• Be honest. The philosopher on whom I wrote my dissertation, Simone Weil, talks a lot about a practice she calls “attention” that can narrow the gap between our perceptions and reality. Reality is often inconvenient, but it is so much more inconvenient in the long run to ignore it. When you have that nagging feeling that you’re trying to bend space-time, find some way to pause. It’s not worth it.
• Obligations: does it have to be you? If you are feeling stretched thin, consider the necessary tasks in your life and ask: am I the only person who can do this reasonably well? If someone else could do it without catastrophic loss, start looking into ways of finding such a person. Be creative; consider trades, bartering, offering a service in return. This kind of trade is how my mom got me drawing lessons from a professional illustrator when they cut art for a year in school.
• Try to determine to what extent your sense of tension and overwhelmedness is external (a literal matter of time shortage, with more necessities than you can handle) and to what extent it is internal (a matter of having standards for yourself that are not serving you well and may be physically impossible to meet).
• Give yourself permission to set your own standards; be ruthless when you discover yourself measuring your own performance (in any role) by a standard you have not deliberately and thoughtfully approved. You must become a cultural critic in order to do this, and notice what the stories are that attach to the standards which exert emotional pressure on you.
• Try if at all possible to get yourself a job description. Write it yourself if you need to. Get someone who can read and is not you to approve it. It is so much easier to meet goals that are clear.
• Take deliberate time for marginal things (like coordinating daycare). They require time. It is part of your parenting to put effort into the time your child spends away from you.
• When you ask for help, be specific and give reasons. “If you could watch the kids from 6 pm on and put them to bed tonight, it would let me go to this reading by this writer whom I have long admired, and I think it would give my work new energy.” Jim loves to help with a purpose.
• Figure out what kind of help you need and start moving toward getting it (this may include counseling, or childcare you can’t yet afford, or a gym membership, or taking a class or any number of things; figure out what you want and then pursue it, even if you can’t get it right away).
• Find a schedule that works for you, and follow it in a way that works for you.
• Take time to reflect.
• Take time to rest.
• Choose to look forward to things; own the agency you have in directing your own thoughts. Do the work of fighting to be present where you are, and do the work of learning to celebrate what is good in where you are. Choose to enjoy the freedom of making a mess with a toddler; choose to enjoy the (limited) quiet of being in your office or a coffee shop or wherever you work, when you are away. When I say “choose to enjoy” I don’t mean that you have direct control over feelings. But you do have direct control over at least some of your thoughts. So choose to think enjoying, grateful thoughts, like: I am glad I have this time to do this thing that matters to me. I am glad we have a kitchen in which to make a mess attempting to bake a cake. I am glad we have a dishwasher/sink/running water to help with cleanup. Or try It is good. It will be hard at first, and will be hard again at points in the future. But it will also start to become true, emotionally. And one of the most wonderful parts that will become true is that you will be able to say, to your kids, I am glad you are here. And you will be able to say, to yourself, I am glad you are here.