It seems like just about everyone I’ve talked to lately has commented about the accelerated pace of their lives.
I hear it in ubiquitous phrases, like, “I’ve just been so busy, flat out, swamped, etc.”
I feel it in the genuine regret I experience when I have to say no to something I want to do or find myself postponing being with a friend or colleague whose company I enjoy because I’m booked solid.
Although it’s comforting to know I’m not alone, it’s also alarming to realize that the goal of living a more balanced rhythm is eluding so many of us.
Could over-scheduling be like global warming, sneaking up on us by degrees and threatening our well-being?
Fortunately, last October, after a period of trying to normalize my overextendedness resulted in failure, I became painfully aware that I was driving myself too hard.
Because 
Note: this is a reprint of a newsletter column which appeared November 10, 2006. I really am in Skaneateles at the moment, and I’m looking forward to sharing the strategic lessons I learn this year with you in a later post. Bev.
A 2005 article in the London Evening Standard about overwhelmed working women advised them “not to struggle into work when ill but to stay at home and rest.” Likewise, the November 2009 issue of Working Women magazine cautioned readers against “dragging [their] fever-ridden [bodies] into the office.”
Today you enter the Boott Cotton Mill at the 
Unlike the frog who failed to realize he was in boiling water until it was too late, I fortunately became aware that I was chronically tired before the downward spiral this form of self-abuse inevitably triggers had taken me to the danger point.
It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and I am writing this with a large pot of tea beside me. It sounds very civilized, except that I made the tea because I am tired, and I felt compelled to work on this column. Instead of taking a nap, I chose to take a stimulant and fall back into my pattern of overwork. 
