We all do things. All sorts of things. Whether it’s: getting the train to work, making breakfast, watching TV, attending a conference, fighting the world’s injustices or running naked round a baseball field in the rain just for the sheer hell of it*, we all do things every single day and these things are what fill our time. This seems kind of obvious, right? I think it does too as I type it, but the fact is I don’t always recognise the effect all these things have on my productiveness and ultimate happiness. Recently I’ve been working at a new job, I’ve gone from shift work to a full 9-5 office job, it’s great career progress and after a little trouble adjusting I’m really starting enjoy it. The trouble is, I’ve been trying to do everything I was doing before as well as all the new stuff and I’ve reached a crossroads: do it all to an ok standard, or cut down but do it well. Life is a crazy balancing act and it’s important to remember that everything you do literally affects everything you do.**

When you spend 50% of your time on one thing and 50% on another there’s a good balance. Every-time something new comes in these percentages shrink.

But the thing is, with all these things, some take up more room than others – some are bigger and stronger and take dominance over the littler things. ‘Organising your filing cabinet’ and ‘matching up your odd socks’ get pushed out in favour of ‘dealing with family issues’ and ‘catching up on work or homework’. This is okay; this is balance. The trouble is, you control your prioritisation and you might find the important things being pushed out or fight to keep the wrong things in. Pressure from your boss, or your family or your own conscience might have you convinced that everything can (and should) all still fit in your day, your life, and in the front of your brain. In my experience this is when everything starts to crumble – forcing too much in to your everyday can be exhausting and actually less productive than prioritising your key objectives. If you try and squash everything in, everything suffers – your capacity to attempt each item drops significantly.

I mean, look how messy that looks. It’s worth noting that if you have, say, 20h of free time a week, an activity with 1% of that time would leave you with a grand total of 12 minutes. Good luck writing your novel or conquering your fear of heights in 12 minute weekly chunks.

So, my solution is to let things fall out – release strict self criticism and lift pressure on the things that don’t matter so much, I can pick things back up again when there’s room. It works for me and it keeps me moving in the right direction.

The only thing left to do is prioritise – it’s a conscious effort but it pays off in the long term. Your own list will look different depending on your values and real-time goals. Right now I have to prioritise meaningful relationships and feeling confident in my role at work. Blogging, for the moment, is a luxury that exists after everything else.

This doesn’t cover everything, it’s made up of a few uncertain thoughts that sprung from a rare quiet evening, but it’s important to me nonetheless and it’s something I should’ve taken the time to figure out a little while ago – a little careful thought can do wonders for the mind. How do you prioritise your life on the day-to-day? 

*I’m not judging, in fact I admire your audaciousness

**That was an accidental paraphrase of a 13 reasons why quote – I realised after writing this