Tiny pockets

Tiny pockets of time.  How often do we waste them?  So many people have written about how you only need five minutes to (fill in the blank: meditate; exercise; declutter; tidy up; knit a row on a sock; change the world...)

I'm not good at sitting still - just ask my family - and so whenever I get five 'spare' minutes I usually manage to fill them.  Sometimes it's in a useful way, and sometimes not.  But I'm trying to make good use of them now and actually think about what those tiny pockets can help me achieve.  I find it difficult to do 'real' work - writing, in-depth thinking and planning - in a very short space of time, but I can jot down an idea for a blog post, empty the dishwasher, phone the garage or tidy out one clothes drawer.  (All of these are things I've done this morning in what would otherwise have been empty time - for example the five unexpected minutes I had because we were actually ready for school early for once.)

It's a way to silence the voice in my head that lists, over and over, all of the things I haven't done yet:  "Finish this, clean that, write this, do that, make this decision..."  That voice isn't helpful at all but taking a moment to actively decide what to do with this tiny pocket of time - that's useful and it gets things done, even if the thing that gets done is a conscious few minutes of nothing!