Gressing

My friend @scaevolae recently suggested introducing the word gress into the language of work. To gress is to chug along, slog through, spin wheels, feel like you’re spending all of your time working but without directionality. Add in the prefixes pro or re and you have a vector that indicates something is happening, but gressing on its own is without movement.

Now that I’ve been working for myself for about six months I notice my work pulses between periods of gress (it’s a noun too!) and progress, with necessary spurts of regress. I’m amazed at how much progress can happen in a single day after four days of slogging gress. I think my mind needs the gress time (what’s up, adjective!) in order to allow things to stew. It could also be that when a deadline isn’t pressed in front of my face I can’t possibly get something done early.

I sit here now, gressing, wishing I could add just a little bit of pro, and wishing even harder for some e.