Pace

I’ve been thinking a lot about pace lately. It’s not natural for me, I’m usually all-in or not at all, no middle ground. And let’s be honest, this end-of-year season? It feels overloaded. ‘Busy’ doesn’t even cut it. Here in Australia, the end of the school year almost collides with Christmas, so the fun activities stack up pretty quickly.

A friend summed it up perfectly when I asked how her week was looking, she said: “I don’t know—the calendar tells me.” Same here. My work and home calendars feel like a game of Tetris, trying to fit everything in while giving each activity its proper value and weight.

While thinking about this, I remembered one aspect of my swimming training as a kid. I grew up as a swimmer, swimming lap after lap before school most days. The first few laps of the pool would be all about getting my breathing and strokes into a rhythm and then the laps would pass by my pace would keep time with the rhythm in my mind.  Often in life we find our rhythm, our stride only for it to be met with a hiccup, a spanner in the works, a life event that was not expected and it feels like it all comes undone.

Recently, I’ve been playing Block Blast to unwind and perhaps procrastinate. Funny thing: it’s teaching me something Tetris never did one block at a time. You can’t force all the pieces to fit at once. Sometimes you need to place one block to make space for the next. How true is that right now in the season of busy?

Even when my week looks overflowing, if I focus on one thing at a time and really show up for it, I find my pace helps everything feel more manageable and fall into place. And when the board fills up and you’re told there’s no more space and asked, would you like to try with smaller pieces? Remember, it’s okay. Yes, you might feel full, you might feel the overwhelm. It’s okay… start again. Look at each priority in front of you and work through them, one at a time.

What emphasis are you placing on pacing and prioritizing tasks one at a time?

What does your one thing at a time list look like this week?