Let Time Make Some Decisions for You

The feeling of having time is important to me, maybe too much. In the grand scheme of things, none of us do. But in the everyday, I’m a lot happier when I feel my life and tasks are manageable. I doubt I’m alone in this.

Note this is different from actually getting all your stuff done all the time. When you feel you have enough time, you’re almost bound to squander a good chunk of it away—but in that squandering, we often find joy, and so that might be the whole point of the equation.

If you told me I could either feel stressed the whole time and complete 50 to-dos in a week or feel perfectly relaxed and complete only 25, I would choose the latter every time—even if all tasks were equally important. The former would make me feel as if I’m missing life altogether.

The problem is life doesn’t always give us a choice. Sometimes, it throws many streams of activity at us at the same time, and they all need some degree of attention. Then, we get stuck in a loop: All our time is allocated before we’ve woken up, we just don’t know exactly what it will go to and when.

I’ve never had more of these streams converge at the same time than I do now. This year. This week. This month.

Work itself is one Moby Dick of a task load. Throughout the year, I’m running after 40+ different workstreams across two teams, with the whole department shifting in personnel, responsibilities, and strategic goals. I could work 36 hours a day and still be—or at the very least feel—behind.

I’m the latest for filing my taxes I’ve ever been, but I also need to finish a paid writing gig and prepare for a talk. All the while, I’m selling off a large chunk of my Pokémon collection, which is much needed but yet another ongoing project. Questions are asked, orders are made, and parcels need to be wrapped and shipped. I still haven’t thanked everyone for their wedding presents, let alone prepared thank-you cards. And then, there’s this blog. A handful of essays so close to publication. Around 200 unread emails from readers. Friends to call, website issues to fix, and an apartment to declutter.

You understand this. You’ve felt it. The contents of your activity streams are different, but the outcome is the same: “When will I ever have enough time?” This year, I’m experimenting with being okay with the answer being “Never.” And then allow time to call the shots on some of these meandering paths.

At some point, there’ll be a break. It’ll give you an opportunity to focus on a particular aspect of your life. Maybe you can finally get your blog in order. Really, really clean out your apartment. Or catch up on every message you’ve received from friends and family over the last six months.

But, sooner or later, it’ll be back to “this needs to wait.” And, in the waiting, time will close doors and open others. One project will become moot. Another may grow from its ashes.

It’s hard to sit with the uncertainty. To not know which paths will fall away, and if the sum total of your involvement in any one area will still feel acceptable. But once you accept that, life can be nice even when you’re too busy. You show up every day. You do the best you can in several departments. And at night, you go to bed knowing you haven’t left anything on the table—not in terms of opportunity but in terms of what you’re capable of handling.

Eternity is a mindset. Let time make some decisions for you.