Writing With Abandon

How will I choose to use my time?

(This time being the 8 minutes before my workday begins.)

I’m choosing to slice. I saw Ana’s call in our KLA Slicers WhatsApp group chat. I saw Kim’s slice waiting to be read in my inbox.

I have Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals sitting next to me, which is funny because I read his Meditations for Mortals at the same time last year (I remember, because I sliced about it).

I’ve been meditating on his words just in the first few chapters, not that they’re completely new: “Our days are spent trying to ‘get through’ tasks, in order to get them ‘out of the way,’ with the result that we live mentally in the future, waiting for when we’ll finally get around to what really matters” (12-13) and “Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved ‘work-life balance,’ whatever that might be” (13).

There’s always a never-ending list of things to get done, and the reality is that we will never get it done because we don’t have infinite time with which to do it. We get four thousand weeks, if we’re lucky.

After book club on Sunday, Kim, Nayelis, Gianna and I walked around Books & Books chatting and picking up books to add to our stacks.

“There’s too many books and not enough time!” One of us said.

“I know!!” Another of us moaned.

When I got home that afternoon, I turned on the audiobook version of the book I was reading so I could manage to clean up the kitchen, cook myself dinner, and then clean up those dishes too. I found myself happily sitting on the couch, knitting as I listened to the voice actors, who were doing an excellent job.

This is really nice, I thought.

The same that I think as P and I read the interactive Harry Potter series to each other.

Reading is one of those ways I think I’d like to spend the limited time I have here on this planet.

Writing, too.

I’m ready for the challenge, though a bit nervous about getting it done.

Is it year 5 for me? Five years of slicing already? Or is it four?

8:29. Time to post it!