She downloaded the app with every intention of using it.
But only opened it twice.
The third time was when she was feeling jangled from the meeting she'd just been in, but with three minutes until her next call, she knew she didn't have time to do anything that would calm her.
She scrolled through the app anyway, through the various options.
Who knows, maybe there was something she missed. Maybe there was something she could do in the two-and-a-half minutes she now had.
She scrolled, and scrolled, but there was nothing, so she closed the app and proceeded to log onto her call, so disappointed.
This time, she thought she found it.
Her solution.
But she hadn't.
She needed something to ease her stress, tension, overwhelm, and burnout.
But everything she’d tried took too long.
She tried yoga after her friend told her about it.
The Tuesday at 6 pm class. It was the only one that fit her schedule. But she could only fit in two classes. That was how packed her schedule was.
She tried taking warm baths, scented candles burning in the bathroom, to help her relax. But those only worked when she had some free time during the evening or weekends. Didn't do much when her shoulders were up to her ears, and her belly was tight at two in the afternoon.
She heard from "the experts" -- "Make sure to take some time for yourself." That one always makes her laugh. “Do these people hear themselves?" she thinks. Clearly, they had no idea what her days are like.
She's tried everything.
None worked for more than maybe an hour or two.
That's because all of them required her to leave:
Her desk.
Her calls.
The people who were waiting for her.
And she couldn't.
By the time she could, what was once a level 1 had become a level 10.
That's the problem.
She's still doing her day, still delivering, all while the cost builds.
If the app, class, or bath never fits the moment you need it, I wrote a free guide about exactly that gap. It's called Why You Never Have Time for the Things That Actually Help. It explains why the usual advice is so hard to use in the middle of a workday.
If you want to identify your own stress pattern afterward, the $27 Fast Desk Decoder is a separate, optional next step. It identifies your pattern and includes an audio reset for that pattern.
Written by Karen Bromberg | Fast Desk Reset™