I
've had a few days off work since my last job finished up, before my next one hits the road. I've been trying to get into the habit of making myself a little to-do list in the morning, and then cranking those suckers out. I always have a couple of things running little anxiety algorithms in the back of my mind, and the little devils tell me that even sitting down to do those things will make me even more anxious. "They're too big, too complicated, you'll just stress yourself out trying, so just ignore them, and they'll go away."
But, of course, nothing's really too bad, and if it is, you just have to break it into smaller pieces until it feels manageable. I do love the feeling of working my way down a good list of tasks -- the trick is making sure the list is actually good, that you're getting to the important things, while simultaneously not overwhelming yourself.
I seem to respond well to lists, which is something I should remember about myself. I think it might have something to do with my bad memory. The general anxiety of forgetting something important eats away at me a lot; and my problems can seem a lot bigger when I can't "see them all at once". Then I write down as complete a list as I can of what I'm trying to do, and it puts it in perspective. I brainstorm in a similar way -- just write, write, write, whatever I can think of related to whatever I need to solve, and it's amazing the progress that can happen.