Text message from friend “Hey Jo, how are You?”

Sleepy and stressed Jo “All good this end, just busy as ever”

This is my standard response. The movie “I don’t know how she does it” is just a retelling of my life.

Doting parent, challenging career, house to keep. Sometimes I don’t know how I keep my head on straight.

My weekends are filled with the stress of trying to fit everything in. My weekdays are spent looking forward to the weekend so I can try and fit everything in. My dreams are filled with all the things I haven’t managed to fit in.

I am so bloody busy! (s’cuse the swear)

Yesterday I was so busy that I stayed up till 2am playing SIM city for 4 hours, I was so busy that I spent 1hour 37 scrolling through my phone, I was so busy that I had to watch a re-run of Say Yes to the Dress because I’ve already watched them all.

Yesterday I wasn’t busy at all.

Now I have been busy in my life, managing a pub full time (and the rest) whilst completing a law degree at the Open University, that was busy. Single parenting baby twins, whilst commuting 3 hours a day for a full time job, busy. Long hours at work, long commute, kids that still depended on me and training for a 100k walk …… busy.

Right now, this time in my life, I am probably the least busy I have ever been.

So why don’t I feel that way. Why do my days feel like there is never enough time, why do I never seem to get round to all the things I want to do?

At some point over that last 10 years or so my “busy” started dropping off, but my brain never noticed. Instead it filled the gaps with secret time thieves. With Facebook, Instagram and Linked in. Have you ever scrolled through posts you’ve already seen just because nothing new has appeared? I have.

With SIM city, candy crush and online jigsaws. I’ll just have a coffee and 5 minutes on {enter your own vice}. Trust me, it is never just five minutes.

With Say Yes to the Dress, Friends (even though I’ve watched every episode a hundred times), or whatever junk I can find on the TV.

My brain has filled the gaps with rubbish and those sneaky time thieves haven’t been content with their allotted time, oh no, they’ve pushed and wriggled themselves into the dominant position without me even noticing. (Not dissimilar to the way my tiny dog pushes me the edge of my massive bed every night because “she needs her space”).

So am I busy? Yes. I’m busy wasting my time.

I am giving my valuable minutes and hours to things that steal my value and it’s time to stop.

So my new rule, before I do anything I’m asking myself this question “does this add value?”
If the answer is no, then it doesn’t get done.

I’ll be honest, it’s making me twitchy, these cheeky little suckers are not letting go without a fight, but as with any bad habit, the hardest part is in the breaking.

It’s time to get back to being busy. Happy, hectic, value adding, making my life better, busy and I can’t do that whilst entertaining my time thieves.

So wish me luck people, I’m going in!