Waiting for Later

Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile on Unsplash

Today I had a very unusual gift: the gift of time. I recently started implementing a 4-day* work week for myself and it has been the best decision I ever made. Of course, I must put an asterisk next to 4-day because I own my own business and I’m a writer, which means I work every day because there are certain parts of my work that don’t feel like work at all. So, what I did was I started limiting my project and client work to Monday through Thursday which leaves Friday Saturday and Sunday open for resting, writing, volunteering, and/or catching up on all my favorite parts of my work.

This particular Friday I was volunteering a 9-hour EMT shift and so I arrived at the squad house, got my radio and did my rig check, checked in with my partner, then I sat down and started to work on those more favorite parts of my job. This shift happened to be particularly slow, so in the 9 hours I only had to go out on one call which meant I had about 8 hours of time to work on other things.

I never count on being able to work during my shifts because some days we go from call to call to call and never stop moving. So today, when I started to check off item after item on my to do list, I found myself in a weird position: I actually had the time to do the things that I always put off - like check my email. What I found interesting is that even when I had the time, I still actively had to convince myself to sit there and do it. Each email I opened that required me to do something, I was tempted to flag it for later, but then quickly reminded myself that later was now.

And just now, as I'm sitting in a cocktail bar in Millburn New Jersey waiting for Andrew to meet up with me, I looked at the News email that I receive every day - the same email that I always tell myself I’ll read later - and I found myself eager to skip it and leave it for some future version of myself that reads her emails. Once I caught myself doing this, I became inspired to write this Sunday Starter - ironically leaving the News email still unread.

Think about the things you often put off. What have you left for later? It’s amazing how often we flag something in our lives for later but then fail to make a plan for when later actually is. And unfortunately, if you don’t actively make a plan for when later is, then later will likely never come. Stop waiting for later because later only happens when you decide to turn later into right now.