A Surprising Way to Reduce Anxiety

(Especially When You’re Crazy Busy)

The end of the school year is just nuts. Band concerts, graduations, open houses, baseball playoffs, soccer tournaments, award ceremonies, end-of-year banquets, teacher appreciation…all at the same time. Not to mention that you’re also expected to make food to bring to many of these events. Just looking at the week ahead is enough to make me feel dizzy.

Out of desperation and necessity, my husband and I have figured out a way to deal with all of these commitments. We figure it out the day before. Not two days or a week before, but 24 hours. I mean, I put all the commitments into my calendar but we don’t actually figure out who goes where and who needs a ride and what we need to cancel until the night before.

If you’d asked me before we started this practice, I would likely have predicted that such a strategy would leave me awash in anxiety. What will happen on Friday? How will I get three kids to three separate places at the same time? And what about SATURDAY, where we’re all double-booked???

But the opposite is true. Instead of increasing my anxiety about the future, this strategy allows me to just focus on the day at hand.

I wish I’d figured this out years ago. If you’ve ever heard me speak, you probably know that my favorite passage for moms is Matthew 6:25-34, which can be summed up in three words: Do not worry. In verse 34, Jesus says specifically, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

I have tried (really I have!) but never been very successful at actually living these words. What is a mom for if not to worry about tomorrow? My worries are many and varied, although, I’m certain, not unique. Most center around my children. And getting them to all their dang activities is probably the least important but the most pressing on a daily basis. It takes up a tremendous amount of headspace.

So imagine my surprise when a hundred new things crashed onto our schedule and the end result was that I worried about it all less.

One of the things I like about our 24-hours ahead plan is that it also frees up some space for me not only to appreciate the day we’re in but also to feel a sense of accomplishment. I brought the teacher a nice card my daughter drew (even if it wasn’t on the right day of teacher appreciation week). I got my son to his baseball game early (maybe not by his standards, which would probably be the day before the game, but early by anyone else’s). Everyone got fed (and so what if half of those meals were from the baseball snack shack?). Those things are not nothing.

I know that all of a sudden we’ll slam into summer and most of these events will slide off the calendar and leave us with a much more relaxed schedule again. But I’m going to try to stick with the 24-hour rule as much as possible. Summer is a good time for spontaneity, and more importantly, I want to keep us with this practice of appreciating the day I’m living.

Tomorrow will bring worries of its own, yes, but that’s for tomorrow.