Sometimes life is a balancing act with your priorities and your schedule. It’s funny, people are always saying, “I don’t have enough time to do…” A blogger keyed me in on the idea that it wasn’t about time, but rather about priorities.
What we’re really saying is, I don’t think that is important enough to make part of my day. Imagine it as a list of priorities, and when a friend asks you to go vote for their nonprofit to win a contest (in just a few clicks!), you want to help, but maybe you find it more valuable to finish reading that article on female tropes in video games. For the record, I did both. Maybe you never get to helping your friend, because something else comes up as a good option and inserts itself above the task in your priorities list. The problem that occurs is guilt.
When you want to do something, say ironing, and you have it staring you in the face for a month, taking up space in your bedroom so that you can’t avoid the shame of not doing it, I’m you’re placing unnecessary stress and blame on yourself. It’s not your fault, you just have other priorities that are more important to your overall well-being. You’ll get to it when it’s a more important or pressing issue. Don’t stress about it; you are simply finding the best way to live your life at that exact moment. I should be writing my book rather than writing this blog post right now, but to be able to focus on a book I needed to focus on getting this idea out of my head and into the written word; it was just a higher priority.
Right now, my priorities are my health (exercise, eating well), making my home not feel like a storage room, connecting and helping other entrepreneurs, writing my Kickstarter book, and then dating. There are a ton of other things on my priorities list, but they are all in a clump below these items, and as I remember that it helps me focus and enjoy the time I’m spending each day on the things that not only bring me the most joy, but also hold the largest value for me right now. Maybe it’s short-sighted, but I like to think of it as an opportunity I’m seizing every day.