About a month ago, my daughter started complaining that her tooth was hurting when she ate. The first time, I thought she must have bitten her mouth while she was chewing.

But the next day she was complaining again, so I asked her to show me where it was hurting. She pointed to one of her bottom front teeth.

That’s when it occurred to me that maybe she had her first loose tooth. Sure enough, when I touched the tooth, it wiggled.

And just like that, she began claiming that whatever food she didn’t really want to eat was hurting her tooth. Let’s just say that there was a lot of drama at mealtime until that tooth and the one next to it came out.

Once those two little teeth were replaced by dollars from the tooth fairy, all was right with the world.

As I was doing late-night tooth fairy duty twice in one week, I was thinking about how nice it would be if adults had their own special kind of tooth fairy, more of a time fairy.

What if instead of teeth, I could put tasks that weren’t serving me anymore under my pillow and someone would come take them away and put money under my pillow instead?

A girl can dream…

If you’ve ever noticed your plate getting fuller over time, you probably know what I mean. Someone asks you to help with thing A. Meanwhile someone else asks you to start helping with thing B. Since saying “no” is hard, you find yourself saying yes to both. Then you have a great idea to start doing thing C.

Because you’re now busy with A, B, and C, you need thing D to help you manage it all. But thing D can’t cover everything, so you also find thing E which fills in the gaps left by thing D.

Maybe it’s just me? (But I doubt it.)

When we get to the point where our activities and commitments, even the good ones, are running us, we tend to add more to our plate in our attempt to manage everything. Addition is our default.

Yet subtraction is usually the way out of situations like this.

When was the last time you sat down and thought, “Hmm… I’ve got a lot on my plate. Where should I step back so I can give my best where it matters most?”

High-five if you do this. But we usually tend to think, “Wow. I’ve got a lot going on. How can I be more productive so I can get it all done? Is there an app that can help me?”

Unfortunately, I haven’t found an app that can solve the overcommitment problem.

But making space in our lives to look at what we’re doing and asking whether it’s helping us move toward what is essential in our life is a good way to move away from overcommitment.

For example, before I was working from home, the kids and I would have a weekly event we called poetry tea time. Once a week, we would put special snacks on fancy dishes and read poetry and stories. (Yes, I realize the kids were primarily interested in the snacks.)

But when I started working from home, there were things I had to step back from in order to get my work done at a decent hour, and this was one of them.

That’s what I mean about addition and subtraction. I could have found a way to cram making special snacks in on top of work, but having a more frazzled mom wouldn’t have served them (or me) well either.

Just because we start doing something that serves us and our family well for a season doesn’t mean we’re locked in for life. Sometimes subtraction is the answer.

I’d love to hear from you. What’s your poetry tea time?

Keep planning.

Shelley

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