You'll Never Get It All Done -- And That's Ok
Finley lends a hand with the laundry
At 20 years old, sitting on a couch in my therapist’s office, I had a heartbreaking realization. I would never, ever “get it all done.” I would never be able to read every single book I wanted to read, or watch every single movie I wanted to watch, or cook every single recipe known to man. It simply was impossible.
For a college sophomore and self-proclaimed perfectionist, this was utterly devastating. Since then (19 years later), I’ve been slowly but surely coming to terms with this difficult truth in a myriad of applications. As life has gotten busier and inevitably more complicated, and I’ve taken on more responsibility, I’ve made relative peace with my never-ending to-do list. I’ve decided that it’s ok to stop reading a book I don’t like, or to not always have the perfect outfits figured out for my body, or to sometimes use canned tomato sauce instead of making my own from scratch (don’t laugh, this is something I actually feel sad about because I LOVE making tomato sauce from scratch).
Baking bread from scratch circa 2021
Now that I’m both a dog mom and a human baby mom, my time is even more stretched. I utterly adore my baby and my dogs, but I also adore my work and my creativity and all the things that have always defined who I am and make me feel like me. If I let go of all of those things, I’m not the person my husband married, I’m not the mom I want to be, and I’m not enjoying the limited amount of time I have on this earth. So how do I decide what is worth my time and what isn’t?
Joy and practice.
Every day of my life I try to find ease and flow in my day. For me this means that while there are things that have to be done that I might not want to do (ahem, dishes), I can pair these tasks with things I love (like watching Gilmore girls on my laptop or listening to Who Weekly? while I do boring chores). I also outsource when I have the resources and desire to do so. I go to an automated car wash instead of washing my own car. Is it a perfect wash? Nope, but it’s good enough. I also don’t really care about washing my car, it doesn’t give me joy. I enjoy the feeling of having a clean car but it doesn’t go beyond that, so I’m perfectly happy paying $15 to let a machine do a C+ job of it.
Multi-tasking with puppies and a computer
Car washes, pedicures, handyman help - these all feel pretty easy and routine because for many of us they aren’t emotionally charged. Most of us don’t feel strongly that we “should” be able to do these things ourselves. But where it gets tricky is tasks inside the house. Cleaning, organizing, childcare, decorating… These are things that, as women, we’re conditioned to believe we need to be good at and we need to do with relatively little help from others. News flash: nothing could be further from the truth. It wasn’t that long ago that we lived in much tighter-knit communities where adults shared a lot of responsibilities of cooking, childcare, and home maintenance. We, as a species, have not evolved to a place where we can do it all without help. It’s biologically, physically impossible, and the sooner we can let go of all of this pressure and expectation, the better.
Time is the great human equalizer. We all have 24 hours a day: a certain amount will be spent sleeping (hopefully), a certain amount will be spent eating and caring for our bodies, and then after that we have to prioritize. Do we make art? Do we go to work? Do we care for our homes? Do we watch our children? Do we travel the world? (Obviously I’m leaving finances out of this thought experiment, but choosing to live a life that costs a certain amount of money is a choice more or less, so in this scenario we can call going to work a “choice” even though I know it often doesn’t feel like that.)
Calligraphy class with my Space Camp team makes me the happiest.
For me, I want to do the following: I want to make art, I want to run my company, I want to be present with my child and my husband and my dogs, I want to cook something new once or twice a week, and I want to travel a few times a year. Here’s what I don’t want to do: learn how to fix anything broken in my house (calling a handyman for that), organize my garage myself (calling my Space Camp team for that), cut my own hair (calling my hairstylist for that), do my own taxes (calling my accountant for that).
This morning I watched this delightful NY Times opinion video that looks at one woman’s perception of what balancing motherhood and art is like, and it made me feel so seen. No one has it all figured out, regardless of what their Instagram feed might look like. We all are making choices every day, walking the tightrope, and doing our best to balance it all. But I do think, in the last 19 years that if I’ve learned anything, it’s that prioritizing joy and making time for the things I want to do creates a domino effect of ease, satisfaction, and most importantly happiness.
Space Camp Baby!
What can you let go of today to make space for what you actually want? Would love to keep the conversation going, leave me a comment or send me an email!