It is 3:40. LG, who now walks home from school with a friend, will be home in about twenty minutes. I have somehow managed to check off all the items on today's to-do list (including reading ~80 pages in a novel, responding to a grad student's proposal, reading a revise-and-resubmit for a collection I'm editing, doing publicity on upcoming events, and ordering my books for next semester), as well as taken a walk and baked pumpkin-banana bread. I'm not quite sure how it all got done, much less with a few minutes to spare.
I could keep working, plowing away on tomorrow's tasks (or done a bit more to prep for one of my classes or read a thesis-advisee's latest) but why? There will always be more to do. The things that need to be done tomorrow will be done tomorrow. I find myself instead resisting that culture that says DO MORE. Or, as Laura Vanderkam's latest talks about, make use of "time confetti" for meaningful ends.
So when my girl comes home, we will have "LG and Mom Time" before picking up Tiny Boy. The rest of it can wait.
I could keep working, plowing away on tomorrow's tasks (or done a bit more to prep for one of my classes or read a thesis-advisee's latest) but why? There will always be more to do. The things that need to be done tomorrow will be done tomorrow. I find myself instead resisting that culture that says DO MORE. Or, as Laura Vanderkam's latest talks about, make use of "time confetti" for meaningful ends.
So when my girl comes home, we will have "LG and Mom Time" before picking up Tiny Boy. The rest of it can wait.
If you don't let yourself take a break when you get things done early, that just means you'll never let yourself get things done early again (if you're like me).
ReplyDeleteIf I feel like keeping working after I've done my list for the day, I will, but anything additional is just bonus and I can still knock out early and feel extra virtuous.