There’s one nice thing about cliches – they wouldn’t be cliches if they weren’t true more often than we want to admit! So I can be sure that I’m not the only person who keeps biting off more than she can chew.
This time, I volunteered to take charge of our yearly church book sale (the woman who usually handles it will be out of town). And it’s coming up next Saturday. Less than a week. Less and less prep time with every minute that goes past.
It’s not that I need to do everything myself – lots of people have promised to help. But I have to remember to get various things done in the next few days, and I have to keep an eye on what’s happening during the sale and see to it that any problems get solved. I’ve bitten off more than I might be able to chew – and, yeah, I’m scared.
And I keep getting into situations like this, over and over. Of course, the standard advice is simple: Stand up for yourself. Don’t agree to do things. The trouble is, refusing wouldn’t solve the problem – because I volunteer to do things I want to do, or things that are part of reaching goals I care about. What I need to do, I’m sure, is to get rid of all the annoyances that make ordinary days a challenge – in other words, I have to become organized.
Did I mention I’ve never been organized?
A Number of Things 