Make a Difference: Prioritize People

Sometimes I’ve written posts weeks ahead of time; other times I’m working up until the night before a post is scheduled to appear. Right now, I’m in the latter situation. I took the week off work, because a couple of close relatives are in town. They are staying with someone else, so at the beginning of the week I actually told myself I’d work ahead on blog posts when I wasn’t with my loved ones.

That is not, of course, what has actually happened, and I don’t mind that. But it does mean that, as of last night, I had barely worked on this week’s “make a difference” post. This morning I thought I would come home from a fun and busy day at about 8 p.m. and write and schedule my planned post.

Instead, I came home and found that one my family members needed me.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one who sometimes feels pulled in a million different directions by the people in my life. Maybe you have a couple of kids who want help with schoolwork, an aging parent you need to check in on, a spouse who feels neglected… all at a time when work is busy and, oh, yeah, it’s your best friend’s birthday tomorrow. All of these people are also competing with the dishes piling up on your counter, your empty refrigerator, the taxes you really need to do… And when are you going to find time to exercise? Not to mention the fact that, honestly, you just want some time to yourself!

Sometimes you need to say “no.” You may need to say it for sanity’s sake, or you may need to say it because some of the people in your life need to be less dependent on you.

But sometimes you need to do what I did tonight. You ditch your plans and make yourself available to the person who needs you. Yes, I’ve still managed to write something. It’s not the post I had planned, but it’s something, if only because I found that my circumstances inspired a new post that I knew wouldn’t take long to write. But there may a time when I can manage nothing — at best I might post a message noting that I cannot share a planned blog entry.

I don’t like that idea. Consistency is important to me, and I hate the thought of letting a post go for a week. In my ideal world, I’d always be ahead of the game, but with a full-time job and a family, that’s a challenge.

So I’ll do my best to honor my commitment to two blog posts a week… but I’ll also do my best to remember my priorities. Sometimes people need me. At times like that, I may have to drop things, even things that are very important to me, because when I don’t put the people in my life ahead of my to-do list, my priorities are out of whack.