Priorities

“Instead of saying ‘I don’t have time’ try saying ‘it’s not a priority’ and see how that feels.”

That’s a good quote. It’s been making its way around the Interwebz recently attached to a meme with a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio.

Leo may have thought that, but the quote didn’t originate with him. If it had he might have made a priority of telling Rose to “move over, the door is big enough for both of us.”

I digress.

And so soon, even.

The quote is actually from an article by Laura Vanderkam titled Are You As Busy As You Think? that appeared in The Wall Street Journal in February of 2012.

I wish I’d read the article then. Actually I wish I’d written the article then.

Vanderkam is the author of 168 Hours and All The Money In The World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting And Spending, neither of which I’ve read and, in full disclosure most likely will not. I’m sure they’re fine works.

But she has a point. We’re not really as busy as we say we are.

No, I’m not going to list my projects again. Nor do I plan to talk about my upcoming busy season…okay, just not exclusively.

Life really is about determining what our priorities are. Much as I wrote last week.

We are all constantly bombarded with information, with requests for money, with requests to get involved, with requests for new projects.

We can’t do it all.

I mean, I’m pretty darned good at juggling projects, but I’m not Superman.

I cannot, and increasingly more and more, will not, try to do everything.

That’s why prioritizing is important.

That’s the other meme that I like “You can’t please everyone. You are not pizza.”

See where I’m going with this?

With regard to my own schedule, let’s just say that some priorities have shifted over the last few weeks and days. Some things that I thought I would be doing I will not be doing.

Sorry to be vaguebooking, but you know I’ll ‘splain that when I can.

As for my other priorities?

I’m trying to do a little better at taking care of myself, my health, our finances, our house. That sort of thing.

I’m trying to make it more of a priority to read more than just Facebook memes…although some of them are pretty good.

And, I’m trying to sort out what the extra projects are beyond that, at least the ones that I can control. Again, more on that at a later date.

So, what’s important in your life?

Are you really that busy? Come on now, how much time did you spend playing Words with Friends this week? Or how much time did you spend with any other distraction?

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes we need those distractions. But it’s important to know the difference between a priority and a distraction.

I suspect if we all could learn that, we’d find that we have more time than we think.

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