I remember when I first heard the word “compartmentalize.” In the 2006 movie “The Holiday,” Jude Law’s character was trying to explain how he survived as a working parent, both mother and father, after his wife died. He said, “I’m on some kind of constant overload, and it helps to compartmentalize my life, just until I figure this out.”
Have you ever heard something like this and said, “They’re talking about ME!”
That’s what happened here. I had suddenly discovered a solution for that feeling of overwhelm, and I didn’t know what to call it until I heard that word. Compartmentalizing my thoughts suddenly made so much sense. As much as my brain jumps around, I could use that idea to look at one thing at a time and not try to think about everything at once.
Except that wasn’t the first time I had heard the concept.
I’ve read some articles that referred to this as filling the buckets. Everything has a bucket – a storage compartment – and you divide things into the different buckets to make them easier to deal with. A place for everything and everything in its place. You’ll see this analogy with budgets, closet organization, and a lot of other overwhelming things in life. The prep work is brutal, but once you get a system going, your brain becomes a little less frazzled.
My therapist explained it a different way. I was in there to learn to deal with grief, and she had some great insights for me. Among other things, she encouraged me to segment my day into “okay to cry” and “not okay to cry.” The rule was, “okay to cry” had to be alone time, and during this time, I had to uncork the bottle, turn on the faucet, and let it out as much as possible. Every day, preferably at the same time every day. She said, this way, I was less likely to bubble up and sob at the least little thing at an inappropriate time. And trust me, I am the queen of inappropriate sobbing. It happened so often that over time, I became completely unafraid of crying in public. (“Okay, this is what we’re doing today. Great. Let ‘er fly. I don’t care.”) It took years before I realized that it made people seriously uncomfortable, but I thought, “I can’t help it. I can’t turn this off like a light switch.”
Turns out you can. It takes practice and a little patience with yourself, but you can . . . most days.
Compartmentalizing the rest of your thoughts works a little like that. Scheduling works against the nonsense rhythm of my somewhat fragmented mind – or I have myself convinced that it does – so I try not to do it if at all possible. I hate clocks with a passion – always have. Calendars, however, have saved my brain from total self-destruction. I have a lousy memory, which is frustrating, so adding important things to a calendar has really made a difference in my peace of mind.
Do I always read the alerts on my phone? No. Most of the time, the act of making the calendar entry or the notification alert is enough to trigger my mind. Sometimes it falls apart – I nearly forgot to make time for someone’s funeral the other day. But that wasn’t because it wasn’t important, it was because I didn’t write it down. If you make notes on a calendar – paper or otherwise – you free up that part of your brain to focus on something else, because now you don’t have to remember. You can look at the calendar in the morning and go on with your day instead of wasting time wondering what you should be thinking about and what you’re forgetting and then using that as an excuse to procrastinate or avoid the next big thing.
So now you have your big emotions in one compartment and your important events in another. What’s next? Family? Work? Freaking out? Hobbies? The punching bag? Try inventing a way to compartmentalize your most frequent activities so they don’t trip over each other in your head.
Compartmentalizing your life can get interesting too. For example, I have six categories of Facebook friends. I didn’t necessarily separate them on purpose, but it just worked out that way. My current neighbors don’t know the people I went to high school with, my friends from the bar definitely don’t know my friends from church, and my coworkers have never met my family. It’s pretty rare that these six groups intersect. And in most cases, it’s just as well.
Whether you’re sorting things into imaginary buckets or learning to save the sobbing for the bathroom or that closet you just organized, make time for compartmentalizing your thoughts. Even if those thoughts are running around like a swarm of bees and it feels overwhelming to try to get rid of the overwhelm and you don’t believe it will work, just try. Start by making some notes. You might be surprised at how well your brain cooperates with you after a while.
The Lucky Rebel 