What Tasks Can You Let Go Of?
Burnout Recovery: Week 2
In last week’s thread, I asked you what you want more of in your life. But of course, we can’t just keep adding more and more things to our schedules. I know, because I’ve tried — many, many, many times — to do this in my own life, and it’s only led to burnout. (And guilt.)
This is, of course, one of the reasons that the self-care movement has gotten such a bad rap. Self-care has been heralded by some as the “cure” to burnout, but this framing puts all the responsibility (and blame) onto the people experiencing it, ignoring the many structural factors that contribute to it. And when we give burned out people more to do, we’re only going to make them more stressed out (or make them feel guilty for not being able to accomplish it all).
And yet. Ideally, yes, we should be making space in our lives for the things we love. So how do we do this? By freeing up space. By cutting other, more annoying things from our endless to-do lists.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m crazy. That there’s no wiggle room at all. All the tasks on your plate are non-negotiable.
I get it. And maybe that’s true! But maybe it’s not. I just finished Annie Duke’s wonderful book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, and I’m going to share a few of my favorite insights in tomorrow’s newsletter. But one key theme is that we are all subject to cognitive biases and distortions that make us believe that we can’t quit things, or change course, or live our lives differently, when in fact, we can.
So today I want you to think about the things you do that you don’t love, and reflect on what you could tweak or eliminate to create space for the things you want to be doing. Maybe you don’t need to make your bed every day. Perhaps you can teach your kids to do the laundry so you can do one less load every week. Maybe you don’t have to bake banana bread every time you have spoiling overripe bananas. These are all things I’ve recently let go of, and boy, I’m never looking back.
What do you think you could let go of over the next year? What doesn’t absolutely have to be done (or at least, not by you)? Share in the comments!
I’m excited to hear your ideas — and be inspired by them.
I’m going to try to let go of baking every weekend. I’ve been batch baking muffins/cookies/insert mini snack here for my kid to take to school every week. I think it made me feel like a “good mom” knowing not everything he was eating for lunch/snack was store bought (I find making school lunches stressful and exhausting). But most of the time he doesn’t eat what I bake and I find myself getting ragey when I open his lunch box at the end of the day to find yet another not eaten baked treat. And what started off as something fun to do on the weekend - I actually used to love to bake - has become a chore. I want baking to be fun again.
My therapist said to me years ago something that changed my life. "Lisa, when there is a hard way or an easy way. Take the easy way. Find every opportunity to do that." For me, that means: buying things rather than cooking or baking for school functions or potluck parties, donating money, if I can, rather than my time, retiring from chaperoning and driving for field trips (I did it every single time from kinder-4th. I did my time!), asking for and accepting help instead of being a martyr, lowering my standards in general, and buying frozen veggies. I try to remind myself what Anne Lamott said in Operating Instructions, "I was 35 before someone told me that a B+ was a good grade." Shooting for B's these day.