There’s no time

I can’t do this because it will take too long, and there are so many items on my list. Let’s see if there’s an easier task on there. Oh no, that one looks like it will take focus, and I don’t have focus right now because there are too many items on my list. Oh – that one means I have to go sleuthing for answers in 3 different places, and I can’t spend the time on that because there are too many items on my list. Maybe this one? This means I have to go to the house and the kids will mob me and then I will get distracted, so I better put that off til later when there’s more time.

This was, without verbalizing it, how my morning started off.

I had a massive list, and was overwhelmed by looking at it.

I had no focus. And I had no focus because I let the size of my list turn into discomfort turn into into internal chaos.

Is there really “no time”? Is there really not enough time?

And even if there really is not enough time to get your whole list done, does approaching the day like that help?

Of course not.

So I decided I had plenty of time, and just started at the top of the list, and what do you know, I got through most of it.

There really was more than I could do today¹, but instead of avoiding the whole list (because I couldn’t do the whole list, so it felt like failure just looking at it), I simply did one task at a time, recognizing that I do in fact have time.

And by deciding I had time, I used the time, and now I don’t have the same list for tomorrow.

There is enough time. There is enough time. There is enough time.

It helps to remember that God doesn’t ask you to break the laws of physics. Be at peace.

1. Maybe I can call bullshit on myself here, since I did spend at least an hour on things that weren’t on the list, and wasted some time here and there. I did not use my whole day that well. Even still, I got a lot done. ↩︎