While packing up my apartment last week, I came across a stack of papers from my old corporate job. In that stack, I found a list with bold letters at the top, “Things I Need To Do but Don’t Have The Time” dated November 30, 2007. I remember this time well. You see, in my prior life as an engineer, working long hours was the norm, and the holidays were no exception. I was totally out of balance. While lamenting to a friend one day, she suggested I hire a personal concierge friend of hers to help me. I laughed. At the time, I hadn’t really heard of “regular” people using a personal concierge. Only rich people can afford a concierge, right? Plus, I was a textbook Virgo perfectionist, and I had a hard time delegating my stuff. I either felt like it was too insignificant to ask someone else to do (“It’s just a quick phone call to make a doctor appointment. How is it that I cannot get around to doing this?”) or I was worried that they wouldn’t do it right (aka – the way I would do it).
Although I was apprehensive, I contacted her personal concierge friend. During our first meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she was more affordable than I expected. And as I shared my list of “Things I Need To Do but Don’t Have The Time,” and heard that my stuff wasn’t too insignificant and that – gasp – she’d be able to have most of it done within the week, well, I was downright relieved! The 10 ton boulder I’d been carrying around had been lifted. Yeah, I’ll admit that this one meeting didn’t miraculously cure my delegation issues. I was still worried about quality. Would she give my to-dos the same care & attention I would give them (if I had the time)?
One week later, the list was nearly complete, and each item was done as well as I would have done it. In that week, I was able to focus my attention where I really needed it. I was a very happy Tina. Side note: To any of you busy Philly people who want to know who this angel was – Joan Silverstein of Center City Concierge (www.centercityconcierge.com).
Fast forward 2 years, and, following a move across country and some serious soul-searching, I am now a personal concierge! (I’ll save the engineer-turned-personal-concierge story for another day.) I share this story of struggling with my stuff because I have heard this time and time again when I tell people about my business, and I want you to know that I truly understand.
This time of year can be particularly tough on all of us. The holidays are an exciting, festive, social time, but it’s also a time when we’re putting more things on our already long to-do lists and adding more appointments to our nearly full calendars. In short, we overextend ourselves. We get through it by telling ourselves “It’s only a month” and it is (5 weeks from Thanksgiving to New Year’s to be exact), but come January 2nd, we find that plowing through it has left us depleted, exhausted, or even sick. And that’s no way to kick off a new year!
Take care of yourself this holiday season. Maybe even consider giving yourself the gift of sanity – we are here to help.
