Is What Matters Most Getting Your Leftover Time?

The other night, I climbed into bed exhausted and started thinking about everything I’d done that day.

I’d gone from working on Funderful to volunteering at the senior center to Costco to watering my 35 indoor plants (yes, really) to walking Wrigley, and then remembering it was garbage night.

It had been a very productive day.

There was just one problem: I hadn’t really connected with Joe.

We’d been in the same house, moving around each other and handling whatever needed handling, but I realized I missed him.

That got my attention.

Because none of the things I’d been doing were necessarily unimportant. The dog needs to be walked. The plants have become somewhat demanding now that there are so many of them. Work needs to get done and apparently the city we live in continues to expect us to put our garbage out every week.

But how does someone I love end up getting whatever time and energy are left after everything else?

I’ve done this with myself, too.

A few years ago, while redesigning the website for our mediation business, I completely disappeared into the project. Client work during the day turned into website work at night. I was writing copy, choosing colors and dealing with two different agencies. When stress kept me awake, my brilliant solution was to work more.

I stopped exercising regularly. I barely went outside. My car battery eventually died because I hadn’t driven anywhere enough.

Apparently cars need attention, too.

One night I looked up from my laptop and said, out loud to Wrigley, “This is f-ing bullsh*t.”

She agreed.

The website was supposed to be finished before Christmas so Joe and I could enjoy our staycation. When the project ran behind, I had a choice. I could keep pushing through the holidays or decide that the deadline I had created wasn’t more important than everything I was sacrificing to meet it.

I stopped.

That’s not always easy for me. I like getting things done. I like checking things off. And there’s a certain satisfaction in being able to point to everything I’ve accomplished at the end of a day.

But I’ve become much more interested in what isn’t on the list.

Did I have a real conversation with my husband? Did I move my body? Did I do something I enjoyed? Did I give myself five minutes when I wasn’t working, accomplishing, organizing or taking care of something?

A full day can be filled with worthwhile things and still leave very little room for the people, relationships and parts of ourselves we say matter most.

I don’t think the answer is to abandon our responsibilities and spend our days staring meaningfully into the distance. Costco isn’t going to shop itself.

But every once in a while, I think it’s worth looking at where our time is going and asking:

Is what matters most getting my attention, or just whatever I have left?

That question has stopped me more than once.