For me, it usually starts with an overly ambitious to-do list and the Sunday night blues. My approach to the one: dogged white knuckle determination to conquer. My approach to the other? Red wine. And popcorn. Together.
Neither of the approaches is particularly successful and usually, by mid-week, there is panic, rushing, yelling, and the feeling like everything is spinning out of control. But there is no need to reach for a productivity book or download yet another to do list app (Yessss, I see you!)! Believe me, that is about as useful to me as watching a youtube clip on calibrating your oven temperature (yes, apparently that’s a thing). Here is my ninja action plan when I feel the to-do-list tsunami heading my way on a Monday:
Ask the difficult questions: Are you overcommitted? If the answer is yes, the next question is why? Is it FOMO? Do you equal worth to productivity (shamefaced as I write this!). Ok, so here is the reality check: Time is a finite thing, we are not able to create more of it and in fact, God deemed the amount we got to be sufficient. So if you are constantly trying to fit more into your day ask yourself why that is? Lack of discipline in what you say yes or no to? Does busyness help you hide from a calling God has given you or a truth you’d like to avoid? Ride the elevator all the way to the bottom floor where your heart/ your ego is pulling the strings and gain some insight into those brutal motivations. Without that no productivity strategy or mantra will help you change.
Stop kidding yourself about what is achievable and learn to prioritize: Just because you wrote it down doesn’t mean it’s achievable! #truthbomb. I know, you are only writing it down because it gives you a sense of control right? I know because I do it too. Learn to prioritize. Our overconnected world with pings and notifications make it seem like everything belongs in the urgent & important box and that it all requires your immediate attention. It doesn’t. If prioritization is hard for you, ask a friend or your husband or accountability partner to help you. Nothing focusses your priorities like sharing your very-ridiculous-God-complex-to-do-list with someone and getting a once-removed perspective (once they stop laughing in your face!) on what truly are the important things to accomplish in a day!
Check your truth: Our to-do list, our children’s schedule, our expectations of ourselves, just like every other action and conviction in our lives, stems from what we believe. Have you ever measured the truth your actions are based on, against the truth of God’s word? We may say with our mouths certain things that we believe, but based on the fruit that I see in my life and the lives of 99.9% of woman I know, what we actually believe is that we can and should have it all, do it all, be the be-all-and-end-all for everyone, and do it in a Pinterest perfect way that also seems effortless in order to gain the admiration from the outside world. Have you checked any of those convictions against what God actually says? If it’s true that we live according to what we believe, then maybe it’s time for a new belief?
Shorten your list: Stop sneering I am serious. There is a huge school of thought dedicated to the idea of a 3 item to-do list, a TODAY list if you will, that helps you prioritise (i.e identify what’s most important), focus (i.e not waste time on trivial to do’s just for the sake of the sense of achievement you get when you crossed it off the list) and gives you a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day because it’s supremely achievable and speaks to more long-term goals. A shorter list will revolutionize your productivity whether you are a stay at home mom, and exec, or someone who works from home or part-time because it clarifies and simplifies every day’s priorities.
Guard your peace: Like it’s a cash in transit van in the UAE. Like it’s the last glass of bubbly at a kiddies party. Busyness is one of the ways the devil can consistently distract us from God’s fingerprints in our lives.
There is a constant concatenation of spiritual events manifesting in your everyday life that you could miss if you don’t lay down your plans and pick up the light yoke offered by the One who is actually in charge here.
Honey listen, it’s not the circumstances that are overwhelming, everyone is busy. It’s the perspective that we should be getting to everything, the conviction that we should be making it look easy and have it all under control, that is the thing that truly wears women out. It’s the lies we believe that we use as a jump-off point that is the thing that actually snookers us.
If we release our desire to control it all and do it all and be it all, repent of the idea that we actually can and should, the fear we experience in being overwhelmed and the frustration we experience every time even the smallest thing threaten the precarious balance of our schedule, will go away.
Between being a time management expert, a fitness guru and clean food aficionado, a work-life balance genius and actually having it all the expectation of women today is ridiculous. Because with every new idea or strategy about what we should do or be, comes the accusation and implication of what we are not. So we find ourselves in a constant cycle of shame for which there truly is no basis. I hope this coming week you will be able to make a decision of the will to resist being overwhelmed by clinging more tightly to the truth about who God is than the lies about who you are supposed to be according to the world.