Lost in the Hustle: A Week’s Journey
Creating “margin” in your life is impossible if you can’t catch a break or are unable to catch your breath. You have to stop and allow yourself time to think and process. What day do you have to plan? What day is dedicated to thinking and reflecting on how your previous performance can be made better? You are an athlete in your profession and must see yourself that way. “All athletes are disciplined in their training.” [1] How’s your training going? Are you studying the film from your last race? What does your film reveal and what will you adjust for the next game? What will you adjust in your work? When do you think about how you can improve your process? What day do you have for reflecting? When will you improve and become better at what you do? When will you feel like you are in control and not working out of control?
Where did the week go?
If you are like most people, you try to cram all the leftover stuff onto your Friday schedule. Most people continually push off tasks day by day until there is no other day to push it. Monday you pushed a task or two to Tuesday. You abused Wednesday by the tasks you passed from Tuesday. Thursday is so busy because you know Friday is coming. Your time gets away from you on Thursday and you find yourself asking, where did my week go?
By the time the average person gets to Friday, he or she has so much to get done, they simply quit and end up taking it home with them to work on the weekend. This habit of pushing tasks off onto another day, which is called procrastination, creates more work on Friday than you can accomplish in any one given day. I hate to say this, but repeat this with me, I can’t accomplish it all in one day, especially Friday. Stop thinking that you can play catch up on Friday. It’s been attempted by millions of people, some very smart. Only normal people who don’t aspire to grow and become better, a better athlete, continue this cycle. A person who does looks like that hamster you had in the 2nd or 3rd grade. You are spinning endlessly and going nowhere. If you feel like that and if this is hitting home for you, keep reading.
So, what are you to do? I think you only have a couple of choices: (1) take it home with you or (2) define a better alternative to the way you have been working. Review your film and make the adjustments.
Choice 1: Take it home with you.
You can, like the people who look impressively busy, take it home with you. Yes, give up more of your time. Do work you won’t get paid for. Take it home. Pile all that work into your car, just to find out you really don’t have time for it this weekend. Friday night you are tired and just want time for yourself. Saturday, your goal is to do your Saturday activities, or you give those up because you have work to do. Sunday arrives and it feels like you didn’t have a weekend; and before you know it, Monday’s back upon us. And guess what, you still have incomplete work. Taking it home is a choice, but is it really the best choice? No. What I have just described is a typical life with no “margin.”
Choice 2: Define an alternative way to complete the work.
What you need is an alternative and I want to give you one, but it will require some thinking on your behalf. If you are reading this, I know you are a great thinker and besides that, one of my gifts is making a person think. Let’s transform your thinking about this “margin-less” cycle. Realize that you do have a choice, even though it seems like you don’t. In the movie Finding Dory, one lesson expressed was that there is always another way. It may not be the easiest or most obvious, but there is always another way. Easy isn’t the name of the game, desired results are.
Now define your alternate way to complete the work without having to interrupt your Saturday and Sunday. Start by moving all the leftover tasks to Monday, those that won’t create issues for you and those you have permission to move. Now look at what you have remaining. Of those tasks, can they all be done today? If so, let’s get to work. If not, let’s ask for an extension if at all possible. Any tasks you had planned for Friday, ask for permission to move them to Monday. In other words, get the work moved to the appropriate spot using only Monday through Thursday. This way it keeps Friday clean and finishes off any small details so that you can maintain your weekends for yourself.
The attitude you should have all week is how to protect your weekend. Each day you are working so you won’t have any work that carries over. Find an alternate way. Review your film to find the holes where you can make adjustments. There is always a way, if you can believe that there is.
It’s time you learned to protect your weekend, your downtime. Find the alternative you need to accomplish your new work of protecting your weekend.
[1] Luke 6:45 NLT, Bible.com, accessed January 3, 2024, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/LUK.6.45.NLT
All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.
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