The point is not to “over-optimize”
Dear reader,
As of this writing, I’m realizing that for the last 4.5 months, my life has felt like a roller coaster.
At the risk of sharing too much, I’ll keep things vague, but know that each of these “things” consumed a significant amount of time, energy and brought a lot of stress.
We’ve had a major, new medical diagnosis in our family, surgeries, major home renovation, a broken water heater right after said home renovation. And in the midst of this, I’m trying to keep momentum going with building this business and sharing ideas I’m very excited about that have been stuck in my head or in a document on my computer for years. All of this on top of my other commitments to my family, friends and community.
I’m not sharing this to say that my life is so hard or harder than anyone else’s. I’m not trying to compare myself to others nor do I wish for others to compare themselves to me. I’m just saying that to me, things have felt really stressful and full.
I often preach the idea that less time spent on Life-Sustaining leaves more time for Life-Building. I try to help people minimize the beast of Life-Sustaining (think laundry, cooking, cleaning, coordinating, etc.) so it’s more manageable (while recognizing that these are very valuable activities!). And yet, over the last 4.5 months a lot of Life-Building activities have been crowded out by just trying to stay afloat. In a way, I feel like a hypocrite for not living what I preach; take time for yourself, pursue interests and hobbies, dive deep into relationships.
Recognizing this and labeling this guilt has given me the courage to confront it and decide for myself that I’m doing the best that I can with the cards I have been dealt recently. There are times when even if you have great systems that usually work for you, things might still feel like they’re falling apart.
And at the same time, I also realize that there has been a lot of value in the work I’ve done to RESET my own Big 3 household systems (cooking, laundry and cleaning). These last 4.5 months would have been more stressful and figuratively painful had I not done the work of right-sizing my circles, eliminating and minimizing, sharing, setting up my environment to make tasks easy and enjoyable and testing out my ideas to figure out what works for me.
But the point is never to “over-optimize” your systems. The point is not to design “the most-perfect laundry system” known to man. The point is not to set personal records on the amount of time it takes you to clean your kitchen at the end of the day.
The point is to find solutions to your pain points and optimize your system in a way that works for you so that it’s less of a drag on your life. Less of a drag so that you have more space for Life-Building in good times and that you can weather the storm in the challenging times.
And I want to say that if you are in the midst of unsettling, disruptive, stressful things in your life right now and it feels like a lot, I see you. If Life-Building feels unattainable and you’re just trying to stay afloat, I see you. And if you’re in a place where you want to take a critical look at your household processes and figure out how to make it a more manageable, smaller part of your life, I see you and want to offer solutions and hope that things can feel easier and more manageable. I have been there, too.
But if that is not you right now, that is okay and I wish you my very, very best. You’re doing your best, whether you realize it or not. Sending you all my love and all of the good vibes I can muster.
- Diana
