Thank you, coronavirus, for teaching me how to say no
In some ways it feels like I have so much more time since the pandemic started. I think it’s because there’s some things I just can’t do. Stores and restaurants are closed. Parks and beaches are closed. Group activities of any kind are cancelled, for both adults and kids. I’ve limited my circle of contact to just our immediate family, so there are no dates with friends. Do I have a lot more to do at home? Oh for sure. But, there’s all this stuff that I used to spend time on, that now…. I can’t. And because I can’t, I’m able to wonder: do I want to start doing those things again?
It’s not just me, I’ve heard other moms talking about how maybe they’re going to be a lot more thoughtful about what takes up their time once things go back to “normal”. (Whenever and if ever that truly happens). And especially for moms - who tend to do a lot - I think it’s a really helpful question to ask. It’s helped me start to filter out some things that take up a lot of time but don’t fill me up, so I can focus more on what I truly love.
These things will be different for every mama, but there are some guidelines that I started using to pick and choose. Here’s what I’ve decided I’m not going to do:
Anything that I would be doing simply because someone has made me feel like I “should”. This is going to make some people upset, but here it is. If I don’t want to go to that birthday party, but I feel like I should? No thank you. If I don’t want to volunteer for the car wash fundraiser, but I feel like I’m obligated? No thank you. It sounds silly, but seriously! I realized that so much of my time was taken up with other people’s priorities instead of my own. I will still help my friends with anything they need, and I will still give my all to my family. But I will not let guilt control my schedule.
Anything that doesn’t fit with my values. I’ve spent a lot of time working on what my values actually are, but then when push comes to shove it’s easy for me to say “yes” to something even if it doesn’t fit. Sometimes the hardest thing is saying “no” to an opportunity that looks great, even if it’s not quite right. We hear in business that “it’s what you don’t do that’s just as important as what you do”. I think that’s true for life, too. So: if I’m given the opportunity to take on a new design client in New York, but my top value is family and I know from experience that an out-of-state client will take away from that because of the travel, then I say no. And I wait for the next local opportunity to come up.
Anything that I don’t enjoy doing that I can afford to outsource, even if I know I could do it “better” myself. For example: It’s going to sound silly, but I have gained back so much time by not going to grocery stores. Will the shopper do as good of a job replacing stuff that’s out of stock as I would? Nope. But I’ve learned how to be creative in the kitchen during quarantine, and I’m happy to continue that. Will we always be in a position to afford Instacart, or Mercato, or Amazon Fresh? Maybe not. But there are things I am willing to give up (TJ Maxx, for example, from last week’s post) to pay extra and buy back that time.
Mamas: let’s take back control of our schedules, so that we can spend our time on the things that really matter to us. Our kids. Our families. Our careers, if we love them. Our own well-being. Our communities, if that’s important to us. Our hobbies, if we have something that lights us up. Our side-hustle, if we have one. Can we say no to everything we don’t want to do? No. But I think if we’re more mindful, and if we check ourselves before we automatically say “yes”, we might find we have just a little more time to do the things we love, with the people we love.