The pace that works until it doesn't
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Yesterday I filmed a video about a pace that stopped working. That version ran thirty seconds. This is the version where I admit the part that got cut for time.
Here's what actually filled the calendar before I "noticed" anything. Back to back meetings that ran long. A project that needed one more hour than I actually had. A practice. Then another practice. A family birthday party I told myself I'd stay at for twenty minutes and stayed at for two hours, because that's what you do. Nothing about any single yes looked wrong. I have never once looked at a request and thought, this is the one that breaks things. It's only the total that gives it away, and the total does not send a warning first.
I used to think if something felt manageable, it was fine. Manageable and sustainable turned out to be two very different things.
The math doesn't show up until it's due
This is the part I keep relearning. A pace that's unsustainable doesn't announce itself on day one. It works. That's what makes it dangerous. It keeps working right up until the exact moment it stops, and by then you've already built a week, a month, a whole routine on top of it.
Monday I noticed how a single notification could pull me out of a project for thirty minutes without my permission. Saturday I noticed I didn't have a time management problem, I had a giving my time away problem. Different symptoms, same root. Nothing about my calendar was asking anyone's permission before it filled itself in.
Noticing is not the same as fixing
I want to be honest about where this leaves me, because I know how this usually gets written. I noticed the pace. I did not fix it by Tuesday afternoon. Naming a pattern doesn't dissolve it. It just means the next decision gets made with my eyes open instead of on autopilot.
What I am doing is asking the question before my body has to ask it for me. Is this pace actually working, or have I just been letting the calendar decide. Asking it honestly is its own kind of doing something. It's also the only part that's actually in my control today.
I tracked more than my calendar this week. I tracked my evenings too, all of it, including the parts I'm not proud of. What I found didn't look like what I expected going in. I'll walk through it Thursday on my YouTube channel.
every day. on purpose. 🖊️
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