Newsletter #7

Take back your life - let go of control.

Hi there,

If you have school-age kids, like me, you may well be enjoying a few days away from the hustle and bustle as the Easter holidays kick in. And it would appear that these are much needed days away. That’s because the theme underpinning many of the conversations I’ve had recently is one of busy-ness.

Everybody seems so busy.

Too many things to do. Too little time to do them.

So that’s got me thinking about time. Not necessarily in the big abstract, philosophical sense. But in the raw, everyday, nitty gritty experience of it. The elusive dream of having ‘enough time’ to do all the things we would like to do versus the reality of time slipping through our fingers as we watch another day end with a to-do list pretty much the same length as it was when we started.

The evidence suggests, from what I see and hear, the plain and simple fact that we just don't have enough time. End of!

But what if this perpetual shortage of time isn't actually a problem that can be solved? What if it’s simply part of our human condition?

The Impossible Task

The truth is that we're finite beings trying to navigate infinite possibilities. Each day presenting us with more things to do, more options to choose, more responsibilities to uphold, more paths to follow than we could ever possibly manage. And yet, we try. We really try.

As a single parent of four kids, I often come up against this daunting wall of activity. Big work projects needing my attention. Housework chores piling up. Gym classes to go to. Alcohol recovery meetings to attend. So much to do. And I was convinced that if I just found the right productivity system or the perfect time management hack, everything would fall into place.

But I couldn’t find that magical fix. Consequently I lived in a world where everything I did felt half-arsed and half-completed. It’s a draining and frustrating way to live.

The problem wasn't that I hadn't found the right solution yet.

The problem was that I believed a perfect solution existed at all. I don’t think it does. I think it’s impossible to do everything.

And when I come to terms with that, there’s a strange sense of relief to be enjoyed.

Super-yachts and Kayaks

I came across an interesting analogy relating to this all-too-common desire to perfectly manage our busy lives.

Our dream is to be the captain of a super-yacht. A big, powerful, slick vessel with an incredibly sophisticated control panel. Big steering wheel. Precise navigation systems. Everything we could possibly need to chart a course forward, follow it effortlessly and reach our destination regardless of weather or circumstance. Calm. In one piece. Unruffled.

But life isn’t like that. We simply don’t have the ability, power or control of a super-yacht. The reality of our lives is much more like being in a single-person kayak, bobbing on waters we can't control, subjected to currents, winds, and waves that push us in directions we could never anticipate. Our path cannot be precisely predicted. And it will not yield to our desires to be so.

Our time management techniques, to-do list hacks, productivity systems, and five-year plans give us the illusion of being at the helm of a super-yacht. We press buttons, pull levers, and expect predictable outcomes.

But we're in the kayak.

This is the reality of living a full life.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have spent a good few years fighting this reality. Years believing that if we just worked harder, planned better, or stretched ourselves a bit thinner, we could somehow transcend the limitations of being human.

It wasn't until I found myself exhausted beyond measure (and at the wrong end of a never-ending bottle of wine required to cope with the stress) that I began to question this belief. I had to interrogate one of my core assumptions about success. My assumption was that being in control of things was not only possible but necessary to achieve what I wanted to achieve.

I now see that this assumption is wrong.

In a kayak, you're closer to the water. You feel every current and ripple. You can't fight massive waves—you have to work with them. You learn to be nimble, responsive, and also vulnerable to forces larger than yourself.

The kayaker doesn't waste energy trying to control the ocean. They develop skill in reading the water, adjusting their course, knowing when to paddle hard and when to flow freely down the river. They find freedom not in dominating their environment but in dancing with it.

And the beauty of accepting life as a kayaker? You still arrive at your destination. Calm. In one piece. Unruffled. But you also feel the full vibrancy of the journey that gets you there.

The Three Pillars of Living Within Limitation

Through all my conversations, failures, and reflections, I've come to believe there are three essential practices for navigating our kayaks with grace:

1. Surrender: Accept the Limitation

Start by making peace with finitude. Your time and energy have boundaries. You cannot do it all. This isn't failure—it's reality.

I spent years believing that if I just tried harder, slept less, moved faster, I could somehow bend time to my will. All I bent was myself; into exhaustion and resentment.

