Garage door: Trust your nose

There's been a strange petrol-like smell lingering in the house and we finally found that it was coming from the garage. We still hadn't established that it was petrol as I don't recall having petrol in the house but was pretty sure it was petrol. This odour had been bothering me for a few days now and I was determined to work out what happened. Meanwhile I was getting high on the fumes until my husband pointed out.... maybe we open the garage door first! This sums up my life right now....

This incident this morning had to make me laugh. I was so obsessed with finding the root cause and labelling myself a hero for figuring it out, I almost passed out in the process. I forgot to take a step back and using wisdom or what we would also call common sense to open the garage door first as this is what is actually more important.

I've been reflecting more on my life in recent months and realising that it's so busy with so much "stuff" that I don't have time to do what I find fulfilling and what I really want to do. It hasn't been feeling right so I've been squeezing in time to figure out what is making me have less time and find better and quicker ways to get these things done to free up my time. However, squeezing more things into the finite time, means I'm actually suffocating from even more "stuff" in my life.

I need to open that garage door and stop inhaling the fumes before trying to do anything... because I'm probably right that it is petrol and I'm going to pass out before I figure it out.

I've joined in on a reading challenge which has unknowingly (until now) been my saving grace. As part of the daily reading challenge, I have started reading this book called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Four Thousdand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

I've only read 3 chapters and already this book is telling me to STOP and open the garage door. There a couple of paragraphs that really stood out to me:

"We sense that there are important and fulfilling ways we could be spending our time, even if we can't say exactly what they are - yet we systematically spend our days doing other things instead... Our days are spent trying to 'get through' tasks, in order to get them 'out of the way', with the result that we live mentally in the future, waiting for when we'll finally get round to what really matters..."

"... time feels like an unstoppable conveyor belt, bringing us new tasks as fast as we can dispatch the old ones; and becoming 'more productive' just seems to cause the belt to speed up."

Only 13 pages in and this book, together with many other events every day, are pulling up a full body sized mirror in front of me... showing me the one habit of mine that I've struggle with for years. The constant desire and need to have everything under control and our dear friend Oliver just very matter of fact states:

"The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control - when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer... none of this is ever going to happen. but you know what? That's excellent news."

... and you know what? Indeed it is! It is excellent news because I can stop obsessing. There's nothing more liberating than letting go.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what other pieces of nugget this book has to offer. I'm so grateful that I have started this challenge. I'm looking forward to discoveries and changes to come.

By the way, I did eventually figure out what caused the sickening smell. It was petrol! I also weirdly smelt citronella but could just not get my head around how the two were combined. It turned out to be this:

Thank you insect repellant oil =)

#burnout #lifehack #timemanagement #reflection #busylife #control #reset #worklifebalance