The Illusion of “Doing It All”

Anyone who knows me and my family knows that we are busy people. Between schooling the kids, household management, church work, associational work, running small businesses, and all the other extra add ins we are just alwasy going and doing. I often hear from people that they have no idea how I “do it all” so today I’m going to let you in on my little secret.

I don’t.

It’s an illusion carefully curated on the internet. As are most social media accounts. While you get to see the pictures of the wonderful family activity taking place, the near spotless room ready for the day, or the amazing meal that has just been made for an appreciatively waiting family what you don’t see is the mess behind the photographer, the kids fighting with eath other over what was just said on a YouTube video that could easily be replayed to confirm, and the plates left behind with next to nothing eaten off of them because the kids decided “it wasn’t yummy for their tummy.”

While I am often sharing the things that we accomplished for the day there is usually a list twice as long of the things that I didn’t get done. On the days that we complete all the planned school work, take a trip to the park, and make a visit to the library there are things that aren’t behing handled as well. Those days are the ones where if I didn’t manage to remember to get dinner going in the slow cooker first thing then we are probably ordering pizza or getting TV dinners from the grocery store on the way home. While we are at the park having a great time the laundry pile is continuing to multiply and the trash that should have been taken out 2 days ago continues to sit unattended.

While it may look like I’m out there “doing it all” the truth of the matter is that there are quiet a few things I’m not getting accomplished each day. My to-do list never seems to get any shorter and the demands on my time never seem to lessen. Each day I wake up and remind mysefl that I only have 1440 minutes in the day to accomplish what I can. Working hard to develop routines that everyone in the house participates in as well as minimizing the amount of clutter and unnecessary items helps to keep the housework to a minimum. And of course learning to give myself, my family, and my routine some grace has played a vital role in how I approach each day.

So, when you find yourself scrolling social media and come a cross a post, picture, or story about how I (or anyone else) might seem to be “doing it all” just remember that for everything that seems to be getting done there is probably twice as many things that aren’t being accomplished and you know what…that is ok.