You have the feeling of running behind on everything.
Take this situation apart. Each piece goes in one box: yours, or not yours. There is no third box, and almost nothing falls in one piece.
Yours
- What you commit to and where your attention goes first.Every yes is a no to something else, and the bar you measure “running behind” against was adopted from somewhere. Behind on what, and who set that bar? Often it is not your life you are behind on, but a list.
Not yours
- The pace of others and the inbox that is never empty.The volume coming at you is the times we live in, not a personal verdict. An empty inbox is not a life goal; it fills itself while you watch.
- That another list will be lying there tomorrow.The stream never stops, for anybody; even whoever finishes everything today gets a new delivery tomorrow. That is not a backlog but the shape of modern life. Whoever waits for the day everything is done is waiting for a day that does not exist.
The reasoning. Running behind turns out to be mostly a measuring problem here. Choose your own bar and count your own yeses, and suddenly you are far less behind.
- Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.Seneca
Nearby situations
More on this topic: Time and attention