Magnet Days

There are some days that you expect to be extra busy. Holidays, and the days leading up to them, for example. The end of the school year when you have students at home.

But there are other days, out of nowhere, that are inexplicably busy. There might be nothing major scheduled for the rest of the week, but on a random Wednesday you have three different overlapping events of equal importance. Days like that I like to call magnet days. Like a magnet, they attract scheduled and sometimes unscheduled events.

Usually you can see them coming from a week away, or even longer. Even with a week of careful planning, you still can’t do it all, and it’s stressful. It’s worse when it all just comes crashing on you at once. On days like that, I find myself scrambling and stressed out, and wondering why some of this couldn’t have happened the day before when I had plenty of time.

I had a day like that last week. At the end of the day, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do any art practice or not. Often, when I’m tired, I let things go rather than pile on any more stress.

This time, I put on some music and told myself I didn’t have to do much at all, and if it looked terrible that was okay. Something is better than nothing, so there was no pressure.

I had fun. The pictures turned out fine. It felt nice to accomplish something that I didn’t think I could do. It doesn’t always go that way when it’s late and I’m tired, and that’s okay.

However, when I do beat the odds and accomplish something extra on a difficult day, it’s nice to celebrate that. Especially when it’s a magnet day!

Do you sometimes have magnet days? How do you cope when you feel overbooked? Do you have an accomplishment to celebrate? How do you like to celebrate?