Even when you aren't getting anything "done" in it, this moment is important enough to focus on.
Wow! Tons of great comments in yesterday’s post about doing fewer things–and doing them better. It seems like the topic really touched a nerve, and similar themes have been on a lot of our minds lately. In today’s do-lots-of-stuff-all-the-time culture, I find it encouraging that so many of us are trying to pave our own paths instead of following along with what seems to be a “look how busy I am!” standard.
The conversation sparked a few questions along the lines of: “But HOW, in the face of societal pressure, limited time, unlimited options or just plain uncertainty, do you do fewer things, better?”
Good questions! How “do fewer things better” looks will be different for everyone, of course. No matter what, I’m always going to be an big-thinking, ideas-driven person who likes to be pretty busy, with several pots burbling on the stove at once. That’s just me, and I can’t stop being me–nor do I want to. We all have different family backgrounds and values that shape our lives. There’s no formula. But I started thinking of two over-arching themes that have been running through my mind lately, and they seem to work together to help me do fewer things, better:
1) Learn to say “This is enough”
2) Know what needs to be done–and do that first
Yesterday I mentioned Brene Brown’s powerful speech about authenticity, vulnerability and “being enough.” One of my biggest struggles with feeling like I am enough is that I don’t always feel like I’m doing enough. Here’s an example of how even a small moment can lead to a feeling of conflict and anxiety:
Every morning after breakfast, my 22-month-old daughter, Clara, gets to watch a cartoon or two while I deal with breakfast dishes, get out of my bathrobe, and get my day really off the ground. This morning, as I fired up Netflix, Clara started tossing out names of her favorite shows. “Caillou! Kipper! Wonder Pets!”
Artfully dodging Caillou this time around I hovered over the search box. “Kipper or Wonder Pets?” I quizzed my very communicative, but sometimes indecisive, daughter.
“Kipper! Or Wonder Pets!” she joyfully cried.
I tried another tactic. “Kipper?”
Silence.
“Wonder Pets?”
Silence.
“Kipper.”
Silence. By this point I was starting to feel anxious and annoyed. The entire exchange thus far had taken about 30 seconds, but it was starting to feel like I’d been held captive there. You know, trapped. Like a prisoner. Beneath my warm, soft, sweet-smelling almost-baby. The horror!
“Okay, I guess it’s Wonder Pets, then,” I said impatiently, holding the iPad with one hand, pecking the words into the search box with the other as she squirmed in excitement.
W-O-N-D-E-R-P–oh shoot, I forgot the space, delete delete–P-E-X-argggh-delete-T-S-
Just as I was close to hitting “send,” Clara suddenly, tardily, made up her mind to the contrary.
“KIPPER!” she squealed, clapping and bouncing. “Arrrrrrrrghgghgg!” I groaned. Delete delete delete delete delete. K-I-P-P-E-R. Press play. Settle her amid the pillows.
Clara’s happy, and after this epic two-minute ordeal, I’m free. Free!
Free to…do the dishes.
Ahem.
Kids can be maddeningly slow and indecisive, and much of our time is spent in-between: driving them somewhere, picking them up; waiting for them to finish lunch so we can rinse the plate, waiting for them to spit out that sentence so we can get them whatever the heck it is they want. I think moments like the one I experienced with Clara are frustrating because they feel transitory. We aren’t really doing anything; nothing much is happening, they don’t really count. We just see them as a transition to something else.
But I think these small moments actually serve as a powerful way to practice “doing fewer things, and doing them better.” Because every moment of your life counts, and every moment has the potential to be improved on. Not perfected. Just done…a little better.
So I’ve been working on doing just one thing at a time, and reminding myself while it’s happening that yes–this–whatever “this” happens to be right now–is enough.
Waiting with my daughter while she slowwwly decides what program she’d like to watch?
Just sitting is enough. And I could do it so much better than this anxious, hurried interrogation: try savoring the way she feels in my lap, nuzzle her soft hair, marvel over how quickly she’s learning to tell me what she wants, how cool it is that she has her own opinions about things.
Tempted to do the incredibly dangerous, yet often seductive act of checking email or texts while driving?
Just driving is enough. And I could do it better than my usual barely-awake, routine, autopilot method: how about taking a moment to notice the cars around me, the condition of the road, check my speed. Maybe take a moment to adjust the mirrors and make sure there are no flashing lights or alerts on the panel in front of me. Driving–even routine, slow driving–is a huge responsibility. How often do we invest the focus and attention to do it well?
