Natalie: Work (4 of 72)

Simplify work tasks. Our work day is made up of an endless list of work tasks. If you simply try to knock off all the tasks on your to-do list, you’ll never get everything done, and worse yet, you’ll never get the important stuff done. Focus on the essential tasks and eliminate the rest.

I have been looking forward to posting about the Day Four topic just as much as I have been dreading it. It has been a loooong day! Today was a work day for me and I had hoped to spend some time at work reflecting on today's topic, possibly even putting together a list of tasks and priorities that are "essential" for my job as clinical director and as adjunct professor. Neither of these things happened today.

I started my post by catching up on posts by other 72 ideaists and was inspired by the concept of reacting to the work day as opposed to being proactive about the tasks we take on (thanks Mitch). There is a joke among therapists about what CODs (crisis of the day) or COWs (crisis of the week) your clients bring to session. Often times, clients avoid the deep meaningful work by talking about the most recent crisis so you spend more time putting out fires than actually preventing future fires (not only am I a therapist but I am a client of a therapist who is equally guilty of dragging CODs and COWs to sessions). The point that I am trying to illustrate is that when it comes to work, I often react to the day instead of setting my own agenda.

I may get criticized for saying this but being a mother falls under the category of work especially right now as I feel incredibly challenged by being a mother to a very active, very independent toddler. I find it difficult to focus on what are the essential tasks of being a mother.

-Is it making sure I keep a structured routine?

-Do I plan learning enriched activities?

-What discipline method should I use?

-Should I host a playdate, go to the playground, or just watch Cars for the 500th time?

-Is bathtime that important tonight?

-Should I count how many times I say "no" in a day?

-Does it matter that I cannot get him to eat vegetables or anything today?

-Can we afford an extra day of daycare?

-Should we really even send him to daycare?

-If I lock myself in the bathroom for 5 minutes to cry will he notice that I'm gone?

Many of you are probably thinking why would this psycho even have a kid to begin with? Its a hard job. It is a job I love but on those days when I feel like I suck at it, it makes me feel like if I can't hack this what the hell makes me think I can do any other essential work. I guess sometimes reacting to my professional work (i.e the one that pays me in actual dollar bills) is just a relief.

I enjoy how thought provoking writing these posts has been for me. I find that it has been bringing up more questions than answers at this point. The therapist and artist in me typically loves that there are more questions than answers (I'm also a big fan of the Socratic method) however at this moment I wish I could uncover a very "simple" answer to the myriad of issues I'm struggling with.