Do you ever find your approach to organizing your week ends up being the approach you take for your weekend?  During the week, everything I do is according to what time I have to be somewhere, what time I have a conference call or a meeting, and by what time I hope to get to bed at night.  I need less of that on the weekend and get into such a routine of living by a schedule getting away from that on the weekend can be challenging.

I had to travel to Atlanta for work this week.  As I was on my way to the airport to fly home, I was sitting in traffic on 285W thinking living on a timetable can be exhausting.  I spent my day in meetings with an invisible clock looming over my head.  90 minute meeting with one group, 30 minutes for this person, can I afford to eat lunch, 5 minutes with this person and if I leave the office later than 2:30pm I might miss my flight.  I spend a lot of time mentally calculating the minutes as I rotate through meetings and whatnot so I can fit everything in.  As I was sitting in traffic, the clock was still looming.  It kept reminding me traffic was in the way of my perfectly timed return to the airport, rental car return, and the circus that is security at the airport. I was in such a rush I bought a late lunch in the terminal and found myself eating a chicken sandwich that I would probably normally throw out ( waste not want not, what?).  In retrospect, I think cafeteria food would have been better.  I was so hungry and felt I had no time to give thought to anything except getting to the gate.  When the plane finally boarded, I just inserted myself in the boarding line.  Normally my attitude is, everyone will get on the plane so who cares when I get on the plane.  Yesterday, I wanted to sit down so badly and disconnect my brain, I was one of those people who was ready to bum rush the plane.  Living the rat race life for sure.

I woke up this morning and revolted against myself.  My whole week involved a schedule that had nothing to do with me and only what I must do to do my job.  It was wholly exhausting and time consuming.  Usually I push myself out of bed on a Saturday morning to get things done.  Today I stayed in bed till 10:00am because I decided who cares what I need to get done, bed is better.  I resolved to do nothing today requiring an agenda and decided to ignore the clock and my nagging pragmatic self.  What difference does it make if I do not get “stuff” done?  I did, however, decide to do things I have wanted to do all week versus needed to do.  A day of, “oh this is what I WANT to do right now.  Now I WANT to do this.”  Instead of “I need to get this, that, and the other thing done and how do I find the time.”  What I want to do takes very little effort; often anything I need to do is a chore so I opted for “want to do” today.  I find the days when I can ignore the clock that normally chases me to be much more relaxing and perhaps even more productive.  My brain certainly seems to be bouncing around less than it was and the numbing feeling that is created by keeping on top of everything has subsided.  (Maybe numb brain is only unique to me when the brain is on overload; however, I really feel like my brain is frozen sometimes).

I often say my brain is just going to quit on me or move out and find a new home.  I run it ragged.  I am sure many people have the same problem.  My brain must feel like it runs an ultra-marathon every day.  Recently one of my friends said she wishes her brain worked like mine because it is always “working” on something.  Funny thing is, I laughed at that statement and told her my brain is exhausting.  I am not sure if it is enviable!  I suppose it is just another reminder that I have to hit the stop button sometimes and just be less regimented. Do what I want and do what I enjoy; instead of requiring myself to meet timelines or to do things in a specific way every day of the week.  I always try to remind myself: if the words should or have to are part of my day, I am probably doing something as a result of some obligation or requirement either placed upon me by my own doing or something else’s.  I prefer ‘I want to’ because it usually proves to be energizing versus tiring.  And even when ‘I want to’ is tiring, it is usually satisfying and positive.

That said, I want to stop writing now because I want to go to the gym.  I have one place I am going later today that requires adherence to a schedule – the movies.  I can live with that!  Thank you for reading this blog!