Too many people drown in their to-do lists. Can’t sleep because everything buzzes in their heads — so much still to do. And anyway: it never stops, you’re never finished. I must do this, I must do that. When I’ve done that, I’m still nowhere near finished, but at least one step closer to Done.
But what if this “Done” doesn’t exist? What if it’s like a water-filled mud hole where the sandy edges keep collapsing back in — making finishing pointless? And what do you actually have to do?
Sure, we want to feel good. Completing things, ticking boxes — that’s part of it. But what of all this do you truly must do? Who’s demanding it — your boss or you?
Life gets simpler when you know exactly when you really must do something. And when it’s worth just accepting the consequences of not-doing-what-you-should-have-done, paying that price. Then everything becomes a simple trade-off: Do I really need this? Do I actually need to do this?
Maybe a hearty “So what?!” is enough.
Then there’s more time for the few essential things. For the stuff in life that should be there, that simply must exist.
This post started in German on reinergaertner.de — yes, 1997, I’ve been doing this a while. The translation was AI-assisted. Any remaining awkwardness is authentically bilingual.