I’ve been having one of those weeks where everything is happening all at once. Okay, let’s be honest it’s really been this whole month. I’m assuming you know what I’m talking about.
One of those times when work is short-staffed so you’re working more than usual, you have a big event coming up that you’re planning for, you’re trying to fix/declutter/renovate part of your house, and your husband’s health it’s not doing so great.
Somewhere we got this false idea that we should be able to have balance in all of these things. Pretty sure that’s utter crap.
I have a bad habit of creating schedules for myself that look so beautiful on paper but aren’t always realistic in real life. For a while, I’ve been struggling to fit in scripture study, my work schedule, exercising, getting enough sleep, and spending time working on my blog. not to mention quality time with my family. I finally figured out the perfect schedule to fit it all in. It would require me sacrificing one hour of sleep, but I would be able to fit in all of the things!
After a couple of weeks trying to implement it and failing I finally had a perfect week and got it down! Did you know what happened? I was sick for 2 weeks. I was so ticked off that I finally managed to implement my perfect schedule but clearly is too much for my body to physically handle.
After being ticked off for 2 weeks I concluded that something had to give. I was not physically capable of doing all the things, which means I needed to prioritize better and make some hard decisions of what to cut out.
I remember talking to my friend’s mother at her bridal shower about how she was managing everything and appeared so calm because she had her daughter getting married, her other daughter being induced the week after the wedding, and her son coming home from a 2-year foreign mission the week before the wedding. Her response was, “this week I’m focusing on the wedding, next week I’m focusing on the baby.”
She made it sound so simple. And I think that’s what balance is really about. It’s not trying to spend an equal amount on all things all the time. It’s about knowing when to focus on what.
I’ve heard it said that humans can’t actually multitask even though we think we can, we actually just keep swapping from activity to activity. Computers actually work the same way too. They don’t do multiple things at the same time, they just very quickly change from activity to activity, which they are much better at doing than us humans. Rather than trying to do multiple things at once and continually swapping between them, why don’t you actually give yourself some time to focus on one specific thing to make progress on?
I’m sure we could all be using our time more effectively, but sometimes that’s not enough. There are seasons when you need to be more focused on specific things. Like if your husband is going in for surgery, that will probably be on the top of your priority list, meaning other, less important things, will be pushed to the side for later. Your focus will be on surgery prep and recovery, probably not as much on painting your bedroom and not missing a day of exercise. There will always be time later to work on those other things.