Have you ever noticed how everyone and their dog seems to want to tell you how you can be your most productive self? How the internet is just aching to show you that if you would only ‘follow these seven steps’, you’d have a perfectly clean and artfully decorated home, be fully rested all the time, have amazing family time, solo time, date night, girl’s night, night flight, Herculean might, precognitive sight! Okay, so maybe I got a little carried away, but you know what I mean. You’ve seen those videos on social media when you’ve been doom-scrolling, losing track of time when sitting on the toilet or about to go to sleep. There seems to be endless advice about how to go about achieving the necessary things we need to do each day, how to maximise efficiency, get the most out of every day whilst doing the least! But, does it ever really work for you? Or do you just end up feeling like you’ve failed to do things the ‘right’ way?
I turn forty this year, and my almost four decades on this wonderful Earth of ours has given me a little perspective. A little smidge of perspective. First and foremost, there is no ‘right’ way to go about your day-to-day responsibilities, and there’s no way to fit everything into a day, so don’t even try. It’s so much more important to find the right way for you to do what needs to be done each day, than to follow someone else’s advice! That’s not to say all advice is bad or anything, but that you need to understand yourself and how you work to actually get things done and still be a happy and complete person.
For example. My husband and I have been together for 23 years and we were talking about some things that needed doing around the house, and he mentioned that he knows I work in ‘big bursts’ so knew that the job I was going to do would get done, but pretty much in one big go, rather than small sessions spread out over a few days. Now, he doesn’t work like this with stuff around the house. He’s much more a ‘tidy as you go’ person instead of a ‘make a mess tornado and clean it all in one go’ person like me. We appreciate that we both end up at the same place, but take different paths to get there. And it’s not consistent with everything, either. Back in our university days, I would take multiple sessions of working on an essay to finish it, where as he would sit down and write it all in one go (usually the morning it was due, and still get top marks!). Both methods work, but we wouldn’t want to swap methods!
Likewise, I know about myself at this point, that I can be a bit of a ‘pro-craftinator’. That without a deadline, a lot of my projects take WAY LONGER than they should, because I get caught up in other projects. I could get annoyed at myself for this, or instead I can just understand how I best work. I know that I work best, absolutely best, from ✨inspiration ✨. I’ve always been this way. I’ve never been diligent just because, I’m only diligent when I love what I’m doing! Is it great to be that way? Not always, no.
But in knowing that about myself, that I work in big bursts, or intensely focused because I love what I’m doing, or dropping one project for another because ‘craftspiration’ has struck, I can manage what I take on, and what needs to be done and when.
So this doesn’t become too long winded, what I’m getting at is this. So long as your day-to-day necessities are being met, it’s okay to take whatever path gets you there. It’s okay to work your way. Spend some time thinking about what your way is and how you can make your way work best for you, because it’s a total life-hack when you do!
