Out of the blue comes a day like today when I get all of the important things done all on the same day. This is not to say that I accomplished everything on my task list. Not even close. I haven’t even caught up on all the things which fell behind during the weeks of sickness. But last night my paper journal and I had a good long talk and I was finally able to identify which of the perpetually postponed tasks were the ones filled with guilt. Today I put those things first. I worked on the Emperor Pius Dei layout. I worked on editing my book. I made dinner and enforced a homework hour for the kids. I helped my son make a boat for cub scouts. I did some other stuff too, but those were the things which really mattered to me.
Sometimes the things which matter are not the things I think ought to matter. This is another case of my emotional brain not communicating clearly with my logic centers. The logic center is the place from which I write all my to do lists. My emotional brain is the place which assigns emotional weight to all of the tasks. I can accomplish a hundred things which seem important, but the day will feel like a failure if I leave the weighty things undone. This is true even when the weighty thing is “shop for new shoes” a thing which my logic brain is not at all sure should even be on the list. Whether I think they should or not, some things matter more to me than others. The things which matter will shift and change according to my emotional currents. I have to take time to observe those currents so that I can make my lists to match.