Tonight at youth group we asked the kiddos to write out what they did today, then categorize it out to the side. Rode to school with your parents? Family. Took the dog for a walk? Nature and health. Mean to a sibling? Not family. Learned something new? Learning.

My day.

8am: Woke up.
Checked the weather.
Put some music on.
Took a shower.
9am: Drove to work.
Chatted.
Worked.
12pm: Lunch.
Chatted.
Project time.
Freak out time.
Chatted.
6pm: Leave work.
Head to Youth Group.
Doing this exercise.

After I made my list and was about to categorize, all I could think about was what was missing. I continually sleep in late, I didn’t cross anything off my to do list and there was no physical activity on my list. I could have gone for a jog at 7am, even that is after normal people start their day. There was not a moment during my work day where I went out of my way for anyone, in fact I continually did what I wanted. I chatted. I didn’t see clear categories here, not a time to better myself, health, nature, family, or community. This was suppose to show them what was important to them, but it showed me that I didn’t have anything important squeezed into my day.

While I was looking at the negatives, all my kids were looking at the positives. For one, everybody seems to wake up about 6am (but I suppose they don’t stay at school until 7pm). One guy said that he usually says his day is terrible, but if he really thought about the day, he could see a lot of positives in it. Another kid said that he always feels like he doesn’t do that much with his time, but when he wrote it all down, he felt like he accomplished a lot today.

I enjoyed this activity. It made me feel like I need to get more done for “me” in my day. I also gained a lot of respect for middle schoolers. Not only is it an awkward time of their lives, but they saw what they were doing right instead of what they were doing wrong.