Today I had a full plate….a ridiculously full plate. And not the yummy kind of full plate of holiday fudge and Christmas cookies (I wish!), I’m talking about the far less pleasant kind of full plate filled with all kinds of must-do’s that were time-sensitive (the worst kind of to-dos). So I dug in and tried multi-tasking a crazy number of things at once today in an attempt to try making a dent in my plate full of to-dos, which had seemed like a great plan at the start of the day….until I tried it. Let’s just say I won’t be attempting to do level of multi-tasking again anytime soon…way too stressful.
Then while I was in the middle of the mayhem my daughter called me to ask for some advice on something. I spent the next few hours talking with her, which probably sounds stressful given how overwhelmed I already was today, but it wasn’t. Being able to help my daughter with something important to her like that brought me tremendous JOY! As she and I finished talking I heard the pitter patter of little feet running toward me as my Grandson yelled out “Grandma…Grandma…I’m here!” As my two little grandkids pummeled me with hugs there was no thought of the full plate of todos. There was just absolute JOY!
The bottom line is I only got about 5% of what I needed to get done completed today, but that time with my daughter this afternoon and that time with my grandkids tonight reminded me what brings me the most JOY in life – it’s time with my family.
I’ve learned a lot of important things this month, one of which is how important it is for me to take a good hard look at all that’s on my plate and make some adjustments going forward so I always have plenty of room on my plate for my family.
Free up enough space on your plate for JOY!
~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life” )
1 Comment
Some very sage words! For me, FAMILY is #1 & we do not have a fantasy-perfect TV movie kind of situation, but the love is real & priceless. Thanks for sharing your personal
story & giving important perspective to “the list.”