I am always trying to squeeze more into my day than comfortably fits. I'll just answer an email, when I really need to be getting everyone ready to leave. Just a sec, I'll sort dinner when I've finished writing this. Let me just throw another load of washing in before we go. Quick wipe the table, pay that bill, finish the chapter, and book that appointment, all in the five seconds I have before I am due someplace else. The result is a mad dash out the house, with a disarray of children, bags, and lunch boxes in my wake, driving ever so slightly too fast, and feeling stressed. The alternative - the thing I seem incapable of doing - is to give myself five minutes extra. For everything. Gather children and coats and bags and whatnot five minutes before we are due to be driving away. Arrive five minutes before the appointed time. Have five minutes to spare for that chance conversation while collecting children. What I'll lose is that feeling of cramming things into every corner of my life. What I'll lose is that perpetual feeling of fearing being late. I probably won't achieve so much but I have a hunch that I'll enjoy each thing that I am doing more. So my springtime resolution is to give five minutes more to everything. Well let's be realistic - to some things.