Just One Thing

I wrote this blog post last week in the middle of finalizing my daughter's wedding. Ironically (but not surprising), I ran out of time to post it (or was too busy multitasking!), but think the message is an important one for us all to remember: Just One Thing.

I have this persistent myth that I need to be multitasking. That in order to get things done, I can't waste anytime. I can't cook without simultaneously recording a blog. Without making phone calls for the deliveries that are expected today. Here I am, three days before Margo's wedding, trying to clean out the pantry, make Kombucha, make breakfast for the guests that are here, coordinate making sure we have peonies for the bridal flowers in stock at the wholesale dealer that we're going to tomorrow, the list goes on and on.

I have clients calling me, friends asking me to do favors, and trying to do it all at once. Oh, and while cleaning out my refrigerator at the same time - because I have house guests coming - I spilled olive oil all over one of my upholstered chairs in the kitchen. Then my daughter comes down and wonders what smells like it's burning, which is of course the breakfast I'm trying to make. She ends up telling me that I need to learn to do one thing at a time. Which is exactly what the workshop I attended this fall told me as well: One thing at a time.

But how often do we start on one thing and we get stuck and then we don't know what to do and we get frustrated and give it up, which is where a coach or even a friend can help you to finish that one little task. Help so you can check it off your list and feel better.

I started hiring all kinds of coaches - a business coach, a finance coach, someone to come help me clean out the garage and the basement. It's not that I can't do it, it's that I won't do it. I hate to do it. It's painful. How do we make things joyful?

Just One Thing.

Every day we have an opportunity for lessons learned. Yesterday I made a commitment to be joyful and today, I find good advice from my daughter: just one thing.

Carpe Diem.