by Talia Tigges | White Hearth Pottery

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I used to stand at the kitchen sink while my son finally — finally — drifted off, running through the math in my head.

If he sleeps an hour and a half, and I skip lunch, and I don’t get stuck on anything, and the UPS delivery doesn’t ring the doorbell…

I could finish the glazing. Or write the email. Or photograph the new pieces. Or all three, maybe, if I was fast enough.

I was never fast enough.

And when the nap ended at 43 minutes — which it often did — I’d feel this low-grade grief I didn’t have a name for. Not quite frustration. More like I had failed some test I didn’t agree to take.

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Here’s what I’ve come to understand: the nap window was never the problem.

The problem was that I was asking a 43-minute window to hold everything I hadn’t made time for all week. And no window — not two hours, not a whole child-free day — can hold that.

We talk a lot about making the most of our time. But I’ve started to wonder if that framing is quietly working against us. Making the most sounds like squeezing. And squeezed time makes squeezed work — tight, anxious, never quite good enough.

What I’ve been practicing instead is something smaller and, honestly, harder: knowing what the hour is actually for before it arrives.

Not a list. Not a system. Just one clear answer.

Today, if I get an hour, it’s for the clay.

Or the email. Or the photos. One thing, chosen in advance, so that when the nap happens — long or short or not at all — I’m not negotiating with myself from a place of scarcity. I already know.

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This sounds simple. It isn’t, at first.

Because choosing one thing means letting the other things wait. And for a long time, I couldn’t do that without guilt climbing up my chest. The unanswered messages. The half-finished product descriptions. The reel I’ve been meaning to film for three weeks.

What helped me — and still helps me — is being in community with other women who are building the same way. Not the hustle-culture version of building. The slow version. The this is real life and I’m making something beautiful inside of it version.

That’s actually why I built the space I did over at Skool. Because I needed it myself, and I had a hunch other makers did too.

It’s not a course. It’s not a program with a perfect 12-step framework. It’s a place to figure out what your hour is for — and to not have to figure it out alone.

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If you’ve ever stood at your kitchen sink doing the same math I did, I want you to know: the window is enough.

You just have to decide what it’s for.

Come find us → Skool Community

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Talia makes pottery in Bluemont, Virginia, and writes about slow living, making things by hand, and building a life that doesn’t outpace itself.