I was scrolling through Instagram posts one day when one post caught my attention. It said: “relax, you have done enough today”. It was so out of sync with other posts and ideas that I surrounded myself with that it made me stop. I love everything about productivity, inspiration, and efficiency. Faster, better, stronger… Every day I come up with a list of things I need or want to do and then measure the effectiveness of my day based on the progress I have made on my to-do list. Even now, when I am on maternity leave and not working, there are plenty of things I add to my list (in addition to looking after a baby and functioning) – things to clean, cook or bake, the book I am trying to write, the courses on masterclass I want to listen to, meal plan, the workshops I want to attend, the books I am trying to read, the face massages, 10 step skin routines, exercises for the body such as neck exercises, sit-ups, press exercises, walking …and suddenly, I see this invitation to stop and enjoy the life as is. It is a novel concept for me.

But then I thought – hey, when was the last time I told myself to pause and enjoy? When was the last time I actively stopped trying to be productive and efficient and just be? Even when we went on a ‘baby moon’ vacation last year, we approached it as work. Every day we would wake up at 7 or 8 am, have breakfast and then walk or drive and see as many things as possible. We would get back to the hotel at 6 pm completely tired, but then would force ourselves to watch and read something and make another evening walk. I was then 6 months pregnant. When we got home, I continued going to work and doing the job of 3 people (they literally had to hire 3 people when I went on maternity leave), go through management training (I attended last workshops and made presentations while my husband took a day off and looked after our 6 week old baby), while doing other things like get organised for mat leave and looking after our 5 pets. With baby arriving, I have significantly slowed down but now I seem to be going back to the ‘running until you fall down, tired’ lifestyle.

When do we stop? How do we stop? For me, I have to consciously choose that on some days what I do is enough, and doing 1 thing on my list is just as great as doing 10 or nothing at all. It requires an active effort for me to stop trying to be productive and just be. I love the Italian and Dutch concept of ‘art of doing nothing’ and will try to embrace it more.

In the light of the recent International Women’s Day I want to pass the message along to all girls and women out there: “You are doing enough. Slow down or stop altogether to look around, notice the surroundings and smell those roses.”. I am pretty sure that every woman does 10 times more than she realizes, on autopilot. We do things like cooking and cleaning without making a big deal out of it. We look after kids and manage households on top of working. We keep adding and adding things to do to our never-ending lists. I am all for adding things to our lists that have to do with our own betterment and enjoyment, but what if we try doing less? Let’s clean less or hire help, get takeout once in a while and listen to the music without exercising or stressing out about to-do lists. Let’s try to be less productive and efficient and focus more on being in the moment. Let’s live our best lives instead of being productivity machines. Let’s show up for ourselves.