There will always be more work than time.
Summer is winding down at our house.
The back-to-school clothes have been purchased. Somehow, my son is now wearing a men’s medium, which I’m still trying to wrap my head around. School supplies have been gathered, and my daughter is especially excited about her new pencil case.
And as we get ready to shift into a new season, I’ve been reflecting on this summer.
For the first time in a long time, I let summer be a little more about being a mom.
Not that I didn’t work. I did. I traveled, spoke, wrote, planned, answered emails, worked on projects, and kept the wheels moving.
But I also took a couple of hours here and there, right in the middle of a workday, to be with my kids.
And, if I’m being truthful, sometimes I felt guilty about it.
I’m someone who likes to give 110%. To my work. My family. My goals. My commitments. Pretty much anything I decide matters.
So recently, I was talking with a friend about the summer and sharing some of that guilt. I told her about the things I hadn’t gotten to yet and the projects that had moved more slowly than I expected.
She listened and then said:
“Nothing has gone wrong.”
Huh.
Those were exactly the words I needed to hear.
LEADERSHIP: Nothing Has Gone Wrong
There will always be more work than time.
A project with a deadline needs your attention, while six other things sit patiently, or perhaps not-so-patiently, on your list.
A customer issue pops up.
A team member needs you.
A meeting runs long.
Something that was supposed to take 20 minutes takes two hours.
And suddenly, the perfectly prioritized day you imagined looks nothing like the day you actually had.
Nothing has gone wrong.
You made a choice about what needed your attention most.
Sometimes we spend so much energy feeling guilty, frustrated, or stressed about what we aren’t doing that we forget to acknowledge what we are doing.
Prioritization isn’t getting everything done at once. It is deciding what gets your attention right now, knowing something else will have to wait.
That doesn’t mean the other work doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t mean you’re behind.
It doesn’t mean you’ve failed at managing your time.
It simply means you are working within the reality that your time, attention, and capacity are finite.
The work will still be there. You will get to it. And when priorities inevitably shift again, you’ll make another decision about what matters most.
We don’t need to carry guilt, shame, frustration, and stress as extra luggage while we do it.
Sometimes, nothing has gone wrong.
LIFE: The Next Season
With school starting, our house is about to get a whole lot quieter during the day.
And because I work from home, I’m looking forward to those quiet hours.
I’m ready for a productive fall.
Of course, “productive” is relative. There will still be plenty of emails answered, ideas captured, and work accomplished from the front seat of my van while I’m sitting in a parking lot waiting for an evening practice to end. At this point, my van is basically one Wi-Fi connection away from qualifying as a satellite office.
Each year, I do a strategic retreat for myself and my business, and I’m already looking forward to my fall version. There will be Post-it notes everywhere. Goals. Projects. Things I want to learn. Things I want to start doing. And, perhaps most importantly, things I need to stop doing.
I’ll think about the task list, but I’ll also zoom out and think about the bigger strategy. Where am I going? What deserves more of my attention? What can wait? What no longer needs to be done at all?
I want to keep being a prioritization ninja where I can.
A mom where I can.
A wife. A friend. A business owner. A student. A human.
There will be seasons when one of those roles gets a little more of me and another gets a little less. There will be things I don’t get to as quickly as I’d hoped. There will always be another project, another goal, another item on the list.
And when I catch myself believing I should somehow be giving 110% to all of them at the exact same time, I’m going to borrow my friend’s words:
Nothing has gone wrong.
Maybe you need to borrow them, too.
Have Good Ripple Effect,
Lisa