Do you ever find yourself trying to accomplish so much that life leaves you feeling a little dizzy? You're spinning madly, trying to do more and more and more, all the while stretching ever thinner.
It's tempting to try to cram as much as we can into our bucket o' life, but the reality is, when it's full, something has to give. Something is going to spill over the side. That might be our relationships, our health, the quality of our work, some other adverse effect (or a combination of all of the above).
Over on Self-Help Daily, a post on accomplishing more by doing less got me thinking about a time in my own life when I was addicted to the high-energy pace of the 70-hour work week lifestyle. I wanted to think the volume of my bucket was bigger than most, but the truth was that it was sloshing over the sides at every turn.
One day a friend sat me down and said, "Curt, you're trying to do everything, and you're not doing anything well." Not what I wanted to hear, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was true.
I ended up making a list of all the things I had on my plate and forced myself to prioritize them. I divided my life into two-week segments and assigned tasks to the current segment, then the next, and so on.
Then, when I was tempted to try to do this, and this, and this, oh, and THIS TOO, I could say, "That would be nice, but it's not time for that yet." I was able to focus on a smaller range of tasks and do them better.
How could your life benefit by prioritizing and living it one chunk at a time?
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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst
This makes perfect sense. I think with the way things are now in the world many people are trying to do many things to make ends meet.
Posted by: Land Job | March 05, 2009 at 09:18 AM
What about doing nothing as an option? I think doing nothing is underrated, as is doodling the time away (laurelcaseytime.com)
I am personally sick of being "cheerleaded" into performing like a circus animal.
Posted by: laurel | March 05, 2009 at 12:56 PM
Land Job, that's definitely a challenge when it's a question of making ends meet.
Laurel, no argument here. I'm a big fan of doodling the time away, at least on occasion.
Posted by: Curt Rosengren | March 05, 2009 at 01:55 PM