A workaholic’s super-short guide to surviving family time…

Is a massive commitment! It’s almost midnight and I haven’t done anything near “productive” since 3 this afternoon! It sort of bothered me for the first couple of hours but then I just let go (which as some of you know can be a struggle for me). And boy, what a relief it was!

Loosening up allowed me to just flow into the conversations, joked, laughed (out loud) and even debated on a few aspects that I’m so passionate about (like the “why do you do what you do” bit I need to answer during family get-togethers).

Even eating (a couple of slices of cake, greasy Indian and Mughlai food) and those couple of beers I had was fun! I truly experienced the spice of life even if it’s just for a few hours. Should I have these more often? Sure! Why not? The challenge with addicts (to work) like me is that we measure everything against the number of tasks that have been crossed off in our checklists. And that’s a grave one, considering that I’m thinking of just that while writing this… struck off just three tasks of the 10 I had in all for the day.

What happens tomorrow? I’m not sure… it’ll be a hectic day. I’ll probably hate myself for the first half of the day for wasting so many hours. Folks at home are probably going to avoid me till lunch… nobody wants to see a grumpy face to ruin their Sundays. They’ve got better things to meddle with. Post-lunch, I’ll slowly crawl into my home-office and start creating a checklist for the rest of the day, the upcoming week and then hop on to the scheduled calls I have.

Monday morning, I’m back in the game baby!

Oh yes, here’s the tip — the time that you spend with family and relationships can never be quantified. You probably shouldn’t even try. What you should do instead is “let-go” of your to-do list occasionally and be fully present with them. When the gathering disbands, your work will still be waiting for you… inside that checklist, waiting to be crossed off.