What if we stopped trying to do everything?

The greatest project of your life is not your family, your business, or your home. It’s the silent, relentless belief that one day, you will finally “catch up.”

To erase everything in your Notes app on your to-do list.

To complete every lesson, every day, just as planned.

To attend every co-op event and every extracurricular without skipping a beat (because, socialization).

To have every dish put away at the end of the day, every piece of laundry folded, and every toilet cleaned.

*side-eyes the mountain of laundry stopping me from being caught up*

It’s the phantom goal that haunts every ambitious parent: the idea that there is a finish line. That somewhere, all those Instagram-perfect parents are sitting at a beautiful, quiet oasis of calm while we’re here stuffing another handful of chocolate chips in our mouths (secretly, in the pantry, of course) to get the energy to power through it all and reach that utopia of homeschool perfection.

Ever wonder what the point of all the effort is if the to-do list just keeps expanding?

Sometimes, we treat our own lives like a video game: finish the levels, defeat the final boss, and then the credits roll and bliss begins. But more often, we feel stuck in a glitch when the chaos of flour spraying during a morning baking lesson about Christmas in Italy feels more real and alive than the quiet, scheduled hour you desperately tried to protect.

Here’s a radical idea: The finish line is a mirage.

I spent years of my life as an explorer, attempting to map the coordinates of that perfect, complete life.

That last one I didn’t see coming throughout all the adventuring and business-building, but wow am I glad it arrived.

Still, it checked me a little bit.

I have a long resume of accomplishments and adventures completed, still, every time I change up our curriculum mid-year, or view yet *another* stack of dishes or disorganized closet, I shift my self-perspective from thriving entrepreneur and mom to failure.

And that feeling of failure got me wondering: What am I really trying to do in this one, beautiful life I’ve been given? Why do I feel so perpetually rushed or late even when I am efficient and usually on time (if not early)? And why am I constantly staring at my Notes app, adding tasks and ideas and chores and curriculum and projects and field trips and recipes and decorating ideas and packing lists and travel lists and….. the lists go on.

The truth is, the lists aren’t the struggle. It’s mortality and the unspoken belief that even though I have limited time, I am wasting it on mundane tasks instead of creating “lasting memories.”

I realized I am regularly rejecting the present moment because it isn’t the beautiful, polished, “after-picture” I have been promised by some filtered 9-grid life on Instagram who doesn’t have baking supplies spilling out of her kitchen cabinets (please tell me I’m not alone here).

I have been allowing the sheer volume of things to do to blind me to the beauty of the doing.

Do you feel this conflict too? Like you’re constantly chasing the oasis while ignoring the ocean you’re swimming in?

More recently, I’ve worked to be more intentional about paying attention to those mundane moments. I’ve started to love the unexpected calm that washes over you when your hands are submerged in warm, soapy water, the scent of citrus rising from the sponge. I’m embracing those laughing moments in the kitchen where the butter starts smoking a little too much on the griddle, and suddenly we’re all fanning the room with the doors to stop the smoke detectors from chirping.

Last Sunday, I hit one of those moments where I’d let that intentionally go to the wayside. We were in the front yard and I was letting my kids steer the Christmas light hanging. What could go wrong with an 8 and 9-year-old detangling lights, deciding on random placement without worry about extension chords and plugs, and setting up a whole scene that the neighbors will love?

More pressure still: The firefighters are driving by our house to judge our lights in a few weeks. My kids are determined to win, which means I’m determined to let them feel the joy of that win. The pressure is ON. 😰

And I know that the reality is we won’t likely win. To make my kid’s plans and dreams of a perfect North Pole landscape a reality, I’d need a budget of roughly $5,000, not including the helicopter they want flying overhead. Harder yet, my husband just isn’t into it. He doesn’t love hanging the lights, so we’re in this on our own (which isn’t the worst thing).

Back to last Sunday afternoon. I felt the tension building in my chest. I was frustrated. I wasn’t being heard that candy cane lights on the ground wouldn’t win us the prize. My youngest was battling the laser light setup he wanted so badly to manage, and getting frustrated that it kept falling over. I was twisting and crossing the strings of lights as pieces of mesquite bark kept falling in my eyes. My oldest was trying his hardest to get creative with limited resources and without snow (thanks, Arizona).

It was all too much, and tensions were rising when my oldest said, “I’m going inside to decompress.”

The kid is SMART.

We all went inside and decided to try again Monday.

As we finally started to breathe again, that’s when I remembered the finish line of this whole North Pole perfection we were trying to create. It wasn’t the night of the firefighters coming by. It wasn’t the perfect display. It was the messy collaboration itself of us learning to work together to complete some sort of project as a family, weaving in our own type of STEM, math, art, language arts, and even a little egg nog.

We do these lights every year. I want it to be a tradition they look forward to; not something they dread. So, I checked my heart and my ‘tude, and on we went. Calmly.

And in that calm, there were multi-colored lightbulb moments that started to light up! The calm led to creativity, which led to the execution of our plan.

The lights are still going up, and I’ve now accepted that the work of home and family is cyclical. It’s spiral. The dishes will always return. The lessons will always require tweaking. The lights will always become tangled, messy, and difficult.

But because the work is infinite, we must find our peace, our joy, our rest in the middle of the process.

You find peace and rest not after the work is done, but in the simple, mindful act of doing the work itself. The warm soapy water, the flour on the floor, the messy string of lights—these are not interruptions to your life; they are the vibrant, immediate fabric of it.

Because maybe the point is never to be done, but to be done chasing an ending. I thought the point of list-making meant happily checking off boxes. But it actually means checking out the textures of those micro-moments and embracing the chaotic fun that goes with them. Turns out, the only way to win a race is to realize you’re not in one.

P.S. Ready to plan your next semester, not as a desperate sprint, but as a path to more flow and presence? Starting December 15, I’m sending out a 5-Day Email Course designed to help you create a semester that prioritizes your family’s energy and joy (and reduces that daily decision fatigue). We start by finding your flow, not by adding more things to your plate. This will be exclusively for paid subscribers