What I noticed when even small things stopped working
I needed to post a reel that morning, at my usual time, but I had nothing prepared. I wasn’t worried — it shouldn’t take too long. Except it didn’t work. The video wouldn’t upload at all, no matter what I did or how long I waited.
I blamed my phone, the internet, the video. I didn’t know what else to do. After trying multiple times throughout the day, I finally gave up, frustrated. The reel didn’t go up.
Later, it occurred to me: what if it was a battery problem? My phone had been low on battery all day. I looked it up. “Could be,” was the answer. When the battery is low, the phone saves energy to keep running, and things like uploading heavy videos simply won’t work.
So that night, before going to sleep, I fully charged my phone. The next morning, I tried again. Same video. Same internet. Same phone. This time, it worked instantly.
Fixing the post solved one problem. The rest of my day, though, still wasn’t working. I kept struggling through my long to-do list until it occurred to me: maybe the issue wasn’t productivity at all. Maybe, like my phone, I was just running on low battery. Lack of sleep. Not eating properly. Still trying to upload heavy things onto my brain and work fast, when all my body could realistically do was survive.
I do this more often than I like to admit. And when something doesn’t work, my instinct is to turn inward and assume it’s a flaw in me: lack of discipline, focus, motivation.
But what if the problem isn’t who we are, but how depleted we are?
Lately, I’ve been paying attention to how often I expect myself to function at full capacity without giving myself the conditions to do so. How quickly I label myself unproductive, unfocused, or behind, without checking whether I’m simply running low.
Maybe you’ve done this too. Tried to “upload heavy files” — big decisions, creative work, emotional processing — while running on low sleep, low fuel, and constant pressure to keep going. And then wondered why everything felt harder than it should.
Not every slow day is a failure. Not every stuck moment means something is wrong with you. Sometimes it just means you’re asking too much of a system that needs a recharge.
What if, before jumping to self-judgment, you paused to ask whether what you need is more pressure — or a little more care?
Because sometimes the most productive thing you can do isn’t pushing harder. It’s plugging yourself back in and trying again tomorrow with a fuller battery.
