Too Much On My Plate

Have you ever seen a task as just overwhelming?  I know I have. 

I am a member of a Christian Authors group.  One of our members faithfully sends us messages to post to our twitter accounts.  He sends them for the week and it takes about 10 minutes to schedule 36 'tweets'.  I have publicly thanked him for his work and encouraged other authors to participate in the activity.  Lately, every time he sends the file, I look at it and it seems overwhelming.  I simply don't have time to do that.  (It takes 10 minutes.) 

Now do I have 10 minutes?  Yes, I do.  What don't I have?  Room left on my plate.  I am in the middle of selling my house, moving, writing a book, doing reports for a local school district, and helping the leader of our group complete bios on the members.  So lately I have not had time to tweet.  (Sorry Jay.) 

This morning I looked at the list and successfully scheduled the tweets.  What has happened?  Some things have been moved off my plate.  If your plate is too full, be kind to yourself.  Schedule your priorities (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and let other things go.  Be sure that what you are scheduling is absolutely essential.  We all have things that bug us if no completed.  I have a friend whose house must be in apple pie order with clothes washed, dried, ironed, and hung in the closet no matter if Christ Himself comes.  But does one have to have a clean house to be happy.  There are people who live in undesirable conditions, dirty homes, dirty clothes and are quite happy.  When my children were young, a relative didn't have time to spend with her young children because she had to clean house; or so she thought.  I chose to spend time with my children and not worry about the house.  I now have three happy, well adjusted grown children with successful careers and relationships.  You mean you allowed your children to grow up in a less than perfect house?  Yes I did and none of them have needed a psychiatrist because of it.

Now what point am I trying to make?  If there is too much on your plate, move the nonessential things and concentrate on the necessary activities.  Be kind to yourself.  Ask yourself this question:  Would you treat your best friend the way you treat yourself?