My friend and I were talking this week about how overwhelmed we feel with everything we have to do – and how it’s pretty impossible to get to the bottom of the ‘intray’ (of our lives, not the overflowing one on the desk), because stuff just keeps piling up.
It got me thinking – what’s the intray on your desk for?
All my working life (which feels like forever), I’ve tried to use my intray for something other than the launch-pad to the rubbish bin; the place I put stuff I can’t get to right now (and clearly never will); the thing I ruthlessly clean out every six months.
It’s surprising what I find in my intray. Things that were so urgent three months ago have somehow been resolved without fuss.
Articles I just had to read, that don’t catch my interest anymore. The business card someone pressed upon me at some event, before launching into a ten minute description of all the ways they could make my life better and my business more profitable. Conferences I forgot to go to. A timesheet I’d misplaced (in my intray?). And so much more. All tossed away without guilt…
Like the stuff you have to do in your life that you never get to, the intray kind-of hovers in your peripheral vision and occasionally sends you on a quick guilt trip.
The truth is, when I die, my in-tray will be full. It’ll be crammed with all the to-do stuff that I never got to – because I’d rather be doing something else. Anything involving fun actually.
So I’m working on developing an immunity to the intray of my life – like the one I have to the overflowing, red faux-leather thing on my desk.
I’m going to do what I’ve got to do to survive (and thrive) and everything else is going where it belongs. In the bin. Wish me luck.
