Rushing to Get Everything Done?

by SofiaWren September 10, 2025

🦋 💜 🌿 Hi! How are you?

I had a lovely moment this weekend where I checked something off of my summer bucket list:

I went to a local lake and watched the sunset go down over it with my husband.

It’s just what I needed to celebrate the transition from summer into fall that is happening all around me, cool breezes included.

And I also have been fighting off the recurrent little voice in my head that keeps telling me to hurry, hurry, hurry.

Do you ever have the feeling like there’s just not enough time to do everything you need to do?

A book, blog, youtube video, podcast, email series, a class, marketing it all. You might have a ton of ideas and things that you want to bring to life.

This stress about time keeps boomeranging back to me lately!

Especially since at this point I am 5 months pregnant!

I had a rough first trimester with brainfog, fatigue and nausea so I didn’t get so many things done that I wanted to in spring and early summer, and I have felt behind ever since.

There are things I want to write, projects for my two businesses I need to complete, classes to make new salespages for, etc. etc. etc.

Now that I have a bit more energy and mental clarity, my capacity to do things feels temporary and vulnerable.

Out of the blue, I sometimes am overcome with so much exhaustion that I can barely keep my eyes open.

And I feel like a new symptom or chaotic life event is going to crop up and dash all my plans any day now so I better get things done right now before that happens.

And of course when the baby comes sometime around Christmas, a lot more will change.

But the thing is—THIS URGENT FEELING IS NOT NEW.

Feeling a sense of needing to rush or hurry up is not unique to my being pregnant.

I have regularly felt some version of anxiety about time my whole life!

And so if you are feeling that sense of rush, then we are in similar scenarios.

The Power of Noticing Your Blindspots

To understand what I mean that this feeling is not unique to me being pregnant, let me back up for a second.

I know that a need for speed is one of my blindspots because I wrote it down and I regularly take time to work with my notes.

It’s really my super weapon.

This week I felt the seasons changing, so I felt compelled to look at what I consider to be my sacred texts:

my periodic reviews of the past week, month, and seasons.

The habit of reviewing the past has been totally lifechanging, and I always refer back to what I write about how the week, month or season is going as well as my intentions for the next time segment.

I keep the worksheets I made to do this in a disc bound notebook I call my “Get Fired” book, or my motivational commonplace book.

(You can get the review worksheets here if you want your own copy!)

I also archive them digitally in my second brain which is in Obsidian, so it’s all available to me quickly.

(My classes about how I use Obsidian to digitally organize my ideas and notes are coming back later in the fall.)

When I went back to the notes I took in January about my plans for the year, I saw it in black and white:

one of my major goals for 2025 was to put myself first by taking my time.

And why was this a goal?

Because rushing and getting anxious is a pernicious pattern I have noticed over the past few years.

It became very obvious since 2021 as I started digitizing my notes and journals and noticing patterns among them, like how often I said I was stressed about time or feeling behind.

Getting things done in the time I have can be a huge source of anxiety for me, and it is not new.

Of course, when I am in a rush and feeling all the urgency, this goal of TAKING MY TIME feels totally impossible.

Mindful Exploration

But this week, I decided to try to be more mindful so I have been sitting with the feeling of needing to rush and be busy. Exploring it. Questioning it. Musing about it.

Am I sometimes busy as a way to feel more control in the face of uncontrollable change? Probably.

Does hurrying up to do something help me avoid sitting with deeper feelings that I need to process? Sure.

I have been popping up the hood to look under these things, writing about them and even doing a live video conversation about it.

Finding a Middle Path

I can’t just sit decide to do nothing all fall, but I also can’t run myself into the ground rushing to do everything without ever taking a breath.

There has to be a MIDDLE way.

And my goal is to find that.

Because it is true that I AM busy, and I do have limited time,

but getting into a frenzy because of this will only result in more anxiety, less control and less clarity about what is really important to get done in the first place.

I feel like a part of my mind has so much trouble accepting the idea that going quickly can actually be more work and be less effective…but it’s really important for me to slow down.

Why it Matters

For years I have been saying this:

If you are digging for treasure, it is more important to get clear on where the X marks the spot is on your treasure map, before you start digging a deep hole really fast.

When I feel a hurry energy, a part of me just wants to get moving into action.

But what if I am digging a deep hole in the wrong place?

Throwing all my time and energy into the wrong tasks?

There are MANY things I could be doing with my time. Even if I do it quickly, I still can’t do all the things.

I need strategic thinking to make the best possible use of my time as a writer, creator, entrepreneur and human.

And that requires higher level thinking, and

a connection to my whole self not just my fight or flight system.

I can’t have that mental clarity if I am always in GO MODE,

frantically focused on checking off every little tiny thing on my to do list like my life depends on it.

I have to take a breather, get perspective so I can really know what are the biggest most important things to tackle next are.

Ungoaling

Many people tell me they are faced by this same conundrum of how to tackle all their ideas in the limited time they have.

A lot of my clients talk to me about it.

-Should they do the book now, or start with a blog?

-Then there is the website, and they want to start posting on social media…

-But what about an email list, or networking groups?

-They also have a youtube channel or a podcast they want to start, so when is a good time to do that?

-Which thing should they do in their business first, the 1-1 coaching, or launch 10 classes about XYZ things?

I’ve made it part of my job as a writing and business marketing coach to talk people through their ideas,

and really explore WHY each idea matters to them so that they can find clarity and clear direction before running into action and burning out.

A lot of times after we talk, they have decided some goals don’t make the cut.

The reason for doing them was not powerful enough, or maybe it was that they subconsciously wanted to impress people.

Once they realize that their motivation for some ideas isn’t really coming from a healthy or authentic desire, they find that they don’t really care about doing them right now.

I call this ungoaling, releasing the pressure merely to do things because you said you would do them before…

Often goals sloof away like old skin cells under a loofah. And you can leave them behind.

Me and You = Same Boat

If you are feeling pressed for time. I feel you.

I’m on the journey with you.

And I don’t believe the answer is to tell you that you really can do it all at once, because I don’t think that is true.

I think we just have to be honest about our limits and try to make the hard choices about what really matters to get done with the time that we have now.

Hopefully that doesn’t mean sacrificing everything that you DESIRE to do, just to tackle what you need to do.

Let’s allow ourselves some whimsy, some beauty, some peace, some space.

But avoid overly high expectations that are either setting you up to fail, or making you too stressed to function.

I hope you enjoy the video I made talking more about all of this as I share time in this cycle of reevaluation, ungoaling and refocusing

as I, too, try to make the use of my time and energy for important projects,

as well as take a deep breath in the space I have now before I enter the cave of motherhood in a few months.

I’m on this creative journey of living life and needing to prioritize, just like everyone else.

And I hope my one life is not all about being busy, and that I do create memories and moments that not only make me satisfied with what I got done, but also make me smile.

And I wish for that for you, too. 🙂