Back to The Defiant Few ←My Backlog Is Not My Life’s Work.
Illness can leave work unfinished, but I do not want a list of old intentions deciding what every usable hour is for.
Give me, for the sake of this argument, one usable afternoon. Nothing spectacular. Enough attention and energy to choose what happens next. Before I have decided what I want, an imaginary line forms: the unanswered message, the task I postponed, the project that was going to matter, the thing I said I would get around to when life became less complicated. Apparently, the afternoon has already been spent. I am merely being informed where to report.
An overdue task has excellent manners at first. It waits. It does not interrupt the emergency or demand that illness consult its schedule. Then, after enough time passes, it begins behaving as though its patience has earned seniority. I should do it because I meant to do it. I should especially do it because I have not done it. The reason it belongs in my life becomes the fact that it has survived on the list.