Making Time

At the end of last year I decided to put an end to the vicious cycle of guilt, aka New Year’s Resolutions.
Instead, I now want to take some time at the end of December to reflect on things I learned, changed, improved, and to be grateful for any growth the year has yielded.

But I do have some rough ideas on what I want to work on, and one of these areas is being stressed/busy.

Last year, I would race from home to day-care to work to day-care to home, always resolving to take a moment to breathe “once I get to XYZ” (hint: that very rarely happened). Then at the end of the day I expected to magically have all this energy left to work out, paint, clean etc. Of course, by the end of the day I’d then just want to go sleep.
By instead making sure there is time for the things which bring me joy I can build up resilience against the things which stress me.
​
So at the start of the year I made a few changes:

1. I cut caffeine. Not to zero on most days, but to a half cup maximum when I get up.
2. I make use of tiny pockets of time. Tweaking a few things means I have a half-hour between work and day-care pick-up to carefully use. Some days I take a painting bag, some days I take a work-out bag along to work. Other days it will be a book, paperwork, a laptop, etc. I park somewhere quiet and have precious minutes of undisturbed time. Also, blocking the day out on paper to find (or create) those pockets of time means I can plan ahead and make sure there is a little time for all that is important during the week.
3. I accept the bare minimum as good enough. Do I work ‘til late each night on a painting? No. Do I work out each morning? No. Do I take an hour each day to quiet down and read my Bible? No (although I’m working on that one). I make use of whatever time I have and I make sure to do a little of everything. That needs to suffice for now.

So while working through those changes over the past months and figuring out how put them into practice, my husband and I built a car office. And I love it. It is basic, light, flexible and with a few preparations I am free to work, read, paint, draw, write anywhere I can park the car. 

So one little step at the time, this year is about moving into the right direction, toward the goals I would usually put before myself as New Year's Resolutions. Except, there is no pressure to achieve XYZ, to loose XX amount of weight or produce a certain number of paintings. Instead, just by starting out with the changes above, I am creating a routine and those little bits are starting to add up. The one painting I currently complete per week is far more than what I managed last year, while also doing much better mentally.​

"Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important." - Steven Covey