Miriam Mogilevsky, LISW

08/25/2021

Read this if you feel like you suck at using to-do lists or getting things done.

"The mere act of making a to-do list relieves so much itchy stress that it can, paradoxically, reduce the pressure to actually get stuff done. “People feel that when they put all their tasks somewhere, they’ve already done most of the work,” Perchik says. But it’s an illusion. The pile of work is still there.

More than a pile! If you feel adrift on a turbulent sea of unmanageable tasks, that might be because there is objectively more expected of us. By one estimate, work hours for those with college degrees went up about 7 percent between 1980 and 2016. Got a graduate degree? For you it went up more than 9 percent. And quite apart from one’s paid toil, there’s been an increase in social work—all the messaging and posts and social media garden-tending that the philosopher and technologist Ian Bogost calls “hyperemployment.”

(We could snap the lens open even wider and have a fuller reckoning with capitalism. Focusing on our individual ability to tread water—with apps and lists—can look like a bleak exercise in blaming the victim, when in reality the only solution is not better apps but non-hideous workloads, debt relief, and a saner landscape of civic care. Frankly, if you took “managing grotesquely useless and bloodsucking for-profit health insurance” off people’s to-do lists, it would remove one remarkably stressful item, as my Canadian upbringing compels me to suggest. But I’m writing this particular article from within the belly of the whale, as it were.)

[...] To-do lists are, in the American imagination, a curiously moral type of software. Nobody opens Google Docs or PowerPoint thinking “This will make me a better person.” But with to-do apps, that ambition is front and center....With to-do apps, we are attempting nothing less than to craft a superior version of ourselves. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that when we fail, the moods run so black.

[...] This is the black-metal nature of task management: Every single time you write down a task for yourself, you are deciding how to spend a few crucial moments of the most nonrenewable resource you possess: your life. Every to-do list is, ultimately, about death. (“Dost thou love life?” wrote Ben Franklin. “Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”)

I began to suspect that this is the truly deep, arterial source of some of the emotions around to-do lists. The people who make to-do apps agreed with me. “What is this class of software supposed to do?” asks Patel, the creator of Workflowy, rhetorically. “It’s supposed to answer the question ‘What should I do right now in order to accomplish all of my life goals?’ The most scarce resource many of us have is time.”"

You want to be productive. Software wants to help. But even with a glut of tools claiming to make us all into taskmasters, we almost never master our tasks.

04/16/2020

I made this for Instagram and figured I'd share it here too! Here's the blog post: https://www.miriammogilevsky.me/blog/circlesofcontrol

10/24/2019

Starting (over) with a new therapist can be difficult. Here are some suggestions for both clients and therapists to make it a little easier.

There are a lot of barriers to accessing mental healthcare--money, stigma, scheduling, finding competent professionals. There's all kinds of work being done to address these barriers. (For instance, I'm listed in the Open Path Psychotherapy Collective directory, which helps people find therapist

09/03/2019

My newest article for Healthline is all about conquering our worst embarrassing memories!

"Think of your most embarrassing memory — the one that unwittingly pops into your head when you’re trying to fall asleep or about to head out to a social event. Or the one that makes you want to grab your past self by the shoulders and exclaim, “Why?!”

Got one? (I do, but I’m not sharing!)

Now, imagine if you could disarm this memory. Instead of making you cringe or want to hide under the covers, you’ll just smile or even laugh at it, or at least be at peace with it.

No, I haven’t invented a sci-fi memory deletion device. This approach is much cheaper and probably less dangerous."

Mortified? It happens. Here’s how to unpack your most embarrassing moments.

08/29/2019

Many of my clients struggle with getting what they need out of their medical appointments--and I've been there. That's why I'm writing this "Self-Advocacy 101" series on Healthline. I hope it helps you!

"We often walk into the exam room with the best of intentions to lay out our symptoms in detail and ask everything we need to ask. But faced with an authoritative professional who’s clearly trying to get out of there ASAP, it’s easy to break down and revert to passivity: “Oh, no, that’s all I needed, thanks so much! See you next time!”

Doctors don’t always realize how their rushed demeanor affects their patients’ comfort level, not to mention their medical outcomes. Even when they do get it, the restrictions and requirements that insurance companies and managed care organizations place on doctors often leave them powerless to give us more face time with them.

Learning how to make the most of short appointments is one of the most important medical self-advocacy skills you’ll ever learn — even though it really sucks it’s one we have to use."

“I’m sitting in my paper gown, alone, realizing that I never even asked half my questions and have no idea if I’m supposed to get any more tests done.”

07/30/2019

Where is the lie though?

07/13/2019

We wholeheartedly agree with this article from Nonprofit AF; all job listings should include the salary range for the position. It’s honest, it’s a smart hiring practice, and it’s a step to reducing discrimination in the workplace.

https://nonprofitaf.com/2015/06/when-you-dont-disclose-salary-range-on-a-job-posting-a-unicorn-loses-its-wings/

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Image caption: text based image that reads, “All job listings should include the salary range”

07/08/2019

Open Path Psychotherapy Collective is an amazing service that links folks who need therapy at a sliding scale with therapists willing to provide it. Here's my profile on their site! If you or anyone you know lives in Ohio, needs therapy, and doesn't have health insurance, take a look.

Miriam Mogilevsky is a Clinical Social Worker Therapist in Columbus, OH; Miriam Mogilevsky specializes in Adjusting to Change / Life Transitions, Adjustment to College, Adult, Anxiety, Asperger

06/26/2019

This insight from Dr. Christa Santangelo, a clinical psychologist who works with children and families, rings so true and echoes something I often tell my own clients. Suppressing our emotions isn't just unhelpful in the long term--it can actively make things worse.

This quote comes from Dr. Santangelo's excellent book about parenting teenagers, "A New Theory of Teenagers: Seven Transformational Strategies to Empower You and Your Teen."