day in and day out i am trying to learn the same lesson. i’ve been trying to learn the lesson since starting at home full time in september and i am still learning it to this day. on any given day, you can accomplish one thing. personally, i am finding that i can start as many things as i want – but i can really only accomplish one thing.
take today for example. after dropping ruby off at nursery school i thought i’d take advantage of the low traffic time at the grocery store and get the shopping done. its a great time to visit the store because, typically, the lady in the express checkout doesn’t mind if you take more than 16 items through the line and this is a key point for me because the double stroller is so freaking wide that it only fits through one lane in the store – the express lane. so i figured i get the shopping done and then get home, put feed arden, get her to sleep and then install the bookshelf in the bunk room that i’ve been building in the basement for the last 2 weeks. by the time i got home, arden was famished. so i didn’t bother to put the groceries away, i just got down to business feeding her. she was fickle today and feeding was slow. she typically likes to sleep after eating, but this morning she was wide awake – so we hung out for 45mins and then she was hungry again. and the whole time, i have the countdown clock running in my head getting closer and closer to the moment i have to leave to pick up ruby. finally arden was went to sleep – i got the tools organized and upstairs. i got the bookshelf upstairs. i found the studs in the wall and that was it. time up. now the bookshelf is in the office and i’m waiting till tomorrow to get it installed. i went grocery shopping instead.
its hard to know how to prioritize the one of many things that you get to accomplish in a day. the bookshelf has been hovering in the top 10 prirority items for a few weeks now and today i tried to bump it up to #1. at the same time, charlotte gave me a pretty nasty look when i told her that we were out of raisin bran this morning (how many 5 year old girls consider raisin bran their favourite cereal???) so going to the grocery store seemed more than worthwhile today.
one thing – that’s all you get. i think that my problem is that i have a hard time being satisfied with just one thing. i want to acheive many things. i want to feel good about myself. i fed the kids, made dinner, took charlotte to swimming lessons, etc. etc. its all in a days work. but that one thing that i wanted to do – i just didn’t get it done today and that has left me feeling a little dissatisfied. it doesn’t matter that we made it through another day fed and safe – it just doesn’t feel like enough.
the funny thing is that i think there is a greater lesson here. especially for my teaching. if i took this approach with my teaching – this idea of setting a single objective for the day and working towards it – then i think i would probably do better. of course many other things need to happen in the day – and they will – but what if i really focused on getting one thing done well. how much more, in the big scheme of things, could i actually achieve???
3 Ginger Snaps 