Clock's ticking....

You ever have one of those days where there just don’t seem to be enough hours to accomplish everything that needs to get done? Where it seems like the time gods are playing silly pranks and making the seconds speed by faster than they normally do?

You’re frustrated and crabby. You’ve hit that point where you’re thinking about just trading it all in. Quitting all the things and starting anew. Maybe you’ll open up a diner in Hawaii. Or become an independently-wealthy-socialite-nighttime-caped-crusader. Found a wizarding school for mystical platypuses! In that moment the world of possibilities opens wide.

Then you remember that you need some start-up capital for these awesome endeavors. And you’re working now, so it only makes sense to stay where you are for the time being until you have the means for your well thought out long term plans. But how are you going to accomplish what needs to be done when you just don’t have enough time? Hmmm….maybe you’ll just chuck it all….just walk from one side of the country to the other.

This vicious cycle continues on and on. And do you know what happens as your mind continues to spin out in every direction?

You take care of all the things you need to get done.

Because there is enough time. Not for everything, true, but for everything important. As of Friday, I am two months out of grad school. If you’d asked me four months ago if I was going to get everything done before graduation, I probably would have punched you in the tooth, laughed maniacally until the sound turned into a scream of desperation and run down the street, waving my arms in the air.

In short, I just didn’t think I had enough time.

I wailed. I gnashed my teeth. I’m pretty sure that Roomie was one complaint away from putting her “roommate alteration” plan into effect. And I wouldn't have blamed her.

But I continued to tear out clumps of my hair as I gremlined through the apartment, with my arms wrapped around my notes on Civil War theater troupes, muttering about “my precious.” And every day I went to work, attended my classes, handed in my papers on time, posted on the blog and continued working on my writing.

Sure, I had to let go of a few things. Like sleep. Or eating things that didn’t come out of a Kraft Macaroni and Cheese box. I’m still catching up on the TV and fun-time reading I had to postpone. But everything that I deemed important got done. And the rest didn’t really need to.

On any given day, we do have enough time. The trick is just to decide what’s essential enough to fill it with.

*And if you sometimes need a reminder of this, the way I do, I suggest checking out this story.