Loving the Chaos

Never mistake motion for action.

Ernest Hemmingway

Are you constantly in motion?

Perpetually busy?

Just because you don’t have a spare minute doesn’t mean that you are engaged in purposeful activity. If you find yourself with a lack of energy or enthusiasm, take inventory of how you are spending your time.

Chances are there are lots of tasks that keep you busy but don’t help move you closer to your goals. Giving up some of your busy work makes more time and energy for activities that are fun, meaningful and satisfying.

Leave a comment:

What keeps you way too busy?

The holiday season is often a time when budgets get stretched to the max. People run around hunting for this year’s in thing or scratch their heads about what to give Uncle Bob. In the end, most people have difficulty remembering what they gave last year and what they received. In many instances gift giving has become another “to do” list rather than an opportunity to connect and create memories. It doesn’t have to be that way if you shift your thinking away from things and toward more meaningful gifts.

Your first reaction when you look at a list of non-material gifts might be that they are “nice” but somehow not quite sufficient. If that’s your response, give yourself a little gift of reflection. Think about what makes a gift heartfelt, special and memorable. Sometimes it is a tangible thing, but often there’s a much more valuable gift that you can share.

As you make your holiday plans, consider these priceless gifts:

The gift of no.

Saying yes when you’d rather say no is a common experience. Give someone a card that simply says, “No thanks” that can be traded at any time during the year for something to which they would rather say no. They get to choose and you graciously accept their no even if you’d rather they say yes. Trust me – this is a powerful gift.

The gift of time.

Everyone says they don’t have enough of it, so time is the ultimate priceless gift. How could you share your time with someone? How could you free up someone else’s time? If you were given a free hour or day, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Make a commitment to honoring this gift so it doesn’t become an unfulfilled promise.

The gift of fun and laughter.

Commit to doing something fun with someone. It’s easy to become so serious in life that we miss the opportunities for fun and laughter. When was the last time you laughed until you cried? Or had so much fun you didn’t stop smiling for days? Create a game night or go to karaoke or plan a mini movie festival.

The gift of an unfulfilled promise.

Is there someone you have been promising that you’ll get together for coffee? Perhaps an outing with one of your children? Some uncompleted household job your partner would really appreciate?  You know how it goes. There’s likely a long list of things you mean to do but time and busy schedules get in the way. After a while everyone starts to believe that it will never really happen. Give a firm commitment to someone to get together, or to start or finish a task. Then do it.

The gift of a keepsake.

Often we have some item that we intend to pass along to someone once we have died. Or sometimes we know that someone loves an object we have far more than we do. Consider giving a keepsake gift now rather than waiting. Pass along a piece of jewelry or a book or even great grandma’s rocking chair. Why postpone the enjoyment?

Take a minute to leave a comment and share your priceless gift suggestions.

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

Gandhi

How can you slow down?

My kids are finishing school and planning to leave home. How do I manage the empty nest syndrome?

As a parent it’s natural to feel some twinges as your children grow and leave the home to start their own life adventures. This is a great time for you to focus on what your next life adventure will be. Parents often put their own dreams and passions aside as they concentrate on raising their children. Sometimes you completely lose touch with what those dreams are. Now that you have fewer day to day responsibilities with your kids, you will have more time to explore those things that you may have set aside.

What have you always wanted to do but have not had the time or energy to take on?

What part of yourself would you like to get to know better?

What hobby have you stopped doing or would like to start?

What you focus on increases, so first give yourself a high five for a parenting job well done, then shift your attention to creating something meaningful for you in this next phase of your life.

What’s next for you?

If distracting yourself from important tasks has become a long standing habit, sometimes you just need to try substituting a new habit. Remember that managing distractions is all about being in choice – choosing where you want to put your focus in any given moment.

Here are five ways to help keep your focus on the task at hand:

1. Categorize.

According to Stephen Covey, all activities can be sorted into four categories:

• important and urgent (do it right now)
• important but not urgent (can wait but shouldn’t)
• urgent but not important (driven by a time pressure, often someone else’s)
• not important and not urgent (enough said)

Most people get distracted by the last two types of activities. Before you undertake a task, ask yourself which category it falls into.  Are enough of your important things being taken care of, or are you giving too much time to other stuff?

1. Just begin.

Sometimes you look for distractions because you’re finding it difficult to get started doing something.  Inertia can be challenge – its easier to keep doing something else (watch tv) rather than start something new (take the dog for a walk). The way to overcome inertia is to just begin. Shove yourself into a new activity with a commitment to stick with it for only 15 minutes. Most times that’s enough to get you focused.

1. Watch for your favourite distraction.

Everybody has their favourite way to kill time. Identify your preferred method of procrastination and then be on the lookout for it. When you’re drawn to your favourite distraction, ask yourself whether there is something else that needs your attention instead.

1. Be more accountable.

When you are choosing to procrastinate, be more accountable to yourself and others.  Say out loud: “I’m choosing to do X even though Y would serve me better.”

