I HAD TIME. I JUST DIDN'T PRIORITISE IT.
“I had time. I just didn’t prioritise it.” Never has there been a truer unsaid phrase.
The excuses
Recently, I was asked by a family member whether I’d watched a video they had sent me yet. My initial automatic reply was, “I haven’t had time”.
As part of my self-awareness journey, I’ve challenged myself to really look at situations when I give the excuse of “lack of time” for the reason I haven’t done something.
These were the next pretty reasonable thoughts - (also partial excuses):
1) I want to watch this with my husband, so we can both take an interest in it together, rather than waiting for him to watch it later, which he may not get round to.
2) When we’ve tried to watch with our baby there, it has been too difficult, and we’ve had to turn it off.
What was the truth?
I then said, “To be completely honest, I haven’t prioritised it”.
I chose not to prioritise watching the video. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t eventually prioritise it, which I did a few days later, but for the period of time between being sent the video and having a reminder, I hadn’t prioritised it and that was down to a number of accumulative choices.
Should I feel bad about not prioritising something?
It depends why I didn’t prioritise it. I knew that my family member would like me to watch the video and show enthusiasm for it as they had created it. It was therefore on my list of priorities, however it was not at the top. Had they needed to hear back by a particular date with comments or helpful feedback, I’d have been forced to prioritise higher because there was a time limit, but this wasn’t the case. So no, I didn’t feel bad for not prioritising it, but I would have done if I had left it too long, because I knew it meant a lot to my family member for me to take an interest.
Instead, I prioritised quality time with my family where we were fully present with each other and talked. By initially trying to bring a video into this time, my daughter felt we were distracted and wanted our attention, or I lost the opportunity to speak with my husband without external distraction.
Once I felt I was happy to forfeit these higher priorities, albeit temporarily, I put watching the video at the top of my priority list for the afternoon with my husband. This was whilst our daughter was asleep and didn’t feel we weren’t there for her. I enjoyed the video and showed my enthusiasm for it. I was glad however that it was at a time when I could do so rather than showing resentment for the time I would have rather spent doing something which meant more to me.
Why don’t we default to honesty?
Quite frankly, because it is uncomfortable. To say, “I haven’t prioritised it”, suggests “I haven’t prioritised you”, and that might seem harsh, insensitive or unkind. I believe however that if their need is greater than yours, it is kinder to prioritise them and their needs. If your need is greater than theirs, it is kinder to prioritise yourself and your own needs. But at some point, even when others’ needs are greater than our own, we eventually need to prioritise ourselves and vice versa.