We have one of those oversized rural yards that needs a lot of work, every spring and every fall. Whether it’s pulling buckthorn, weeing and planting the garden, raking leaves, cleaning gutters, or any one of the multitude of the dozens of spring and fall chores we have, those two seasons are full of yard work at our house. So this spring, I mentioned to someone that I got a planting chore done that weekend, and how good it felt to have made it through as many chores as we had that weekend, even though there were still dozens left. Now, that colleague is at a different life stage then I am. She’s an empty nester, with no aging parents left to care for. Her time outside of work is her own. And she has a typical city lot. So I know she was projecting her own situation on me when she told me “Now doesn’t it feel good to finish that thing you were procrastinating on?”

But I hadn’t been procrastinating. I accomplish so much in a week (at the expense of my sleep), many of my friends say it makes their heads spin. While the average American consumes over 4 hours of tv every day and spend another almost 4 staring at their smartphone, I feel like we don’t even have tv, and I hate the gambling/addiction effect of smartphones so I avoid them, and I don’t enjoy social media. Technically, we currently have a 1 year Hulu subscription, courtesy of a $2/month Black Friday year package, but before my husband chose watching a handful of Curious George episodes together tonight as a family as part of his Father’s Day activities, the last time I sat down to watch anything was when I selected some Curious George and How Its Made time for the tail end of my Mother’s Day activities, over a month ago. I read an average of 3 non-fiction, business related books per month, and I try to read a fun book here and there too (can you tell by my links that today I was reading “Calvin and Hobbes : Sunday pages, 1985-1995”, from the Rochester Public Library?). I love to read aloud to my children. I spend at least an hour with them every night, just being together. I work at least 60 hours a week. I do all of the laundry. I plan the meals, and make the grocery lists (before COVID, I was also the one doing all of the grocery shopping). I lose 4-6 partial days per month to migraines. I manage the household, making sure the i’s are dotted, and the t’s are crossed. My days read like a Calvin and Hobbes summer day.

So to have been told I’d been procrastinating, when I feel like I’m going full tilt, juggling all of the necessary timelines to keep from missing anything important, frustrated me. And on something that was going to bring me joy, to boot? Why would I have procrastinated on that? I felt like Hobbes, that I’d done all I could do.

At the same time, in some ways, the validity of the framework of her criticism didn’t matter. I almost killed my new bare root perennial flowering plants . Why? Because they arrived sooner than I had expected, and I hadn’t yet pushed weeding their destination flower beds into the constant juggle.

There are some things in life that, even if we aren’t procrastinating on them, we have to push them to the top of the list. That’s because their timing is uncertain. Whether that’s packing the hospital bag when you’re pregnant, or creating your will when you have dependents, or creating an advanced health care directive just because you’re human, if the timing is uncertain, and the consequences high enough, they need to come to the top of the list, no matter how full your days are. After all, in the end it doesn’t matter if you were procrastinating or just that busy: if you need these things, it’s already too late.

So: Is your maternity hospital bag packed? Do you have an estate plan? Have you reviewed your beneficiaries? Do you have an advanced health care directive? Do you have guardians chosen for your children? Do you have life insurance? If not, which day this week will you move that item to be priority #1 for you to accomplish, so that it gets done?