What gives under pressure?

As my countdown to Chiapas continues, and my days and hours are filled with a mammoth translation marathon in preparation, I am noticing what is happening to my choices around time as my stress level increases.

Some days, time lies before me in an open expanse, inviting a feeling of spaciousness as I approach the day and my intentions for it. Saturdays and Sundays, and occasionally a week day, are like that.

Not this week. My dear friend and proofreading colleague Carolina, who is impatiently standing by on east coast time to proofread my translations like a horse chomping at the bit, jokingly suggests that next time they are visiting, her R.N. practitioner husband teach my hubby how to put in an IV so I don't have to eat and can keep working without leaving my desk.

Well that is not happening, but I am blessed to have a sweet gallant hubby who steps up to the plate and into the kitchen. Healthy home cooked meals around the table with family, non negotiable. Meditation, also a no brainier, forgive the pun. The more stress I am under, the more I need it. Less sleep, well, yesterday I would have said, no way. Today, as I lay wide awake and wired at 5 a.m. and surrendered to getting up, some of that went by the wayside too.

My daily hike in the outdoors, ah, sadly, that is not happening this week.

Sometimes during marathon focus periods, when life is such that whatever the task before us can't be eliminated, delegated, or postponed, because it is in fact the right thing to be doing, something has to give, for now.

Unfortunately, it is usually our self care that goes out the window, just when we actually need it the most.

So, it's helpful to pay attention, to stop and notice what gives under pressure ~ then we can sit a moment, think through our day, tune into our body/mind/heart/soul and then decide what to let go of, where to hunker down.

This too, shall pass, I remind myself as I take lots of deep breaths. And it’s all for a fabulous cause!

What about you, oh dear busy bee, what gives under pressure when you are under the gun?

             

Leisure is not the goal – What?!#

After having busted the myths of the dubious virtues of claiming too much busyness and the erroneous notion of balance, I somehow wasn’t too surprised to read Rory Vaden’s next exposé on another of our cherished notions of time management.

I mean, isn’t that the American dream? You work like crazy for 40 years, sell your soul to the man, and then finally retire in your golden years to a leisurely life of hobbies and travel?

Well, as most of us baby-boomers have to face, things aren’t quite working out that way that anymore. In fact, traditional sources of income (think social security, retirement pensions, return on savings) are dwindling, retirement costs are rising, our life expectancy and health care costs are rising, and the reality is that we will have to adjust our vision of our “golden years.”

So, before we all sink in to doom and gloom, let’s look at it another way. As Rory Vaden states, it took him spending time with those successful people he refers to as the “Multipliers” to realize “that work isn’t something to be endured, that we should try to avoid whenever possible, and it isn’t something that should be a finish line that you race to so one day you can stop.”

The key to embracing this new reality, I believe, is doing work that we love, that we are passionate about – then work is, as Vaden states, freedom and joy.

So if you are, like me, one of those baby boomers who are in the process of amending our expectations of those golden years– then let’s get busy finding that passion and purpose if we haven’t already, so we can be fully engaged in our glorious, productive, passionate lives – today and tomorrow.  Think?

Balance is bogus…

… states times management and productivity expert Rory Vaden in his book, Procrastinate on Purpose.

Well believe me, I had a hard time swallowing that one. I’ve always been all about life-work balance. It’s one of the big reasons I love being a self-employed entrepreneur – my time is my own to decide how to allocate it and I have always strived for that balance. 

So imagine my surprise when I read Vaden state that balance is an ineffectual strategy that should be avoided because it won’t bring us the results we want! It’s just an excuse for justifying why we aren’t getting the results we want in an area of our lives.

You mean all these years I’ve been happily balanced and yet ineffective? Pretty much, I have to admit. If you’ve been following my blog for a little while, you know what I mean.  (If you’d like to catch up, you might also enjoy reading this post).

Ok, deep breath. Let’s see what he has to say. If you take the notion of balance literally, it would mean that our time and energy would be equally apportioned across the numerous tasks that make up our days.

Success, claims Vaden, does NOT come from doing this, but rather from just the contrary – focusing our skills, financial resources, time or energy in one priority direction for a shorter period of time, or what he calls a “season,” which can also be described as “imbalance.”

Well, I must admit that makes sense. Look at nature. There is a season for everything. There is winter, where life’s energy and priorities are focused on regeneration and dormancy, followed by spring and the burst of growth and creation, the maturing expansive blossoming of summer and the abundant harvest of fall.

Now that I have had this period of focused “imbalance” – spending way more time and resources on my writing, blogging, and learning to navigate the intricacies of social media, I get what he says. I am starting to see the results that have previously eluded me.

And what started out as feeling imbalanced – getting up earlier than I would prefer, putting other projects on hold so I can devote time to this pursuit - has become the comfortable normal. 

So, I’m learning to embrace my season of focused imbalance, what Vaden refers to as “working double-time part-time for full-time free time.”

Because what I get is that working double-time part-time now is the path to full-time free time tomorrow.

So, esteemed reader – want to join me as we embrace imbalance so we can move closer to our dreams?

The myth of “I’m too busy”

You know how it is when you focus on something, and suddenly you see evidence of that thing everywhere you look?

That happened to me with the matter of procrastination. After my recent epiphany on the subject and subsequent commitment to be done with it for once and for all, I was walking through my local library to pick up a book for my mum, when Rory Vaden’s new book, Procrastinate on Purpose, literally leapt out at me from the new books display.

Now why would I want to procrastinate on purpose, having just kicked the darn thing in the butt, I wondered. Well, I was in for an eye-opener and a truly innovative approach to time management.

According to Vaden, truly successful people, of whom he has worked with many over the years, never whine about being too busy. Radical!

“I am just so busy.”  How many times have we all said this, with a sigh of overwhelm and yes, even a touch of pride at our own self-importance.

That was my excuse for so many years.

Until I realized that it really was a self-defeating justification for not doing something important, something that had been quietly calling me for a long time.

And you know what? Everything that is on my plate, I put there, or allowed it to be put there. I made the commitment. I took it on.  I choose to do it.

So, no more whining about how busy I am. I am not a victim. I choose my own priorities. I am in charge of my life.

Tune in tomorrow as we bust open more myths about time management.

“You and I have the same amount of time in a day as Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Michael Jordan or anyone else who has achieved greatness.”

                                                            Rory Vaden