When I woke up this morning, here was my aspirational to-do list: Wake up! Enjoy a coffee! Journal! Eat a healthy breakfast! Read something of substance! Do an awesome walk! Wash my hair! Send thoughtful work emails! Do my newsletter! podcast! blog! IG! Coach! Draw! Enjoy time with my son! Make a fabulous dinner! Go to bed rested from a creative day well spent.
Here's what my day actually looked like: Wake up. Alarm didn't go off. Fuck. Where the fuck is the coffee? Scramble to get kid to daycare. Was he wearing pants? Run to shower. Forget to wash hair. Fuck hair. Scramble through emails. Did I eat breakfast? Maybe get this newsletter done. Coach! Spend 45 minutes trying to get my kid to eat sweet potatoes while wearing a protective jumpsuit (very messy business). Realize there is no food in the fridge. Eat a frozen pizza and drink wine from a plastic cup. Fall asleep in front of the TV.
My point: whatever is on your to-do list, I guarantee it is way too fucking much. More importantly, it doesn't account for or respond to the ingredients of your life.
We live in a culture that equates our worth to our productivity. I don't need to tell you this. You likely experience this daily. We make big, booming, aspirational to-do lists of the things we want to accomplish each day. These lists effectively shame us more than empower us. Even if we check every item off our list, the list just keeps growing.
What our to-do lists don't account for however, is what writer Madeleine Dore calls "the ingredients of your life." From Madeleine:
"if so much of how a day unfolds is outside our control, why is it we berate ourselves for not getting through our to-do list? After all, there is a plethora of reasonable reasons why...
Maybe you didn’t do the thing today because of unrealistic expectations
Maybe you didn’t do the thing today because you’re exhausted, unwell, overwhelmed
Maybe you didn’t do the thing today because you needed to be there for someone you love
Maybe you didn’t do the thing today because of the state of the world
Maybe you didn’t do the thing today because life—with all its twists and turns—had other plans ...
When I look closely at these reasonable reasons, what I see is a collection of things that have value beyond what we might see on a to do list—our emotions, our connection to people, our energy, our minds, our bodies are just as important as the things we do. "
Well said.
So, what are the ingredients of your life right now?
For me, a key ingredient (so to speak) is my kid. He is someone I need to create ample space for. I might have a whole work-day scheduled and then he gets sick and I'm no longer available. I have to lower the bar of what I expect from myself or my partner.
Another ingredient of my life is my backyard studio. My studio gives me flexibility when my kid needs me to be more available. My workspace is easy to access when I have 20 minute chunks of time, or in the evenings when he's asleep.
If I tried to keep the schedule and expectations I had of myself a year ago, I wouldn't be responding to the conditions of my life. Instead, I'm trying to work with the ingredients of the moment and design my time accordingly.
Sanity, it seems, requires you to have compassion for the honest circumstances of your life and work with them vs. against them.
