Pregnancy Ruined My Productivity

Pregnancy didn’t just bring fatigue—it shattered a productivity system built on tight scheduling. At 33 weeks pregnant, the creator describes an especially brutal first trimester marked by a sudden energy collapse: sleep needs jumped from about seven hours a night to 12–14 hours just to function. Blood tests came back largely normal, and a doctor framed the extreme tiredness as something to endure rather than fix—while she was simultaneously working two jobs.

The strain wasn’t only physical. Heartburn and stomach issues forced her to cut back on coffee, which she says made the fatigue even worse. With no “serious” symptoms on paper, she felt unable to fully explain what was happening, yet daily work demands kept coming. That mismatch—between what productivity usually assumes (steady energy, reliable output) and what pregnancy delivered (unpredictable, overwhelming exhaustion)—became the core problem she wanted to confront.

Her coping approach starts with a blunt shift in mindset: stop treating her condition like a personal failure. Before pregnancy, she relied on strict calendar blocking from roughly 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., scheduling the day almost minute-by-minute. In the first trimester, that structure became impossible, so she replaced it with a simpler daily target system. During a lunch break, she bought a one-day-per-page Moleskine journal and began writing three tasks per day; completing them was enough to feel proud.

She also learned that “tiny” self-care routines were not optional—they were stability tools. Small actions like fixing hair, putting on makeup, dressing, eating, drinking water, stretching, and even making the bed became hard enough that skipping them quickly dragged her mental health down. When she got the green light to work from home around week 10, the lack of morning dressing and makeup made her feel like she was “becoming a slob,” and she describes sliding into depression: caring less about how her day went, spending more time on the couch, and focusing only on minimum obligations.

To reverse that spiral, she built reminders and habits tied to survival needs—like remembering to put on clothes after eating so she wouldn’t fall into a purely passive routine. Once those micro-habits returned, she says her well-being improved noticeably.

She then adjusted expectations and timelines. She stopped secondary or self-imposed deadlines for personal projects, postponing her coaching website launch from summer to December, and temporarily paused other commitments including Patreon posting, promotion, and even Instagram activity for a couple of months. Leisure changed too: reading became difficult, even for an easy book like Atomic Habits, so she leaned into binge-watching Korean dramas for the summer.

Rather than offering a neat productivity hack, she frames the lesson as grace and time-limited permission to slack. She emphasizes that many people experience similar slumps—some from chronic fatigue or illness—and that this stage is not necessarily permanent. The practical takeaway is to reduce commitments, protect mental health with small routines, and treat fewer goals as a strategy for getting through, not proof of inadequacy.