It’s 8.37am and I’m sitting on the train. This is the earliest train I can usually get to work, despite leaving the house at 7.50am, due to having to walk ten minutes in the wrong direction first to drop the boys at breakfast club. My head is banging because I haven’t had enough sleep all week, and I got up extra early this morning to watch Britain’s Got Talent together before school (a promise made after the boys guilted me into it when I said I wasn’t picking them up tonight because I’m getting my hair done).
And now I’m heading into the office where I need to bring energy, enthusiasm and clarity of thought to a series of ten half-hour meetings with slightly different sets of people on slightly different topics. And as I’m writing this in a note on my phone, reminders are popping up telling me to renew the library books and do a shop and order some new pants and do my mam’s power of attorney application and repaint the decking and all manner of things I considered important enough at some point to create a notification for. And I know if that if I open my reminders app there will be about 60 other similar notes, now highlighted in red, reminding me of all the things past me thought I could accomplish but present me just ignored because other equally dull and ultimately unimportant things got in the way.
I’ve got form for being overly ambitious with my to-do lists. I once ended up with a daily planner and three separate notebooks which put different to-dos into categories ranging from work goals to house jobs to personal improvement projects, until one day I realised I didn’t have enough life left even at 28 to achieve them all and just threw them in the recycling without a second glance. If I really want to learn to crochet, I’m sure I’ll remember without referring to list 3 section 1a.
Anyway, back to the moment. I think I’m just wondering how I got here (and how I maybe get out of here?). How so many of us feel like we’re being constantly squeezed from all angles and like there’s never quite enough time to work, do all the chores and have some semblance of a life outside of those things.
I am, of course very lucky to be in this position. To have my family, a great job and a safe home, and to be complaining about having too much to do, none of the things bad in themselves. Billions of people have far harder mornings than the one I’ve just described. Oh what a privilege to worry about when you’re going to find time to repaint the decking, eh? But I think this daily slog transcends socioeconomic boundaries, at least to some extent. It just becomes more of an actual slog the poorer you are, less cushioned by disposable income (or indeed, essential income).
If I fannied about less in the evenings and went to bed earlier, maybe I could get up at 5am and ‘hack my mornings’ or whatever all the influencers are doing, but I’m so tired of trying to optimise myself and my day all the time. And what’s life without a bit of fannying about, anyway? And I could just never meet up with my friends or do anything fun at all in an attempt to stay on top of things, but honestly even just covering basic tasks and doing everything I need to at work, I’d still be drowning. Might as well go down singing.
God — chores, work blah blah blah who cares? I’m boring myself writing this. So many people have it so much worse. I’m going to continue to resist the slog. Create more, consume less, calm down. The never-ending busyness doesn’t serve any of us. It’s not necessary. It’s damaging. I’m trying my best not to let it drag me down. But it’s a struggle.