The Discipline of Not Doing
This week has been the dream. My schedule has been very lovely, and I almost feel like I've had a staycation for myself even though I am still technically working my full-time hours. Though I sometimes complain about working night shift and don't always love the long 12-hour shifts, every once in a while the nursing schedule can be dreamy. Sometimes, I schedule myself for three shifts in a row at the beginning of a week (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) and the next week I'll do three in a row at the end (Thursday, Friday, Saturday), and I'm left with 8 days off without having to use vacation time.
This week, I worked Sunday night and will return to work Friday and Saturday night, and it's been so refreshing to have all of these days off in between. Other weeks, I have too many shifts clumped together and resent the night shift, or sometimes I have meetings or classes during the day which makes the switching back and forth between days and nights difficult.
But this week, I like my schedule. And this week, I am thankful for it.
I'm having to teach myself some discipline, though, with all of this time off, and that has been tough. I'm juggling maybe too many things right now in my life. I'm trying to take several classes at work, some of which require studying in advance, and I'm also studying for my Med/Surg certification test, trying to read books both for knowledge and for fun, writing a book, trying to run a household while my husband studies for important tests, and trying to make sure I have time to relax somewhere in the mix of all of that too. Some days I do a whole lot of everything and feel totally worn down by the end of the day. Other days I am so stressed about all of the things that I do nothing at all. I mope around, make the bed, and call it a day. I start to self-destruct because I can't even think about where to start with everything, so I do nothing instead.
Neither of these are productive or helpful; there's got to be a balance somewhere. I'm so amused by how distractible I am when I really want to be writing or cooking or cleaning. I woke up this morning knowing I wanted to spend time with Jesus, to write/edit a chapter of my book that I'm really struggling through, to study Med/Surg, and to clean our apartment. It's now lunchtime and I've done one of those things: spend time with Jesus. It took me forEVER to actually sit down to focus because I was doing everything I wasn't supposed to be doing. I was responding to texts and e-mails, trying to make a fancy breakfast that ended up tasting not-so-bueno, reading blogs, staring out the window watching the rain, responding to more texts, making our Christmas budget with colorful pens, looking up new She Reads Truth studies that I want to do next. I was doing all of the things, but none of the things that I was supposed to be doing.
So when I finally roped myself in and focused, I felt like I was coming to Jesus with broken, distracted pieces of myself. I'd rather come to Him with my morning self, the self that hasn't yet been annoyed by e-mails and texts about things that need my attention, and the self that doesn't yet realize she's hungry or thirsty or that there's a stain on the carpet that needs to come out. I'd rather start my whole day with the discipline of spending time with Jesus, taking care of the "to-do" list, and then having the rest of the day ahead of me with which I can complete more items on the checklist, or with which I can spend time and energy on other things, whether it be friends, family, more writing, crafting, reading, running (which, at some point, needs to become part of my morning discipline instead of something I toss in when there's time), pen pal letters, rearranging the kitchen, etc.
I'm working on the discipline of not doing just as much as I need to be working on the discipline of doing. Things I should have done this morning were writing, Jesus, cleaning, and studying. Things I should not have been doing are all of the other things I did that did not accomplish much of anything at all and left me feeling like I had already wasted the morning. As a morning person through and through (part of my challenge with night shift: normal Cristina likes to be in bed at 10. Night shift Cristina goes to bed well after midnight and on workdays, at 8AM), my best self is present in the morning. My best thinking and writing and worshipping and giving of myself occur in the hours between 7 and 11AM. Everything after that seems like a spent version of me that is just trying to push through until it's bedtime again. How sad that I only have 4 hours of real productivity in my day, isn't it?
Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I think that really, I can do things later in the day, but it just all depends on how my morning starts. Today I will wallow around the house, mad at myself for not doing what I should have been and for doing what I shouldn't have been.
And so goes my focus on not doing. I need to implement the practice of not doing the unimportant things so that I can do the important things, thus leaving time for doing.. both unimportant and important things later in the day. Does this make any sense at all to you?
So with that, I think I should probably be not doing this right now, and should instead go empty our dishwasher and change clothes. At noon, I'm still in my PJs, but at least the bed is made and our Christmas list is in the works, right? Blogging has been something that I've been doing a lot of lately when I want to be writing but am not quite ready to be writing back in the book yet. And it seems that on some days, I only blog and do not work on the book even a little bit.
