
Notice when you feel most regulated vs. most activated
What helps you stay in your window of tolerance?
Do more of that, even if it's not "productive"
✓ Talk to your parts
Get curious about what they're protecting you from
Thank them
Offer them new information about what safety looks like now
✓ Get support
This work is hard to do alone
Consider therapy (especially somatic or IFS therapy), coaching, or support groups focused on burnout recovery
If You're Both:
Start with Type Two strategies. Your nervous system is the foundation. Once you can pause without panic, the Type One strategies will be much more accessible.
You can't make good decisions about what to prioritize when your nervous system is screaming that everything is urgent. Calm the nervous system first. Then practice picking.
Shhh: Time Management Secrets
Time management isn't actually about managing time. It's about managing energy, attention, and your relationship with yourself.
You can't create more hours in the day. But you can completely transform how those hours feel by:
✓ Trusting yourself to pick what matters most
✓ Giving yourself permission to leave things undone
✓ Building a nervous system that can tolerate rest
✓ Treating yourself with the compassion you'd offer someone you love
The goal isn't to become someone who has it all figured out. The goal is to develop a practice of checking in with yourself, honoring what you find, and adjusting accordingly. Some days that means pushing. Some days that means pausing. Both are valid.
Moving Forward
If you're reading this and thinking "This all sounds great, but I have no idea how to actually implement any of it," I get it. Figuring this stuff out on your own is like trying to tickle yourself—it just doesn't work as well.
Working with someone who can see your patterns, reflect them back to you, and help you navigate the resistance that inevitably comes up? That's how real change happens.
You can feel both successful and at ease, I promise. And if you need help, that's what a little coaching is for.
I offer 60-minute focus sessions where we dig into exactly what's keeping you stuck and create a concrete plan for moving forward. No fluff, no generic advice—just tailored strategies for your specific situation.
Further Reading & Resources
On rumination and cognitive patterns:
On self-compassion:
On trauma and the nervous system:
On Internal Family Systems:
More from my blog:
