As I repeated in earlier blogs, I've been transfixed by Oliver Burkeman's book Meditations for Mortals.
I bought It on Hardback to have beside my bed, listened to an audiobook (I love his voice), rewind, play again, rewind, play again.
I was particularly taken by the paragraph in the book's early stages where he talks about the British lady Buddhist who discusses her style of coaching people who are troubled.
Instead of helping them carry their troubles, she tries to show them that they are, in fact, so heavy that they cannot carry them and have to put them down.
This is an old concept from Christianity about laying down your burden, but nonetheless, it seems more relevant today than it has been for a long time.
One of the difficulties we all have is that we now live in a world of infinite task lists and to-dos. So we sit at the start of the day hoping to get through things, and then we get to the end of the day not getting through what we thought or feeling insufficient because we haven't achieved enough quality outcomes to justify our existence.
We move past the situation of thinking that spending time with friends, walking our dogs, or simply being on our own is time wasted because we weren't being 'productive'.
Now, on Mondays, I have time to spend at home.
I usually electively go into the practice in the afternoon because I like to be there and like to see everyone but I work from home to get done what I can.
Lately, a bike ride has slipped into Monday mornings, and so I try to do a little bit of work on Sunday to make the space to go and ride my bike with one of my friends on Monday morning. However, this week, I didn't ride on Monday because I was a little bit tired from overdoing it the week before.
In any event, one week a month I set aside as my 'content Monday' where I do newsletters to general dental practitioners and to patients, I do business blogs, I do updates for my ITI job and various other things and I add these to a list to be done once a month.
By the time I get to that list, it's utterly overwhelming, and there's not really any chance that I will get through it. So the risk is that I sit down, procrastinate, berate myself for having too much to do or not being organised enough, and try my best to get through things.
I have got over that process, though, I have got past it and what I do with my content Mondays is I do exactly the best that I can; maybe not as good as yesterday, but maybe better than tomorrow but no matter, it's as good as it can be today.
And so I will go into my list and I will do the things that I choose to do, and if I do not get through it, I will have to wait.
Obviously, in my work, there are things that have to be done more urgently than others, but it really is unlikely that people are going to die if I do not put out my GDP newsletter, write a blog, or plan a case that has to be planned for two weeks.
This laying down the burden, refusing to accept it, refusing to think that I have to be the guy that ticks off my to-do list, that rides the best possible bike grade on a Monday morning, has lunch with my wife, walks my dogs, parents my kids, does 500 press ups etc etc.
Now that I've passed that away, now that I've given that away, I feel like I get on with more; I feel like I'm actually more productive because the pressure is off, and then I can just do it the way I want.
I encourage you to read the book.
It's here but more than that, I encourage you only to do exactly the best you can and not a single bit more or less.
Blog Post Number - 3954
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