Or so I'm coming to realise. It's a really strange feeling to wake up one day and realise that you haven't done everything you planned on doing, and it's only because you created such a feeling of being busy, that you didn't find the time for it.
Let's take a look at my life for a moment. (Oh shush! I know it's boring.)
I work from 8:00 to 16:30 during the week. These are hours that aren't available to me. An extra hour spent getting to work and then coming home brings me to 9.5 hours that are ostensibly "lost" to the necessity that is work.
On Mondays I have music lessons at 17:30 to 18:30. (This is a fairly new development and one which I don't in any way begrudge.)
The rest of the week, I normally spend the first half hour at home feeding the animals and trying to decide what I want for supper.
After that, it's time to study or practice music, and if I'm lucky, I'll find the energy to set up my laptop and write. If not, I tend to write on my phone.
I resigned from my Saturday job in order to have more time. So Saturdays and Sundays are generally spent round the house, doing laundry for the week ahead, and just generally vegging out, with some assignments and studying thrown in.
Generally speaking, I have a lot of time available to me.
So why is it that I never seem to get round to everything I want to do?
The answer is simple: I tell myself I'm busy. I spend hours telling the entire world, and reinforcing in my own mind, that I'm hectically busy and just don't have time for everything. And while there may be quite a lot of activity in my life (work, writing, music, friends, readings, studies, dog training etc.), none of these things take up ALL of my time. There are complete hours spent doing nothing that somehow get overlooked.
The thing is, I don't mind doing nothing. It's my way of relaxing and de-stressing and basically giving myself "me" time.
What does bother me is the things I feel I should be doing instead of nothing. And the only reason I'm not doing them, is because I'm "busy". Thinking about the things I should be doing while doing nothing instead. (Does anyone else have a headache?)
What is the solution?
First off, I'm going to stop telling myself and the rest of the world that I'm so busy. Time is a state of mind, or so I've always thought, and I'm going to create an endless amount of time to do the things I want to do.
Secondly, I'm going to prioritize. There are things I want to do that need to wait until I've finished current projects. And there are things that can't wait (like cleaning my room). Those will take precedence over everything else and I will try not to get distracted by the keyboard, or writing, or training the dogs until they're done.
The third thing I will do, is to stop telling myself that I hate doing things like cleaning my room. All I'm doing is reinforcing the idea that the mess is necessary because cleaning is worse than the clutter. And let's face it, a clean room feels a lot better than a messy one and is a lot more pleasant to spend time doing nothing in anyway.
Finally, I'm going to give myself permission to do nothing. Everyone needs time out. So when I feel that I need to relax, because I'm tired of doing something, then I will veg out for as long as necessary, content in the knowledge that everything I needed to do, is done and the rest can wait.
And hopefully, I won't ever be too busy to do nothing.
No comments:
Post a Comment