Surrender in this context means acknowledging that every "yes" contains implicit "nos." Every hour spent in one direction is an hour not spent in countless others. This isn't tragic—it's the necessary condition for making anything meaningful happen at all. Accept the consequences of saying “yes”. And revel in the delight of saying “no”.

Accepting your limited time on this earth and your limited ability to do everything means you get to say “yes” to the things that are important to you, and “no” to the things that simply keep other people happy.

2. Focus: Honour Your Season

Life comes in seasons, each with different demands and possibilities. The season of raising young children looks different from the season of career-building, which looks different from the season of caring for aging parents.

When we ignore our current season and try to do everything at once, we set ourselves up for frustration. It’s virtually impossible for the parent of a newborn to maintain the same focus at work as before. Just as someone in their 50s will find it hard to keep up the same social schedule as in their colleagues in their twenties.

Respect the season of life you’re in right now. What does this particular season make possible? What does it make difficult? Pay attention to the values that matter most in this chapter of your life.

Your focus is your most precious resource. Pay attention to what actually matters in your current season, not what mattered in a previous one or what might matter in a future one.

3. Decide: Choose Proactively, Not Reactively

Most of us live reactively, responding to whatever demands land in our inbox. We treat time management as a defensive measure. A tool to help us fend off the endless requests and protect what little time remains.

But there's another approach: becoming the architect of your time rather than its victim.

This doesn't mean controlling everything (which we know is an impossible task). Instead, it means making conscious choices before circumstances force them upon you. Setting boundaries before they're crossed. Deciding what matters before everything seems urgent.

As a football fan I’d like to bring in Lionel Messi to illustrate this point. To the untrained eye, he might appear completely inactive for big stretches of the game. But he's not being lazy. He’s conserving energy, reading patterns, waiting for the perfect moment to explode into action. Messi is similar to Warren Buffett on this front. Buffet is famous for keeping a mostly empty calendar and making very few investments. But the investments he does make are decisive ones, made at precisely the right time.

Messi and Buffet understand something essential about time and busy-ness: effectiveness isn't about constant activity. It's about recognising the sweet spot—that moment when a proactive decision to act yields maximum impact with minimum waste.

The Illusion of "Have To"

Some of you will be thinking. That’s all well and good. I really do wish I could surrender, focus and decide. But you don’t understand. I just have too many things that I need to do.

"I have to send that email." "I have to call my mum." "I have to pick my sister up from the airport."

These “have to’s” create a weight of obligation that feel heavy and burdensome. Inescapable even. But here is the plain and simple truth: you don't have to do any of it.

You always get choose whether you want to do it or not. All you need to remember is every choice has consequences.

You can choose not to send the email, but you'll face the consequences at work. You can choose not to call your mum, but your relationship might suffer.

Frame your “have to’s” as proactive choices and learn to deal with the consequences.

This isn't about shirking responsibility. It's about reclaiming agency. It’s about recognising that even within our limitations, we are able to make choices. We are not passive victims of our to-do lists; we are active participants in creating our lives.

When I view my actions as choices rather than obligations, something profound happens. Any resentment I feel towards my responsibilities begins to dissolve. The anxiety about what I’m not doing begins to ease. The busy-ness of life eases its grip.

Finding Freedom Within Constraints

There's a paradox at the heart of all this: true freedom doesn't come from escaping our limitations but from embracing them.

When we accept that we can't do everything, be everything, control everything, we create space to do, be, and experience what matters most.

We free ourselves from the exhausting pursuit of the impossible. We free ourselves from the guilt of never doing enough. We free ourselves to live within reality rather than fantasy.

Instead of asking, "How can I fit everything in?" start asking more discerning questions:

• What matters most in this season of my life?

• What can I realistically accomplish given my constraints?

• Where can I make the most meaningful difference with the time I have?

• What am I willing to trade, and what consequences am I prepared to accept?

None of us will reach the end of our lives having done everything. But perhaps that was never the point. Perhaps the art of living well isn't about maximising what we accomplish but about being present and intentional with the time that we have.

We'll never have enough time. And that's exactly why each moment matters.

When we surrender to what is rather than what we wish could be, we find not limitation, but liberation. In our acceptance of the kayak—in our willingness to work with the currents rather than against them—we discover a different kind of freedom. Not the freedom of a completed to-do list, but the more meaningful freedom of choosing what to do with our limited time here on earth.

You can do anything. But not everything. And in that distinction lies all the difference.

Until next time,

Simon