Are you an efficiency expert? Do you pride yourself on micro-scheduling your day so that every single second is accounted for and not “wasted”?

I am. Or at least I think I am. I realized this just now. And, boy, it was a wake-up call that I didn’t like waking up to.

I was thinking about a road trip that Dan and I are excited to take. It’s a day trip, and we’ll have a couple of hours each way in the car together. I was just sitting here thinking that we could rehearse our talking points for a radio interview that we have coming up. I was thinking that it would be a great way to not “waste” time – we could still be productive. We would be multi-tasking, catching up, and not falling more behind. We could make good use of our time.

Wow.

Why don’t I also bring along glue and paper and make journals in the car? Why don’t I bring my laptop and work on my book during this “downtime”? Why don’t we have a brainstorming session of all of the ways we can market our Soulful Journals?

I am officially out of control. I have been spinning on the hamster wheel for so long that it feels normal to me. This busyness and craziness has become the status quo.

I remember when Dan and I first started dating – almost 10 years ago (time flies!). I was working as an editor then, and he whisked me away after work one day to a Chris Isaak concert seven hours away. We drove there, went to the concert, came home that night, and if I remember correctly, I went to work the next day. It was fun – spontaneous – and freeing! And do you know how many times I thought about work – much less did any of it? Zero!

Fast forward seven years into owning our business, and life looks very different. The lines between work and downtime have blurred. The boundaries are continually crossed between business and pleasure. In fact, the pendulum has swung all of the way over to business for the vast majority of the time.

This process has been such a slippery slope – so slow and slick that we didn’t even see it coming. And now I have woken up to the fact that I am walking on dangerous ground. I want my life back. I want to know who I am outside of all of this. I want to play and be free. I want to simply be me. I want Dan to simply be Dan. I want our business to stay at home – preferably in the office where it belongs. And I want to take a day trip where we are the Dan and Jodi Show again – just us.

And what I really want is for each of us to recognize when this slipperiness begins to creep into our lives – when the boundaries start to fade between craziness and balance. I want each of us to be able to be aware of our time – our thoughts – and our power. I want each of us to stand up and scream, “No more!”. I want us to take back our time – take back our lives – and become ourselves again (not some robotic, exhausted, over-scheduled version of ourselves). Yes, this is what I want. And I have faith that we can each do this for ourselves. We deserve it – and it’s absolutely essential. Let’s take back our lives!