One of my former coworkers first introduced me to the metaphor: when you’re juggling a lot of balls you need to know that some are made of glass and some are made of plastic. The plastic ones, when dropped, will bounce. The glass ones will break. So the key is understanding the difference and to prioritize keeping the glass balls in the air.
I love this metaphor (and was reminded it via twitter thread yesterday). The application is real. We are all juggling a lot of priorities — and I’m not referring to only the big buckets of work and family and health and self-care etc. I’m talking about the juggling of the random slack messaging about office supplies and an annual 401k census spreadsheet from hell and creating a social media card and going for my morning run and checking in on a friend and having groceries and remembering to send out a weekly update email and and and and . . .
Juggling isn’t four balls in the air — it’s fifty or more sometimes. And in the midst of those busy seasons, it’s so much better to choose what balls to drops (those bouncy plastic ones) rather than desperately try to keep up with every and have no control when a glass one shatters on the ground.
And everyone is going to categorize their juggling differently. Maybe for some people that morning run example is a plastic ball — it’s always something to pick back up, after all — where for me its a glass ball right now. That daily movement and time for myself ultimately helps me keep more balls in the air.
The bottom line is that it really is impossible to do everything all the time and getting the perspective to see what you can safely put down (even if it’s not ideal, the world will keep turning) to keep what’s most important safety in your hands.
With Love,
Natalie