Busyness

Brene Brown says that "crazy busy is an armor." But busyness is also a lot of other things. It is a pace of life, sometimes forced, sometimes chosen. It can be a cover-up. It can be an escape. It can be a badge of honor or a curse of culture. It can become an identity. I think it is always dangerous when we put our identity too much in any one things, so if you are a person, like me, who tends to be busy, maybe even who likes to be busy, here are a few questions to ponder:

Is my busyness stressful or purposeful? Is busyness happening to me, or am I choosing it? There is a big difference between letting our lives get overrun with needless to-dos, and actually choosing to do things because they matter to us.

Am I doing this because of anxiety or because of actual need or want? I can pursue busyness because I am anxious, because I need things to do to escape that anxiety (. (Spoiler alert, busyness just pushes off the anxiety and can make it come back stronger.) I can also end up busy because I have lots of great things to do, I have the energy to do them, and I want to do them.

"Whose house [am I] building and why?" (Frederick & Frederick, 2022) Who does this busyness serve? Does it serve my employer and "the man"? Does it serve me? Does it serve my family? Or is it doing the opposite. The dividends paid by my busyness matter.

Truth be told, I have not gotten my own busyness figured out. Sometimes I am crazy-busy. Sometimes I get close to crazy bored. Intent matters. Thinking about busyness a little more, maybe instead of busy work, might help us all!

References:

Frederick, R., & Frederick, S. (Hosts). (2022, April 19). Designing higher quality time. (no. 256) [Audio podcast episode]. In Fierce Marriage. https://fiercemarriage.com/designing-higher-quality-time

Marriot, S.,, & Kelley, A. (Hosts). (2018, July 19). Challenge Your “Busy” Identity – Gain Consciousness Over Your Pace. (no. 70). [Audio podcast episode]. In Therapist Uncensored. https://therapistuncensored.com/episodes/tu70-challenge-your-busy-identity-gain-consciousness-over-your-pace/

The Stop-Gap Life

It seems like we have been living the stop-gap life for so long. First COVID, and all its shortages. Then school and work and family and all that. It never seems like there is enough time, so I did things part way, half-way, just to get us until the next day. It's not the way I wanted to live.

I have done so many things to prolong the inevitable. I mended holes in socks, only for the socks to get bigger and better holes and still need to be replaced. I portioned out things from the refrigerator so that I knew how many days I can go before I have to go to that other grocery store. I threw together meals from random bits and pieces, just to give myself another day to come up with a meal plan. I hand washed a few pieces of silverware and a plate or two to avoid running the dishwasher for one more day. I said that we should wait until X to do Y. I put a lot of things off. I tried to plug holes that would inevitably eventually open again.

Our stop-gap life has gotten better at times, and worse at times. I am trying now, though, to learn where to stock up and prepare, and where to let things go. It is an elusive balance that lives in the gray, rather than the black-and-whites of life. I envision a day when we won't have to live this life anymore, and to be fair, we have made progress. To really progress, though, I think I have to change my mindset.

There is a time and place for just making ends meet. Eventually, though, I have to slow down, stop, evaluate, pray for God's wisdom, and make a plan. The stop-gap life becomes a vicious cycle unless I do. 

Life Hacks for the Busy Woman

Any busy women out there? I'm raising my hand! Working full-time, especially with a commute can take most of the minutes of the day. Then there's cooking, cleaning, laundry, and the house in general to keep up (at least for the women who like me, still want to fulfill traditional housewife roles). Daily tasks on top of work outside the home can be a lot, so I look for every corner I can cut to save time and still get things done. I have searched for hacks and tips for the busy woman, but have not found many good ones. So I have culled and created my own list. Without further ado, here are a few life hacks I practice to help reduce clutter, free up brain space, and make the most use of precious time.

Kitchen organization:

-Store food in mason jars. Simply pop the jar in the microwave to reheat the food and then send it through the dishwasher. No need to worry about melting plastic, or food absorbing the chemicals from the plastic.

-Recycle plastic condiment lids to cover those mason jars. (I have found that coconut oil and mayonnaise lids are the best so far.) Just one thing, and they go on and off easier than the traditional metal gasket and ring.

-Use old peanut butter jars, or other large plastic jars to store lids. A cascade of lids is no fun and takes a ton of time to clean up. Never fear! An old jar is near to corral all those lids and make for easy access.

-Label an old egg carton and store your hard-boiled eggs there. No use having large bowls to hold eggs, or chasing eggs all over the refrigerator. Simply pop an egg out of the carton, crack on the counter, peel, and go.

(Photo caption: how not to be efficient: explode milk all over the kitchen)

Time Savers:

-Keep a mesh bag on the laundry machine for mask collection. This provides a place for depositing the dirty masks and ensures that they get washed in the next load. Better than chasing masks around the house, or running out (if you're an eco-freak like me and don't purchase disposable masks)!

-Always have a load of laundry started. It may not be best practice, but once I take out one load, I put in detergent for the next one. That allows me to throw clothes in as I go, making it easy to just press a button when the machine is full and ready to run.

