Once again I’ve failed to use my Saturday wisely. Many worthy and important things could have gotten done; instead, it was T.V. time. An episode of Jim Henson’s Storyteller Greek Myths (much more tragic and somber than its fairy tale counterpart); an episode of The Crown (which led me down the rabbit hole of Googling all the stuff from the episode to see if it was real; sadly, some of it was); and then Ken Burns’s Jazz ended up being on PBS when I turned off Netflix, and I watched that for half an hour.

Yikes.

I am so bad at getting my work done when I have *actual time to do it.*

Instead, I waste such time, and when the eleventh hour arises, I scramble like mad to do all the work I’ve been putting off for too long. It’s bonkers and unhealthy, and I wish I was better at being disciplined.

Having just read James Clear’s Atomic Habits recently, you’d think I’d know how to develop small habits that will make my life run more smoothly. Alas, I feel like most of my days are filled with too much to do and not enough time to do it, and then when a weekend like today rolls around, I’m so burned out that all I want to do is veg.

I wish I knew how to make my normal weekdays not so stuffed with things to do. I’m sure this is a common feeling for many people. The question I have is why are we all so busy all the time? Is it modern life that’s made things busy? Is it our jobs? I don’t work a high-powered corporate job or anything; I’m a high school English teacher. Is it having to work and raise children that makes things so busy? I know others who work and have kids and they don’t *seem* particularly stressed or overburdened (maybe they just hide it really well…). Or at the very least, I don’t see any of them turning a perfectly good Saturday into a wasted “lost weekend” of vegging and avoiding work.

Why do I do this to myself? What kind of small “atomic” habits can I develop to avoid this cycle of over-work/giving-in-to-acedia? I think it’s interesting that I’m self-diagnosing my problem as acedia, because that implies this is a spiritual malady and not necessarily something I can “life hack” away. With all things spiritual, prayer is often the first priority, so maybe my problem is lack of prayer. Maybe I need to work on my habits of prayer and see what else will fall into place after that. Small habits of prayer might lead to more small habits elsewhere.

Maybe next Saturday can be a little less lost.