The Stress of Playing Catch Up

I had a conversation today with a client of mine. We were talking about his pocket notepad he carries around to write down what he eats during the day. I had him start that notebook almost 2 years ago to help him lose weight and get into better shape. He mentioned to me the idea of catching up and how he cant catch up on his notebook. If he doesn't write something down that he eats or drinks, he tends to forget about putting it in later. He said that if he does by chance remember later, he is never quite sure the amounts of what he ate and then his notebook becomes a guessbook.

Playing catch up can be such a stressful game. Not only do we have to work on our tasks that need to be done now, but also about what wasn't done in the past. This causes us to get into overwhelm. It can also cause us to second guess what needs to be done.

Some of you might be thinking that you can catch up on things, like sleep. Lets say you want to sleep more tonight to catch up for not sleeping enough yesterday. What happens to your time tomorrow? You have less of it because you were sleeping more. So now you don't have as much time to get all you need or want to get done, so what happens? Just catch up the next day. Can you see how the cycle gets created? It is an endless cycle, but there is a way out.

From today on you can choose to start living your life from present to future. You can choose to stop living from present to past. Its a change in mental thinking. I am not saying just let go of all the obligations you didn't accomplish the day or week prior. I am saying just do what needs to be done. If you need more sleep, sleep. That is what you choose to do at that moment. Your not catching up, your just sleeping. Its about living in the present and not living in the past.

We all have only so much time, once its gone, its gone. There are no do overs or any way to buy extra seconds, minutes or days. There is also no way of knowing how much time we have left on the clock. We cant catch up, there is no way to really get extra time. We just spend it how we choose to.

Wishing you the very best,

Dr. John Zipp