A common complaint moms have is that there is never enough hours in the day. We also complain that we never have enough “me” time. One reason we may not be able to finish everything on our to-do list or snag a little me time is a little disease I like to call one-more-itis.
One-more-itis is very common. I suffer from one-more-itis and I bet some of you do too. Or at least know someone who does. The disease compels moms to continuously do one more. It could be one more load of laundry or one more quick phone call (that ends up being anything but). All of these one mores suck up our time and energy. If we learn to just say no we can gain back more time each day. Including having time for ourselves.
Knowing when to simply say “enough is enough” is a hard thing for many moms to do. We have so much to do but if we don’t learn when to stop, we end up drained. As I try to juggle my role as mom and writer, I always seem to have one more thing to do before I call it quits. I write down things I need to do in a spiral notebook and it never fails; as soon as I finish the last item, I find one more thing I can squeeze in. Usually this one more thing leads to another and another and before you know it an hour or two has passed. Then the next day I wake up drained and wonder why. Then the whole process starts all over.
However, there’s hope for those of us who suffer from one-more-itis. We simply have to learn when to say when. We have to realize that there’s only so much that we can do in a day. If you are a list maker, make a short list of things you need to do and when you finish the list STOP. Unless something urgent comes up, put the rest of your one mores on the next day’s list.
See also:
Teaching Our Kids To Amuse Themselves