Do time-saving solutions actually make our lives more miserable?
I used to outsource everything and take every 'hack' going. It wasn't an enjoyable way to live.
The years between 2013 – 2019 were my peak busy years. 2 young children, a rapidly growing global business, a team to support and company culture to maintain. I lost count of how many people (usually mums) would look at me cautiously; wide-eyed they part impressed, part confused, and part intimated by everything I was ‘juggling’. I got asked over and over ‘how do you do it all?’ and I never really knew what to say, because at the time I did it, simply, because I could. I had the energy, the drive, the resilience and the support from my husband to just crack on. What might have seemed impossible to those on the outside looking in was just my own normal; I could cope with high pressured job, a constant upskilling and engage the motherhood experience. In fact I used my ambition and creativity it to cope with the huge identity and life shift of becoming a mother. It’s not a strategy that would work for everyone but choosing the first few years of new motherhood as the time I’d put my pedal to the metal for my career worked for me. I had a vision of being a lot more emotionally and physically available to them when they were a little older and whilst this might have been a gamble, I was lucky, it worked out. I’ve fulfilled that vision. I went out on a limb to have it all, and for a while there I think I did. I now find myself in place of those wide-eyed women, glancing back over my shoulder at myself wondering how indeed I did it. I certainly don’t have that in me in now, and I dread to think how my life would be unravelling if I hadn’t taken a detour as there were a lot of unchecked issues mounting up. With this wisdom of going from living life very fast to very slow, to settling into somewhere in-between, I am starting to become convinced that knowing when to speed up and slowdown could be one of the most influential factors in building a life of on-going meaning and joy.
During my peak busy years, I used every convenience tool I could get my grubby little hustler hands on. Uber, Deliveroo, email on my phone, Hello Fresh. If I could delegate it, outsource it or make it go away I would. And why not? I was in speed mode with big girl responsibilities both personally and professionally. My goal was to always free myself up from less important tasks so I could focus on the biggest priorities. This made sense both at work where my skills were better placed in some areas and at home where I am proud to say I held my boundaries with protecting time to play with the kids and be present at the key moments of the routine. The problem was this always had an expiry date on it and when I refer back to this time it’s about 6 years of my life, a long time to be in a loop of cyclical burn-out. Looking back at this time was a bit like being in a pinball machine. I was up, down, winning, on my way somewhere, or suddenly unexpectedly out. There were high scores and exciting flashes of light and unlocked new levels and I was rarely still.
Opting for all the short cut solutions made sense in terms of efficiency of time, but do you know what I actually should have done? Made some meals from scratch, sewed some freaking labels into school uniforms, planted some god damn flowers in my garden, volunteered to read to kids at the school. Perhaps it feels a bit off or even like I’m romanticising some of these activities, but it is in these day-to-day duties where we use our hands practically that we get a certain kind of focus.
Focus.
This was exactly what I needed more of.
Please allow me to share something seemingly insignificant, but that still continues to come back and tap me on the shoulder when I go about making my life choices today? …
My team back then, god love them, started a monthly lunch club in the office. They would pick a theme and all cook something from scratch, bring it in and have a buffet sharing in each others creations. Super cute.
Do you know how many dishes I prepared for these lunch clubs?
None.
Zero.
Every time it was approaching, I was so embarrassed that I’d no time to make anything I would go and get something from a deli; delicious but never homemade or designed by me. It wasn’t even not having the time to do it that got to me the most, I had absolutely no idea of what to make. Once the theme was salads, and I couldn’t imagine anything beyond a lettuce and tomato, so when I was greeted with all kinds of delicious diverse dishes, I felt ashamed that I was the leader of the company, a mum with a couple of kids but also the least creative and educated in the realm of cooking. For some reason the feeling in this memory still makes me wince. I think it’s because the act of making a meal to be shared others with the intention of community and connection is so pure. I was operating on a frequency where I just couldn’t get to that and that feels sad. I regret that. I recently heard that the way to live with regret is to channel it into growth and making new decisions; I feel that so much in this example, it really has shifted something in me. I have compassion for myself because I really did have an unusually packed life, but am glad this left an imprint on me and was one of many things that helped me change speed and direction.
When we continue to choose convenience, I think what happens is that rather than gaining back more recreation time, we use time saved do even more work. Our productivity goes up and up until it reaches a level that is completely unsustainable, but by then we’ve already convinced ourselves that it’s our own ‘norm’. At least that’s what I did anyway. I often think about those who practice religion and hold the time for daily prayer as sacred and unmissable. Perhaps this needs to be applied to more activities in our lives when our productivity norm becomes unsustainable. Making education around food and cooking sacred to me back then I know deeply inside myself would have helped me a lot in many ways. Who knows it might have even broken the back of my burn out cycle.
My constant dismissal of what seemed like mundane activities, put me on a path to eroding flow in my everyday life. Sewing in labels to a school uniform felt like an insult to me back then - as if a modern, business leading mother pushing boundaries and doing all the things, shouldn’t need to do this crap anymore!
What an obnoxious little twit I might have been.
Because here’s the ironic thing, I love sewing! I find it has a very similar effect on me as meditation and is also something I’m interested in getting better at. So whilst I’m pleased we’re having a conversation about the mental load and moving to an equal divvying up of duties, not every domestic activity needs to be taken as an insult to my role in my family, or indeed wider society. Sometimes there is just shit to do and flow to be found in it. Don’t let me mislead you, I won’t be giving up all my hacks any time soon (bags of chopped garlic and onion in the freezer makes my cooking life truly better!), but I am finding myself becoming much better at using playfulness to make boring things more fun and recognising the benefit of flow in some activities. Chores are a reality; too many is overwhelming, no help is oppressive, but if you can get the right amount, they can be reframed as opportunities to use our hands, unplug and be slow and mindful.
Which is where I found myself the other night; sewing box out, searching through a button box to sew onto Indy’s summer school dress. This box of buttons once belonged to my nan and then my mum, and now me. Three generations of women stitching things back together. A previous me would possibly have been fuming that this was up to me to sort out, but these days I found myself very relaxed and focussed on the task. Afterwards I took the dresses into her room ready for when she woke up and it felt…nice. Warm. Comforting. It was nice to not use a machine or be looking at a screen, and I was reminded how I don’t want to replace all of life’s mundane tasks with robots and hacks, because actually, maybe they’re anything but mundane.
I think as we move through life, we can embrace the simplicity of quiet, making, fixing, planting. Because the reality is, life is short. We can compete for better stronger longer. But, for what? Ourselves? Or, the vision you want other people to see?
After long term illness, I have fully embraced a quieter, simpler life. Feeding the birds, watching clouds, and breathing!
The world and the politics has gone to shit, and we can be angry about it. Or try to live despite of it.