Have you ever said this? But after this week…things will slow down a bit. I saw a post on X.com last week that jokingly stated that they finally understood that being adult meant mean saying to yourself every single day “But after this week…things will slow down a bit. And let’s be honest, this resonates doesn’t it? Let’s be honest, most of us feel like we are reeling from crisis to crisis or big event to big event.
Maybe this week you have a project due or a 3 day conference of meetings. That’s ok because after this week, things will slow down a bit. But then next week you have family birthdays and it ends up being pretty full on. But that’s ok, once the birthdays are done, it will slow down. But then you have a holiday coming up, or it is half term and the kids are off school. And then there’s another deadline, another conference. Then it’s Christmas. But that’s ok – In January….things will slow down a bit.
This is how life often feels for all of us. We spend our lives waiting for things to slow down and then, we assure ourselves, we can and we will address the things that really matter.
This is a mistake. This mindset kills our effectiveness. That’s the point of this little piece. Well two points really.
Point 1 – Look further ahead
We spend our lives on the back foot because we only ever engage with what’s next on the list. We leave the future things for our future selves. There is wisdom in this and a Biblical precedent. We are not to be anxious about tomorrow as we have enough trouble today – to paraphrase Matthew 6.
Personally, I do not believe that this verse forbids us from thinking ahead but is more concerned with our heart and our faith in God in the face of uncertainty. I think it is also written to kep us humble, understanding that there is little point in being anxious over the future as we lack the capability to accurately predict how events will unfold.
It is right therefore that our primary focus should be on the things happening today. However, looking ahead, in humility and faith is not inconsistent with this passage. But, looking ahead can often tempt us to anxiety, which is one of the reasons we often don’t
If you look a little further ahead it can be unsettling as you realise that things will never slow down.
Let me say that again and underline it – things will never slow down. There will always be something else coming along on the heels of whatever has our attention right now. There will never be a time when things slow down.
If we reel from one thing to the next without looking further ahead we end up with the following dangers:
- We kid ourselves that at some point in the not too distant future there will come a slower time when we can catch our breath and maybe give time to the important stuff that is never urgent. But we kid ourselves.
- We do not give ourselves opportunity to evaluate commitments before it is too late to do anything about them. So we can never change our plans in order to create times that are slower.
- We cannot be adequately prepared for the commitments that are coming up as we do not think about them until they are the next thing. This often means we have a mad dash to get things sorted, placing us in a constant crisis mode and never having enough time to think about anything other than what is right in front of us.
I could go on.
I suspect the reality for many us is that we are stuck in the cycle here. Because we are always on the back foot, because time and time again we find that we have something urgent coming up that we have to give all our focus to, it leaves us with no felt capacity to look ahead and so the cycle continues.
For some of us, our felt capacity will be 0 but in reality we do have some capacity.
For most of us, we need to break the cycle. We need to take a brief moment to look ahead and cancel something to free up capacity.
Point 2 – there is no time like the present
Many of us simply wait for things to slow down before we are prepared to give any consideration to important but non urgent things. This is a mistake. Things do not slow down. Therefore there is no time like the present.
Sometimes you just have to decide that something is important and GIVE time to it even though you feel you don’t have it. Start something even though you aren’t clear how it’s going to work out. This is true across the board but some common examples would be time given to our family and friends. Relationships rarely register for us as something that needs urgent attention. If it does, we feel like something is seriously wrong. But relationships neglected will die. Giving time to them, when we feel we don’t have energy or capacity is the only way to keep them going.
The same could be true for our health and fitness. The same is true for reading, study and personal development. The same could be true for the business we are wanting to start or the home project or even a work project that will make significant long term improvements that don’t necessarily qualify as immediate/urgent benefits.
If you are waiting for a time to come along when things have slowed down, you will never start, never give time to it.
If it is important, then do it. Start it. Give it time. Give it energy. Give it focus.
I am aware it sounds very much like I am saying “if you find yourself with no capacity and constantly reeling from one commitment to the next, the solution is to add in more commitments.”
I am not saying that. Here is how it all comes together. In our current culture, things will never slow down. Look ahead therefore and make an intentional and proactive decision about what is important and commit to that.
If you are going to spend your life under pressure and reeling from one thing to next – do what you can to make sure they are things that actually matter.
