Nobody's last words have ever been 'oh, if only I'd cleared my inbox'

When a close loved one dies, there is a lot of admin. I saw someone refer to it as 'sadmin' the other day, which made me laugh.

When my mum died, one of those arduous tasks was clearing out her house. Our house. The house we grew up in.

While clearing out her bedside table, I found something. Just a small piece of paper with a to-do list on it.

Not some list that revealed a secret family or a bunch of passwords to bank accounts in the Caymans full of secret millions (unfortunately). Just a normal to-do list. Set up direct debit, go to the post office, blah blah blah.

Normal stuff. Unfinished, in her handwriting.

I sat there and muttered, 'for f**k's sake, we ain't never finishing our to-do lists, are we?'

The list that never ends

We've always got a list on the go (at least I know I do!). Things we need to do, things we should do, things we never get round to doing. You cross things off and more appear. The work renews itself. The inbox refills. The actions stretch out ahead of us indefinitely.

It's never ending, my friends!!

So why do so many of us seem to believe that rest, joy, recovery, fun, the things that actually make life worth living, are things we earn once we've got through the list?

Put rest on the list too

The list is NEVER finished. So put those things ON the list. Right up there with 'complete tax return' and 'get back to client X', put 'sit in the garden and watch my dogs play' and 'sit with my daughter with no phone and chat about nothing'.

Despite being surrounded by more and more machines, we aren't machines. We're animals. We need rest, renewal, connection, regulation and joy. That's the point of living.

Nobody's last words have ever been 'oh if only I'd cleared my inbox.'

So what can you do to make sure those 'real living' things are actually part of your to-do list, rather than a reward you only get once you've finished the 'important' stuff?

This is the important stuff.