What do you do when you feel tired? I mean really tired. When your body is giving in, your thoughts are slowing down, and you cannot find one more ounce of energy to give?
That was me yesterday afternoon.
I left Afrifama at around 4:30 p.m. Normally, I would stay until six or seven, but this time I knew I was done. I had been on a long call the previous night and didn’t get to sleep until around 3 a.m. The next morning, I was up again by 6:30 for an important meeting.
I got through the day somehow. That is the thing about me: when I care deeply about something, my mind stays with it. I keep thinking, planning, working things out. Sometimes I do not notice how tired I am until my body decides for me.
When I got home, I had something light to eat and sat down to work on a budget for the feed plant. I have been trying to build a tool that someone else at Afrifama can use too, whether that is our admin, an accountant, or an investor looking at the numbers. I remember working on it. I do not remember deciding to sleep.
I just blanked out.
And here I am, awake again at 1:01 a.m., looking at what I was doing before I fell asleep. I thought I would sit down and share this with you.
Oh, man. I’ve just spilled my coffee. Give me a moment. Right, I think it will dry.
Where was I?
Yesterday, I was on a call with a colleague and partner. Towards the end, I said I really needed to go home and rest. They reminded me to accept how much I had done and take a moment to recognise the progress.
I knew they were right. I also knew how rarely I do that.
When you are building something, there is always another task waiting. You finish one thing and immediately begin thinking about the next. Even when something goes well, you can move past it so quickly that you barely give yourself time to feel it.
I have been guilty of that. I can look at a day full of work and still think about what I did not finish. I can see how far we have come at Afrifama and, almost in the same breath, start worrying about everything we still need to do.
The drive has helped me build. I would never pretend otherwise. But yesterday, I left work early, came home, opened the budget, and fell asleep without even realising it. I think my body was telling me something I had been putting off hearing.
Perhaps that is also why I have been away from this diary for a few weeks. I spent much of that time travelling across Tanzania for work. I went from Dar es Salaam through Morogoro, Dodoma and Singida, then on towards Arusha and Moshi. I met people, visited suppliers, followed leads, and saw places I am still trying to find the words for.
There is so much I want to tell you about that journey. I remember getting onto the bus and feeling almost as excited as I would have felt boarding a flight. The roads, the countryside, the conversations with people I had never met before—every place seemed to open up another part of the journey.
I came back with information and connections that matter for what we are building at Afrifama. I also came back with stories. Tanzania deserves its own diary entry, probably more than one, and I will get to those.
Tonight, though, I am thinking about something much smaller: going home when I am tired. Letting a good day be a good day, even if there is more to do tomorrow. Perhaps closing the laptop before I fall asleep over it.
I want to make more room for the things I enjoy outside work too. A trip to the seaside. A little time in the gym. Watching Formula 1 and having something to look forward to over the weekend. If you know me, you know I can get carried away talking about a race, so I had better stop there before this becomes a different diary altogether.
I am still learning how to put work down. I suspect I will keep learning for a while. But tonight has reminded me that rest cannot always wait until everything is finished. There will always be another budget, another call, another thing to build.
For now, I think I will deal with this coffee, close my laptop, and get some sleep.
What do you do when you get tired, my friend?