Back to the book. Back to the not doing. Back to the cleaning and studying and all of the things.
C.
This week, I worked Sunday night and will return to work Friday and Saturday night, and it's been so refreshing to have all of these days off in between. Other weeks, I have too many shifts clumped together and resent the night shift, or sometimes I have meetings or classes during the day which makes the switching back and forth between days and nights difficult.
But this week, I like my schedule. And this week, I am thankful for it.
I'm having to teach myself some discipline, though, with all of this time off, and that has been tough. I'm juggling maybe too many things right now in my life. I'm trying to take several classes at work, some of which require studying in advance, and I'm also studying for my Med/Surg certification test, trying to read books both for knowledge and for fun, writing a book, trying to run a household while my husband studies for important tests, and trying to make sure I have time to relax somewhere in the mix of all of that too. Some days I do a whole lot of everything and feel totally worn down by the end of the day. Other days I am so stressed about all of the things that I do nothing at all. I mope around, make the bed, and call it a day. I start to self-destruct because I can't even think about where to start with everything, so I do nothing instead.
Neither of these are productive or helpful; there's got to be a balance somewhere. I'm so amused by how distractible I am when I really want to be writing or cooking or cleaning. I woke up this morning knowing I wanted to spend time with Jesus, to write/edit a chapter of my book that I'm really struggling through, to study Med/Surg, and to clean our apartment. It's now lunchtime and I've done one of those things: spend time with Jesus. It took me forEVER to actually sit down to focus because I was doing everything I wasn't supposed to be doing. I was responding to texts and e-mails, trying to make a fancy breakfast that ended up tasting not-so-bueno, reading blogs, staring out the window watching the rain, responding to more texts, making our Christmas budget with colorful pens, looking up new She Reads Truth studies that I want to do next. I was doing all of the things, but none of the things that I was supposed to be doing.
So when I finally roped myself in and focused, I felt like I was coming to Jesus with broken, distracted pieces of myself. I'd rather come to Him with my morning self, the self that hasn't yet been annoyed by e-mails and texts about things that need my attention, and the self that doesn't yet realize she's hungry or thirsty or that there's a stain on the carpet that needs to come out. I'd rather start my whole day with the discipline of spending time with Jesus, taking care of the "to-do" list, and then having the rest of the day ahead of me with which I can complete more items on the checklist, or with which I can spend time and energy on other things, whether it be friends, family, more writing, crafting, reading, running (which, at some point, needs to become part of my morning discipline instead of something I toss in when there's time), pen pal letters, rearranging the kitchen, etc.
I'm working on the discipline of not doing just as much as I need to be working on the discipline of doing. Things I should have done this morning were writing, Jesus, cleaning, and studying. Things I should not have been doing are all of the other things I did that did not accomplish much of anything at all and left me feeling like I had already wasted the morning. As a morning person through and through (part of my challenge with night shift: normal Cristina likes to be in bed at 10. Night shift Cristina goes to bed well after midnight and on workdays, at 8AM), my best self is present in the morning. My best thinking and writing and worshipping and giving of myself occur in the hours between 7 and 11AM. Everything after that seems like a spent version of me that is just trying to push through until it's bedtime again. How sad that I only have 4 hours of real productivity in my day, isn't it?
Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I think that really, I can do things later in the day, but it just all depends on how my morning starts. Today I will wallow around the house, mad at myself for not doing what I should have been and for doing what I shouldn't have been.
And so goes my focus on not doing. I need to implement the practice of not doing the unimportant things so that I can do the important things, thus leaving time for doing.. both unimportant and important things later in the day. Does this make any sense at all to you?
So with that, I think I should probably be not doing this right now, and should instead go empty our dishwasher and change clothes. At noon, I'm still in my PJs, but at least the bed is made and our Christmas list is in the works, right? Blogging has been something that I've been doing a lot of lately when I want to be writing but am not quite ready to be writing back in the book yet. And it seems that on some days, I only blog and do not work on the book even a little bit.
Back to the book. Back to the not doing. Back to the cleaning and studying and all of the things.
C.
Comments
Post a Comment