It’s easy to ignore my body.
Sure, it’s there… I see it. But it rarely seems to be the crucial element in what I’m trying to do. I normally focus on just one or two elements.
When I’m singing most of those elements are around my head and throat area (with only the rarest of thoughts to the whole ‘breathing apparatus’).
When I’m wearing my financial planner hat… it’s my brain that I’m most gets my attention.
Those are the body parts right?
Except that it’s not nearly that simple, and because you’re smarter than me… you already know that.
The boring things that support the important ones
I’ve been thinking about this same issue a lot lately in the arena of time management.
It’s been a really busy, and so I’ve been forced to really think about the most important ways to use my time.
And I’m getting better at it (yay!!!)
In the beginning I was making lists of all the most important tasks that needed to be done:
- rehearsals
- finished this plan
- work on this project
But I was running out of steam, feeling stressed, and like I was stretching myself way too thin.
I was focusing on the most immediate tasks, but I was ignoring some really important fundamentals.
Things like:
- make food
- go grocery shopping
- rest
I wasn’t leaving time for ‘support’ items, and so they either weren’t getting done, or they were ‘stealing’ time from my other projects, and it was stressing me out.
I was thinking about everything all wrong.
The throat bones connected to the ….
It’s easy to remember all the important things.
What’s harder is to remember all the support (or maintenance) work that needs to be done too. The work needs to happen consistently to keep me a healthy and happy person.
The work that needs to happen in order for me to accomplish the other work… the ‘other work’ that I keep categorizing as ‘more important’.
That’s the thing that I’ve begun to realize this week.
It’s not more important.
In fact, the most essential jobs are those mundane ‘support’ tasks. Shopping for and preparing good food. Taking real chunks of time to rest and recharge. Nothing gets done without them.
And so I’ve moved them to the top of my list.
The financial takeaway:
It’s the same damn thing with money.
We all have big life goals that we want to work on:
- paying off debt
- vacation
- investing in your career
And they feel essential, so mentally we allot every available dollar to their completion.
Except that a lot of those dollars are already taken. You need them for the basics: rent, food, and car payments.
That mental trap can cause a ton of stress because it feels like you’re constantly falling short of where you ‘should be’.
But your money has to cover the ‘support’ tasks first. It just does.
We all need to have our priorities straight in our heads. First, make sure the mundane is taken care of, and then we can worry about the sexy extra bits.
It’s a small thing, but it’s kind of a game changer.
Try it this week and let me know how it feels.
Emily Nixon
Rags to Reasonable Community Outreach Coordinator
Emily Nixon is an actor/writer/director/filmmaking Swiss Army Knife. She is also a big money nerd and Community Outreach Coordinator for Rags to Reasonable.
She came to this work after becoming completely fed up with living paycheque-to-paycheque and being too afraid to look in her chequing account. She is passionate about empowering other artists and variable income earners to keep doing what they love and feel confident about their finances.
Email Emily at emily@ragstoreasonable.com
