I keep this on the inside of the cupboard door, and I add to it whenever I catch myself rushing.

It began as a note after a bad spring, when I noticed that I was treating every message as if a building were on fire. Almost none of them were. So I started writing down the things that had felt urgent and turned out not to be, and the list has been more use to me than most advice.

The list, so far

  • Replying to anything sent after nine in the evening.
  • Deciding what I think about the news.
  • Finding the perfect notebook.
  • The argument I am having in my head with someone who is not there.
  • Tidying the shelf, before I have finished what I sat down to do.
  • Knowing what the next five years look like.

And what cannot

I also keep a much shorter list on the other door. It reads, in full: phone your mother, drink some water, go outside before it gets dark.

Urgent is a feeling. It is worth checking whether anything is actually on fire.

Two people walking on a path through grass
The thing that usually sorts it out.

None of this has made me a calm person. It has only made me a slightly slower one, and so far that seems to be doing most of the same work.

Sample content for The Pixel, a fictional personal blog.