-Sort the silverware when you put it in the dishwasher. A hack from America's Test Kitchen, this saves time when unloading the dishwasher. Just empty each compartment into the silverware organizer and voila, done!

-Keep the dishwasher loaded with a detergent pod. One less thing to do when the dishwasher is ready to go. (This ONLY works if you have pre-sealed pods and only if there is a cap for the soap.)

-Batch cook protein. Something I already did, but that got reinforced by a podcast, this provides easy meals when pared with some vegetables and/or grains. It also saves money by reducing need for take-out or pricey prepared foods.

-For that matter, batch whatever you can. Kath Eats has a good post about this. My best friend says not to touch anything more than once, unless you have to. So if I have the mail in hand, I try to open it and deal with it. I chop the carrots for today's lunch and dinner while I have the cutting board out. I wait to fold all the loads of laundry for the day at one time, if I can. Yes, tasks take longer attention in one setting, but then they are done!

-Grocery shop using an app. Forgo the lists and just log things in the app. This has a bonus of helping with budgeting, too!

-Clean by zones. I dust on the days I use all of my hand weights and therefore have a clear surface. I clean the kitchen on cooking day. Why dirty a clean kitchen by cooking, or clean the kitchen only to cook a day later. I literally use one counter for all it's worth, clean it, and then move on. When cooking is done, cleaning is done.

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I'm sure there are more hacks I could list, but you know, I'm busy. Please share any time-, or life-saving hacks you practice in the comments so that we all be more efficient.

What it Means to Wait

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I've endured many seasons of waiting in life, and now I feel that I am in another one: hoping and waiting and wishing for a less stressful, less busy, calmer, easier corona virus free life. I am blessed to be stressed, blessed to be stretched, blessed to have a way to keep working in all this, but I've been so tired.

A friend and I were discussing our careers the other day, about our desires to get to a place where this ministry of helping others to somehow become easier, more sustainable. But then I read in Psalm 38 about waiting. The Spirit impressed upon me that sometimes we wait because the next thing is not here yet, or because we are not ready for it. We long for the future, but yet God calls us to live right now. And then the commentary I listened to on Psalm 40 talked about waiting on God meaning also waiting on God's timing. That convicted me.

If I believe in God's sovereignty, if I believe that God is who He says He is in the Bible, I must wait. I must trust in God's timing. I must be faithful in this season, even if I long for a different one. God is teaching me. God is growing me. May I not forsake the cultivating of life here, even as I long for another one. And may I ultimately long for heaven where I will see Jesus face to face.

Self-Discipline

Remember that post I wrote about my tangled life and getting back to the basics? Yeah, much as I would like to say I've done that, I haven't. When I'm tired and burning out, I really struggle to do what I need to do. I stay up late when I need to sleep. I put off meal prepping when I need to have solid nutrition to get me through my long days. I stay on social media instead of cleaning and organizing. I delay exercise until I have to rush to get it done. I don't make time for Bible reading and devotions. And it becomes a vicious cycle.

I know what I need to do, and I don't do it. There's got to be room for a little grace, but I've also go to have some self discipline. Because if I know what I need to do and I don't do it, I am the only one to blame for the consequences that result.

When Life is Tangled

I've kind of hit a wall in life lately. I'm smiling in this picture, but if you look closely, you'll notice a few things:

-I'm wearing two watches because that's how much I have to keep track of time.
-I'm carrying my lunch box with only a few fingers because I'm also trying to hold my keys.
-All the pockets of my backpack are partly or fully open, and stuff is about to fall out.
-The spiral binding of my notebook has come off and is stuck on a flap of said backpack.

Basically, I'm a mess. And that's my life. When I get to this stage, I need to take a step back. I need to get back to the basics and focus on the essentials:

• Having a consistent sleep schedule.
• Eating regularly.
• Keeping things clean and organized.
• Staying physically active.
• Remaining plugged in to truth (e.g. The Bible, God's Word)

When life gets messy, things get tangled. My priorities get out of whack. I get tired and exhausted and confused and emotional and overwhelmed. But when I get back to the basics, things tend to settle and relax and I can regain some focus. May God give me strength to major on the majors and let the rest of the stuff of life sort itself out.

Crazy-busy

"‘Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us."

~Brene Brown

This quote is perhaps another way to explain where I'm at in life. I've been crazy busy for so long. And now, as life slows a bit, all the emotions are hitting me in the face. I feel lonely. I feel scared. I'm angry. I feel sad. And I find myself trying to fill time instead of feeling. I go on more walks. I take on more projects. I try to sleep more. None of these things are necessarily bad, but they're just other ways I keep myself numb. They're ways I stay a human doing instead of a human being.

What I really need right now is to sit with my feelings, to ask God what He is trying to tell me through them. But I don't want to. Admitting my feelings makes me raw and vulnerable and real. And that's not comfortable, or painless. It's pain-full.

I know God made me a feeling creature for a reason. My emotions help me connect to other people. My emotions help me experience the richness of this world God has made. My emotions remind me that God is God and I need to be still and know Him (Ps 46:10).

So here's to letting down the armor a little bit, to feeling the feels, to trying to enjoy life a little more instead of numbing myself with busyness. Jesus, hold me close.