So I have to admit, most days I don’t feel very good at work/life balance. It doesn’t always lean the same way, but I don’t often feel it’s balanced at all. I’m not just talking about a full time 40 hour work week job when I say work. I’m including life maintenance work in this as well. You know, the I am home from a long day at work but I still need to do the dishes, taxes, laundry, and grocery list kind of work. Sometimes I even include anything that involves spending energy under this umbrella of work. I know that’s not really fair since some of these things are not actually work. They are actually hobbies and activities I enjoy doing. Unfortunately, sometimes for me everything, no matter what kind of activity, just becomes another box to check on an ever growing to-do list.

I am really attached to my planner. I enjoy the feeling of control I have when I organize and measure out my life into little time blocks and to-do lists. What I don’t enjoy is the feeling of disappointment and guilt I feel when I don’t actually accomplish said to-do lists. The problem here is my unreasonable expectation for myself to be basically perfect at time management. Actually, scratch that. I think even if I were perfect at time management I still couldn’t accomplish the set of goals I have for myself. The problem is that when I ease up on myself, I then feel guilty at the notion that I possibly could be lazy. Clearly I have some guilt issues, to say the least.

What I’m trying to learn to do better these days is to not take everything so seriously. Work, play, time, sleep, me, you; it’s easy to take any and all of these things so seriously that the joy is lost. Work shouldn’t be miserable. It doesn’t have to be. Hobbies and other fun activities shouldn’t just be mechanical accomplishments on a list. They should be enjoyed.

Life is meant to be enjoyed, right? I sure don’t want to get to the end of it, look back, and realize I didn’t have a good time. Of course that’s not actually going to happen. I love so much, and laugh a lot as well. I just want to try to remember that my value, my worth, my success; none of that is dependent on how much I get done on a given day. Things get done. But maybe, even if they don’t, it just doesn’t matter that much. Sure, I’m still writing a blog post that’s on my to-do list for today, but I’m learning to let go a little. 😉