No one prepares you for how strange it feels to open your laptop after losing someone you love.

Your inbox is full. Deadlines are still ticking. The world keeps moving like nothing happened.

But inside? You're not the same.

A few months ago, I lost someone very close to me, my father. And suddenly, all the systems I’d built to keep things running, task lists, productivity tools, and daily rituals, they all fell apart.

Not because I didn’t care.
But because I couldn’t feel the point of it all.

This post isn’t about productivity hacks. It’s about something more human: what it’s like to try and get back to work when your heart feels broken.

The Fog That Follows

Grief doesn’t show up cleanly. It doesn’t follow a checklist.

Some days, I’d wake up and feel okay. I’d try to work. Open up Figma. Reply to a few messages.

Other days? I couldn’t even open the laptop.
My mind just wandered. I’d forget what I was doing mid-task. Everything felt… pointless.

If you've been through it, you know exactly what I mean.
That quiet fog. That emotional weight that makes even the simplest work feel heavy.

And the worst part?
You want to get back to normal, but your body and brain aren’t cooperating.

The Pressure to “Bounce Back”

As freelancers or founders, we don’t really get time off for grief.
No HR. No formal leave. No "we’ve got you covered."

Clients still expect updates. Projects still move forward.
And somewhere inside, there's this guilt:
"I should be able to handle this. I need to get back to it. I can’t fall behind."

But here’s something I had to learn the hard way:
Grief doesn’t run on a productivity schedule.
You can’t hack your way out of it.
And the more you try to suppress it, the harder it punches back later.

What Helped (A Little)

Nothing fully "fixes" grief.
But a few things helped me slowly find my way back to work without losing myself:

• Lowering the bar
  I stopped expecting full 8-hour days or peak productivity. If I did one meaningful thing a day, like a small task, a quick reply, or a layout tweak, I called that a win.

• Being honest with clients
  I let a few of them know what I was going through. The good ones understood. They didn’t need details, just a little context. And that gave me room to breathe.

• Blocking sacred time
  I carved out 1 to 2 hours a day for deep work. No calls, no messages, no noise. Not to be productive, but to reconnect with what I love about design: solving problems quietly.

• Letting myself care again
  For a while, I felt guilty focusing on work, like I was moving on too fast. But slowly, I realized designing things wasn’t disrespecting my loss. It was healing me, bit by bit.

You Don’t Have to Be Fully “Back”

If you’re going through something similar or ever have, here’s something I wish someone told me:

You don’t need to be back to normal.

You can work and still feel broken.
You can show up inconsistently.
You can care and still feel numb.
That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you real.

And in time, not all at once, but gradually, you’ll notice moments of focus returning.
You’ll feel sparks of creativity again.
Not because you forced it, but because you let yourself heal without a deadline.

Final Thought

Work can wait.
But healing needs space, patience, and a little kindness to yourself.

If you’re in that in-between space right now, grieving, trying to work, feeling stuck, just know this:

You're not alone.
You’re doing better than you think.
And it’s okay if today, you just did one small thing.

That’s more than enough.