Focusing on one thing at a time is not easy, and you can’t really “cure” your desire for “something else-ness”, especially when constant connection via technology makes it seem so easy. And there’s no perfect work-life-personal balance you can achieve that will suddenly make ambivalence, anxiety, or temptation to distract yourself or take on too much go away.
Instead, learning to say and believe “this is enough” is a practice, like meditating or learning to play the piano: you just keep showing up, taking stock of what your brain is doing, and trying to bring your attention back to the task at hand again and again and again. We still struggle–I know I do, every single hour–but the more we do it, especially with the little things, the more natural it begins to feel to quiet the mind and focus. And the easier it gets to take the same attitude to the big things.
Tomorrow I’m going to be posting about another thing my “Do Fewer Things, Do Them Better” motto is teaching me: Know what needs to be done–and do it. This is often different from what we think needs to be done, or what happens to be sitting in front of us, or what everybody else is doing, or what would be the easiest to do. But only by identifying what really needs to be done can we figure out what doesn‘t, and pare down the excess.
Edited: My third post in this series is here: Dream, Discern, Do What Matters: 3 Steps to living the life you want.
I can’t wait to continue this discussion with all of you, and hear your thoughts in the comments!
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Meagan,
You. <3
Thank you for writing this. What a great reminder and lesson. xo
(giggling over skipping over Caillou)
Thank you, Meagan. It is the practice of living in the now, isn’t it. What do we teach our kids when we hurry around like automatons, prioritizing time over connection with our kids and families? Just yesterday, I (read: not my daughter) was running late to get her to preschool. Futzing around doing very important nothings, I looked up at the clock, and we had twenty minutes to get both of us dressed, in the car, and to school on time. I started immediately prioritizing the steps: teeth brushing top of the list, but hair… could we get away with it. And my teeth could wait – I just won’t speak or smile. What garbage. In the end, she and I laughed all the way to the car about how mommy gets so frazzled for no reason. We were 15 minutes late to school, and she said to me, “well, at least we made it mommy in one piece and happy” (out of the genius mouths of babes). So, I am on board with this “do fewer things better”. I want her to learn to prioritize love, connection, compassion, service, and truth, over time, anger, looks, and cutting corners. I feel my horizon opening.
Meagan,
Thank you for e-mailing me this link to your follow-up! I truly love your writing and am now subscribing. I’m dealing with a bit of a rough patch in this journey of motherhood & am trying to slow down and take time for me, to focus on being a better me so that in turn I can be a better mommy. I enjoy reading your blog and knowing that just enough is enough.
Thank you,
Kristi
This is great – I just watched Brene Brown’s talk last night so this is very much on my mind. I agree so much with your points here. So often the temptation to do more or be more efficient or something else as silly as that just results in everything being done poorly. What a loss.
Yes! Yes! Yes! To get to looking at the picture this way takes a big leap of faith for a generation that has grown up thinking we could do (and have) it all. But here’s what I’ve learned in just a few short months of thinking this way: It takes practice and constant mindfulness. One has to build in some internal checks and balances that make us stop and do what is right in front of us.
P.S I’ve been taking an e-course with Brené about The Gifts of Imperfection. I cannot express enough how much I’ve learned from her.
I think we- as women, moms and businesses- tend to take pride in our ability to multi-task (surely that’s not just me?). And sometimes it is necessary. But the reminder to slow down, to remember that we are enough… So important. Loved this. (But really, really can’t stand Caillou.)
Excellent post and reminder as I watch a show with my daughter and read and tweet and pet the dog!
Love this. I need to slow down.
I also need to see what is really important and what I can cut out.
I think another big part of this is saying no when it’s not the right thing….And making your yes actually mean yes. Learning to say no is hard, but once you are done…..life is so much more focused on the now.
Beautiful. “This is enough” is a marvelous mantra, and I’m already using it. Because frankly, right now the first part of your mantra is the one I need to be listening to: Do fewer things. I’m not even going to worry yet about doing things better.
Have you heard of Indra’s Net? It is an idea that has been extraordinarily helpful to me at times when I have felt completely overwhelmed. The basic idea is that if all things are interdependent, by taking care of just one thing at a time, I am taking care of the entire catastrophe.
Thank you, Meagan.
We are home schoolers and my daughter had to memorize a poem for language class this year that really lines up with this idea. I recite it to myself often… the lines that stuck with me are “Work while you work, play while you play. This is the way to be happy each day. All that you do, do with your might. Things done by halves are never done right.” I am not always successful at this but I’m working on it!
Excellent original and follow-up post. I love it when you give me something to mull over.