When Slow Living Starts to Feel Like a To-Do List

The other night, I had a quiet realization—and it surprised me. I had planned a perfectly cozy evening:

Pull out tomorrow’s dinner
Treadmill
Read a few pages of my nonfiction book
Start a new knitting project
End the night with fiction and my dog curled up beside me

Sounds lovely, right?

But as I moved through the evening, it felt… tiring. Not because I was doing hard things—but because I was doing so many of them. Each one was a “restful” activity, yet somehow, together, they started to feel like another to-do list.

That’s when it hit me: I was treating my slow-living hobbies like productivity tasks. Instead of soaking in the moment, I was racing through “rest.” And I had turned something meant to restore me into something I had to check off.

The Trap of Performing Peace

If you’re anything like me—someone who craves balance and deeply values making the most of your time—it’s easy to unintentionally hustle your way through slow living. We want to do it right, which sometimes means we over-plan our peace.

But slow living isn’t a checklist. It’s not about how many relaxing things you can squeeze into your evening. It’s about presence. Joy. Stillness. And enoughness. Slow living is about experiencing the moment—not performing it.

A Gentle Reframe

Now, I ask myself different questions:

What do I feel like doing next?
What would feel nourishing, not necessary?
If I did just one thing tonight with full presence, what would bring me joy?

Some nights, that might still be a few things. But the shift is: I let myself follow what feels good, not what I planned perfectly.

If You’re Feeling This Too...

Know this: you’re not doing it wrong. You’re just tuning in more deeply. And that’s actually part of what slow living is about.

So if tonight you only read a page, or sit with your tea and your thoughts, or do nothing at all—you’re still living intentionally. Maybe even more so.

And when I forget this (because I will again), I’ll come back to this reminder:

Presence over productivity.
Joy over checking the box.
Slow living, not slow doing.

Image by Ольга from Pixabay

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