There is always more to do.

That’s what makes the voice in my head so convincing.

It’s technically right.

And the voice isn’t new.

When I was ten, as soon as I finished my Frosted Flakes, it would start urging me to make the bed, read the book, practice the piano. 

Plus there was always the bike to ride and the grapevine to jump. 

I couldn’t understand why adults would choose to watch TV.

After all, being lazy was bad, or at least that’s what I was told. I thought it would make me fat and stupid and poor. 

So I was always doing something.

Decades later, I still feel the urge to multitask while I eat.

Not Doing

Owning a business made it hard to question the voice in my head, because so often it had a point.  

There was always another customer, target, idea, or process that needed my attention. 

Besides, not doing could put me out of business. 

If I don’t finish the proposal, we can’t win it. If I don’t address the tension on the team, it’ll spread. If I don’t watch the numbers, we’ll get in trouble. 

The best way to quiet the voice was to do something and be so busy I couldn’t hear the voice.

Do More

The problem was, organizing my email and creating the forecast both gave me the same feeling of doing something.

Even though one mattered and the other just felt like it did.

Letting other people fix mistakes, answer their own questions, or make recommendations meant waiting to see the result. And besides, they might not do it right. 

Doing it myself gave me an immediate feeling of accomplishment. 

And certainty.

As the owner, I thought working through exhaustion made me look valiant. Filling my free time with activity felt responsible. I was setting an example.

But really, this was my mind running a program.

The voice just said do more, not what matters most.

I had only two ways of measuring my time. Either I accomplished something, or I didn’t.

I had no category for time that restored me.

I was only measuring what my time produced. I never measured what it did to me.

I could work on a presentation for an hour and see exactly what I had to show for it. Three more slides. A problem solved. Something crossed off the list.

If I spent that same hour reading a novel or walking outside, there was nothing to see afterward.

No deliverable. No checkmark. Nothing finished.

So of course the presentation won.

Reserve Capacity

I’d learned the hard way that my business wasn’t safe unless we had cash reserves. I also knew we needed to reinvest some of our profit each year for growth.

And I understood we needed capacity for unexpected demand on our network and systems. 

But somehow, when it came to me, I treated every bit of energy I had as available to spend.

I never thought I needed to keep any of it in reserve.

Running myself at full capacity didn’t make me more productive, it just made my business fragile. 

There was no room for the unexpected. No room to think or strategize. No room to notice opportunities and act on them.

It took me a while to understand that replenishing my energy was also an investment in tomorrow.

I still notice how quickly I want to fill an open hour. Or how a peaceful afternoon can suddenly feel suspect because there’s nothing tangible to show for it.

But now when the voice says, “But what did you accomplish?”

I add something else to the equation.

What did I replenish? 

What capacity did I increase in myself or my business?

What did I make possible for the future?