Live like you were moving
/We’ve booked our tickets. That means it’s happening. We’re moving.
The first glimpse of the swiss alps from the starboard side of the plane - always a marvellous sight
I’ve always found travels, be they for holiday or relocation, have never seemed truly real until the tickets have been booked. Before that, there remains a cloud of uncertainty. Well, I could go but there’s nothing to say that I must. Once hard-earned cash is handed over (I’m too foolhardy to spend more for flex tickets), I am obligated: I’m going.
So, that leaves three weeks to wrap up life in London and do everything I’ve been putting off for the last six years, as well as pack and say my goodbyes. That’s on top of the baseline busy-ness of everyday life. It’s an interesting problem to have and not dissimilar to my job as a GP. When faced with limited resources, how do you manage a list of competing demands?
I’ve realised you have to prioritise.
As a doctor, that’s fairly straightforward: clinical urgency trumps everything, and then the rest can be sorted out in a more relaxed manner. But how do you prioritise pleasure? In these last few weeks I have the same constraints as a working day i.e. I have limited time, but how to decide when it’s a decision between a nostalgic trip to a bakery versus a last-chance musical in the West End? Where’s the urgency there?
I can’t say I’ve found the exact formula. My initial strategy was maximisation: cramming as many activities in one after the other. The result, however, left me exhausted and resentful of yet more ‘treats.’ Evidently, that was the wrong approach.
I have since used techniques borrowed from my day to day as a GP. I have made an extensive list of all that I would like to do and then selected the most pressing items using an Eisenhower chart. This 4x4 checkbox of (non)-urgent vs (un)important tasks allows me to see what matters to me. Combining this with a weekly planning matrix (for the next three weeks), I have an overview of what can realistically be achieved.
I realise that my current way of managing time is an art governed by multiple techniques. The ‘planning matrix’ is a fancy version of the revision timetable I lovingly constructed in multiple glitter gel colours for school exams. And the 4x4 matrix is a modified wish list of wants versus needs. As ever, there seems to be too much to fit the allocated space. My wants and wishes splurge out of the containing squares. I need to cull.
This is the perennial problem with modern life: there is more to do than can ever be done*.* Or so says the Lion King. I, like many of us, have a tendency to take for granted the finite nature of existence. Only in the face of a hard limit e.g. a deadline (movers coming in two weeks) or a diagnosis (baby coming in two months!), do I realise there are boundaries in my life. Then follows a mad cram to do all the things I have put off thinking there’d be time enough later.
Always later.
I wonder if that’s the reason I am happy to keep moving? I have always thought my vagabond spirit was fuelled by the prospect of a new start. Now I wonder if I actually crave the deadline itself, which gives me the impetus to do all the things I put off?
Either way, the end to my time in London is replete with pleasure, which offsets the usual stresses of relocation. In amongst the farewell parties and the poignant boxing up of items, there are spontaneous meetups to say goodbye and express gratitude. With not enough time for small talk, I have to say all the things I have always wanted to, but have never had the occasion to:
‘Thank you, this has meant so much to me, I love you.’
It is a bittersweet pleasure to formulate a truly finite list . There is something to be said for living like you were moving. The lasts are as treasured as the firsts.
