The Productive Way to Put Your Soul First (Without the Guilt)

The Morning Panic

image: Arun Clarke on Unsplash

You wake up in the morning, and for a brief moment you forget the list of chores ahead of you for the day. The fog of sleep still blissfully blankets your mind, preventing you from remembering what your day will likely be. Then you come to. Your to-do list is long. Every task feels important. I'm behind on laundry, I need to defrost meat for dinner. I have a bill I need to make a call about to dispute. I need to get another coat of paint onto the deck railing -- the rain will be back soon. Oh, but I can't. I'm out of paint. Onto the list goes a trip to Home Depot. While I'm out I should swing by the pharmacy and pick up my husband's rx. I need to schedule that doctor's appointment. The floors really need a good mopping after the dog tracked in grass clippings and dirt. We're out of bread, so I should get that started. Human brains suffer from decision fatigue when every task feels urgent.

Yet, that creative project you’ve been dying to start sits untouched in the corner. The long-distance friend you’ve been meaning to call will get another text that says, “So sorry, crazy week, let’s catch up soon!” The business idea you wanted to get started on will be pushed off to a saner time. The yoga class at the community center you've been meaning to try out will just have to wait for another day.

You will spend the day doing chores that don't really feed your soul in any meaningful way. You will paddle furiously, but your boat will just drift wherever the current of to-do's take it. 

Dropping the Anchor (Task)

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When our days feel like a storm of "urgent" chores, we don't need a new color-coded planner. We need an anchor.

An Anchor Task is the one non-negotiable activity that grounds your day. It is a single, high-priority project that you commit to completing, no matter how chaotic the rest of the afternoon becomes.

But here is the twist: your Anchor Task doesn’t have to be a dry, administrative chore. In fact, it shouldn't be. For our purposes this week, an Anchor Task is a protected respite for the creative or relational desires we usually push to the back burner.

It is 45 minutes of uninterrupted watercolor painting. It is writing that one chapter of your memoir. It is a focused, cup-filling phone call with your sister—without multitasking while doing the dishes. 

The storm of daily work will still rage around you. The waves of texts and emails will still crash. But when you drop an anchor first, you do not drift. You carve out a piece of the day for what actually feeds your soul, and suddenly, the rest of the daily upkeep feels a whole lot lighter.

Enter the "Task Sandwich"

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Of course, the biggest roadblock to this strategy is the nagging voice in your head that whispers, “Must be nice to paint for an hour, but who is going to mop the dirty kitchen floor?”

It’s a fair point. Life doesn't stop just because we want to be creative. If you try to jump straight into a deep relational or creative project while leaving your chores till later, your mind won't let you relax. You will just sit there, thinking about all of the other things you could be doing with the time.

The secret isn’t to ignore your daily chores—it’s to sandwich them.

Instead of letting routine tasks scatter across your entire day, pack them tightly around your Anchor Task. Think of it as a three-layer sandwich designed to protect your focus and keep your house running smoothly. Here's how it works:

1. The Top Crust (The 20-Minute Clear-Out): Set the timer for 20 minutes and race through the mundane chores to assuage any guilt over embarking upon your passion project.
2. The Filling (The Anchor Task): Your protected, 45-to-90-minute block for your creative or relational project. Set the timer, and go to it. No multitasking allowed. And protect that space. When the phone rings, let it go to voicemail. When a family member "needs" you to help them find something, assure them you'll help just as soon as your project time is over. 
3. The Bottom Crust (The Whoosh of Air That Pulls You Forward): A 30-minute wrap-up block. Now that your cup is full from doing something just for you, use that positive momentum to ride the wind straight into the remaining necessary tasks.

By structuring your afternoon this way, your chores no longer compete with your creativity. Instead, they act as the bookends that protect it. In all, about 95 to 140 minutes transpired during your task sandwich. You got some necessary chores done and had time to pursue something that fills you up. If your task sandwich is in the afternoon, you still have time to work all morning at bigger jobs, do the grocery shopping for the week, go to an appointment, or work in the garden, plus get dinner ready after the sandwich.

The Sandwich in Action: Two Real-Life Examples

image: Mathilde Langevin on Unsplash

To see how this works in the real life, let’s look at two different ways we can build a task sandwich depending on what our spirit needs today.

Example 1: The Creative Writing Day

• The Top Crust (1:00 PM – 1:20 PM): I set a timer for 20 minutes. I quickly clean the kitchen from the breakfast and lunch mess, start a load of laundry, and go online to set up that doctor's appointment. The physical space is clear, and the immediate fires are out.
• The Filling (1:20 PM – 2:35 PM): I light a candle, close my laptop tabs, and open my manuscript. For 75 minutes, I am a writer. The laundry is spinning in the background, but I ignore it. I write three new pages of my short story.
• The Bottom Crust (2:35 PM – 3:05 PM): My writing timer goes off. Feeling energized by my progress, I move the laundry to the dryer, make a pass over the kitchen floor with the DIY Swiffer, and make a salad to go with dinner.

Example 2: The Relational Connection Day

• The Top Crust (3:00 PM – 3:20 PM): I take 20 minutes to collect the mail and sort, pay two quick bills online, and fold and put away one load of laundry.
• The Filling (3:20 PM – 4:05 PM): I sit on the porch with a cup of tea and call my best friend who lives three states away. For 45 minutes, we laugh, catch up, and deeply connect. My hands are still; I am not cleaning counters or organizing the fridge while she talks.
• The Bottom Crust (4:05 PM – 4:35 PM): I say goodbye, feeling deeply loved and seen. With that emotional tank filled, I head inside and spend 30 minutes doing a quick organizing of the pantry/refilling canisters, making out tomorrow's grocery shopping list, and putting my shopping bags into the car.

Drop Your Anchor Tomorrow

It is easy to look at a messy house or a long list of obligations and tell yourself, "I’ll focus on my writing when things quiet down," or "I'll call my sister next week when I have more time."

But here is the truth we often forget: the things that feed our souls will never just "fit" into the cracks of a busy life. If we wait for the perfect, empty day to create or connect, we will be waiting forever.

You do not need an entire open afternoon to reclaim your creativity or deepen your relationships. You just need to build a better sandwich.

And here's the beauty of this method: it forces you to do something for yourself. Most of us can find every excuse not to do something that is just for ourselves. We busy ourselves with work for the home, work for the family, work for the church or other organization. And those things are excellent to do. But we also need to make sure we're running on full and not empty. One of the ways to fill our tanks is to pursue a passion project.

Tomorrow morning, look at your schedule. Pick one single creative or passion project or a relational connection that you have been pushing aside. Give it a specific time slot. Wrap it tightly between your routine chores using the Sandwich Method.

Drop your anchor first. Let the storm rage around you. You might be surprised by how much lighter the rest of the day feels when your cup is already full.

Over to You!

If you dropped an anchor tomorrow to protect your creative energy, what would you use that time for?

What is one creative project that would truly feed your soul right now?

Are you dying to break out the watercolors, dust off your sewing machine, dig into the garden, or finally sit down with that notebook?