The underrated importance of 'white space'

As a young mother of many, I got used to squeezing productivity out of every possible margin in my life. These days, I'm happier letting them breathe.

Today’s bonus audio is an exclusive, unpublished audio segment featuring fellow Substacker

Christine Koh

. Become a paying subscriber to access this entire post!

When I was a young mom with a large brood of young kids, I had what I called a “5, 10, and 15” list posted on the wall next to my computer. It contained short lists of tasks I could take care of when I had - you guessed it - five, ten, or fifteen minutes free

In those days, much of my work as a busy writer and blogger existed in the small snatches of time - the few blessed minutes both a baby AND toddler were napping at the same time, or the length of an episode of Blue’s Clues (minus the few minutes it took to refill a sippy cup or prepare a snack or or change a diaper or maybe even use the bathroom myself.)

I saved longer stretches of kid-free time - which in those days, were few and far between - for head-down writing and interviewing. The “stolen” minutes in the margins - 5 and 10 here, 15 or sometimes, blessedly, 20 there - were used for quick-hit tasks: responding to an email, writing a query letter, sending an invoice. I ran much of my small, but successful self-employed writing empire in fractions of hours. And for a long time, it worked; in the kind of controlled chaos way the rest of my life worked.

It worked so well, in fact, that I’ve never quite adjusted to the new reality of my life and work schedule as a mother of teens and adults, especially with a 50/50 custody schedule. After the kids go to school in the morning (or off to their dad’s for days on end!), I’m faced with seemingly-endless hours that I can direct however I please.

Endowed with an amount of open time that would have felt unbelievably luxurious to my 30-year-old self, I have found myself occasionally frustrated by the fact that I’m not suddenly getting four times as much done as I used to, despite the fact that marathon nursing sessions, endless diaper changes, and toddlers constantly climbing up into my lap are far behind me now.

It seems that if I organized my time in short, productive bursts the way I did fifteen years ago - or even six years ago, during the early days of my divorce when I was working two jobs outside the home and running a business inside it - I’d be unstoppable.

But here’s the thing...I’m realizing I no longer want to be unstoppable.