This week I had to embrace the art (discipline? survival tactic?) of doing one thing at a time.

It was the first full week of school which was interrupted by a mid-week hurricane threat. I had book publishing deadlines and podcast interviews. And my family of five still likes to eat dinner every night, which continues to surprise me.

When my responsibilities start to pile up, my typical instinct looks something like this:

• breathe into a paper bag
• try to do everything at once
• walk around in circles, scroll my phone and stare at the wall.

This week, for whatever reason—perhaps out of sheer necessity—I realized that I wouldn’t be able to procrastinate or multi-task. I decided to pick the most important thing—the thing that was due the closest to right now—and focus on it until it was done. Then, I moved on the next thing.

I quickly realized that:

• I was getting the important things done
• There are always things on the list that feel more urgent than they actually are.
• Things that fall under the category of “it would be nice to get this done” can almost always wait.

Sometimes, pushing things off until later creates anxiety. But this week, I reminded myself that I’m not falling behind. Everything that’s supposed to happen will happen in its time. And, I gave myself permission to believe it. I don’t know if it’s an absolute truth, but this week, it felt true and took the pressure off of trying to control/juggle/manage/do all the things.

Life’s a bit more interesting, and quite possibly, abundant when we learn to let certain things go for now.

Hi, I’m Angie. I’m the author of the coming-of-age memoir, “Girl in the Spotlight,” which will be released on October 3 by Publish Her. To stay up-to-date on book news and events, you can bookmark this page on my website: angiemizzell.com/book.

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