We’re all ridiculously busy, trying to work and find time to write, exercising, picking up the kids from school (or teaching them at home), making dinner, reading, taking online classes, spending quality time with our loved ones and significant others, and generally trying to fit 48 or 72 hours of activities into just 24.
… And then we remember, we should probably sleep at some point, too. Ugh.
I am 100% done with the whole “hustle” lifestyle. But even when we’re not intentionally overloading our schedules and stress levels, there is still way too much to do in a day.
Which is why I’m done with days.
I am addicted to achievement. I want to say I’m in recovery, but… I’m still in the acknowledgement phase, and I honestly have no idea how to move past it. My self-worth — and sometimes, I feel, my entire being — is tied up in what I can get done.
On days when I don’t do anything at least halfway meaningful, I feel awful. I get anxious, irritable, and I just feel gross inside. Maybe you can relate.
A few years ago, I found myself butting up against the same problem, day after day — I couldn’t do it all. No matter how I hacked and slashed my schedule, I couldn’t fit in a half-hour shower-and-dash, 1.5 hours for my morning women’s group/coffee with my mentor, 8 hours of work, 1 hour for lunch with a friend, 1 hour for exercise, 1 hour for dinner, 1.5 hours for my writing group, 1.5 hours for a church/board/volunteer meeting/obligation, 1 hour with my husband, and 8 hours of sleep — even though on paper, it all added up to exactly 24 hours (-ish).
Until I realized I forgot to schedule in time for writing. And reading.
Until I realized I also forgot to schedule in traffic, commuting time, email-answering time, unexpected phone calls from my parents, veterinary emergencies, exploding water heaters, clogged toilets, meetings that went way longer than the promised 30 minutes, long lines at the grocery store, time spent crying in the office bathroom, cookouts with my in-laws, hospital visits, watching movies, and just… pretty much anything involving children.
I simply couldn’t do everything I needed to do every day.
But… maybe I could get everything done that I needed to in a week.
Maybe I could reallocate — say, exercise just 3 times a week, write over my lunch break on some days, pay a little extra to get my groceries delivered, cut down on my multiple-hours-a-day volunteer obligations, and apologize to my husband that while I can’t spend any time with him on Tuesday, I do get to spend 4 hours with him on Friday.
I could do everything. I just couldn’t do everything every single day.
I found a certain peace in changing my standard unit of time measurement from days to weeks. There was suddenly margin, and flow. There was compromise, too, and some weight gain, but… that’s life, isn’t it?
How we think about time and what we decide to prioritize and de-prioritize are all under our control. They’re all based on the decisions we make — and fail to make.
We’ll explore schedule-making in more detail next week, but for now, I encourage you to start thinking about what you would like to fit into each week. And don’t forget time for creating. 🙂