1. Practice meditation

The goal of meditation is not, as some people think, to “empty your mind.” Meditation helps you to quiet your mind so you can more easily hear your true inner voice. It trains you to notice distractions and let them go. That’s a great skill to learn no matter whether you are meditating or trying to focus on a task.

Some days work seems like a real chore and I come home feeling tired and cranky. How do I leave work at work?

Stress levels in the workplace can sometimes be pretty high, especially in an uncertain economy. When you bring that home, you might as well just sleep at the office.

To make the transition from work easier, try using the commute home as a decompression phase. Imagine as you enter your car (or bus or subway train) that you getting into a transformational chamber. Set an intention that by the time you arrive home, you will have reset your mood and attitude.

Choose music that suits your needs in the moment – to re-energize, to uplift, to let go.

Turn off the talk radio or news.

Focus on your breathing.

Circumstances at work are sometimes out of your control. Making the shift from work to home is a conscious choice to take control in your life where you can.

Post a comment and share your best leaving work at work tip.

And don’t forget to to ask your own “how to” life motivation or strategy question.

I’ve started hanging out on Twitter and the most interesting things cross your path there.

Like Jonathan Mead’s blog post earlier this week called The Lie of the Four Hour Work Week in which he challenges our ideas about work. It’s worth your time to read it.

Standing on a spot 

It resonated with me because he’s on the same page with respect to perspectives. The spot you stand on or the lense you look through on anything, work included, colours everything about it.

If you are standing on a spot called drudgery, then no wonder you keep hitting the snooze button in the morning. If you see work as just another pile of things to get through by quitting time, then you’ve already quit.

If you hold work as sacred as Jonathon suggests, everything shifts.

David Whyte talks about the three marriages in our lives: one with ourselves, one with our partner and one with our work. What if we held work in the same loving way as our partner?

 Jonathan asks this beautiful question:

“With the work you do today, how can you create the biggest positive impact in other people’s lives, while fulfilling your own dreams at the same time?”

That shifts things.

Don’t you love the internet? It connects you to the most amazing people you might never have met otherwise. It starts conversations. It shares ideas. It lets you shift spots even for a few minutes.

Go ahead – connect, converse, share, shift.

Yesterday I challenged the idea that the recession will result in better work-life balance.

If that is really going to happen, then people will need to start doing some things differently – not because the economic situation has prodded or forced them to, but because they really want to create a more balanced life.

As a life coach, sometimes my job is to point you toward the tough questions. So here are some no nonsense life balance tips. They are not necessarily the warmest and fuzziest suggestions but they are the ones that will set you on a path toward greater balance regardless of whether we’re in a recession or not.

1. Have a candid conversation with yourself.

Take some time to sit quietly and reflect on how in or out of balance your life is. Ask yourself these questions:

Do I have the time and energy to do the activities I love?

Do I go to bed feeling that I have accomplished the most important tasks that day?

Do I set boundaries based on my priorities?

Is life a joyful, fun adventure?

Be honest. If you answered no to these questions, then it’s time to begin to make some more conscious choices.

2. Write down your most important priorities.

If something catastrophic happened and your life was pared down to the basics, what would you want to preserve? I bet those things revolve around your health, your relationships with your family and significant others, your spiritual connection, and what else?

Make a list of these things – they reflect what is most important to you. Let’s call them your key priorities. Are they what get your attention before other things in your day?

3. Take something off your plate.

Remove one commitment from your schedule. We all have obligations that we have agreed to that in hind sight we know we should have declined. When you fill your plate with things that do not reflect your priorities (see #2), you take away valuable time and energy from honoring those priorities.

Go ahead and say no now. Do it with grace and respect. Make a statement that you are removing this commitment in order to honor your commitment to one of your key priorities.

4. Substitute the excuse you are using.

How many times have you told yourself, I would _______, but I’m too tired or I don’t have enough time? Actually you do have time and energy. You are simply using it for something else.

Instead of using your standby excuse of no time or energy, try substituting this:

I would _________, but it’s not a priority for me. It might sound something like this:

I would exercise but it’s not a priority for me. If that feels a little uncomfortable, then you know you are in an area that needs more attention from you.

5. Give yourself a pep talk.

It’s easy to get down on ourselves that we have let things get out of control in our lives. So cut yourself some slack and then choose to do something different. Switch your inner chatter from I can’t/won’t/shouldn’t to more empowering dialogue like:

“I‘m consciously making choices to create more balance in my life.”

“It’s okay to say no when I am honoring my key priorities.”

“That was then, this is now.”

There are lots of strategies and tips on how to create more life balance. Sometimes you need to begin at the beginning with the no nonsense basics. You can do this. Trust me – you will be so glad you did.

Post a comment with your no nonsense life balance tips.

Here’s an interesting headline:

Recession offers potential for more work-life balance.

That’s according to a researcher at the University of Iowa based on what happened during the Depression.

His theory is that as people’s hours are cut at work during the current economic down turn, they will have more time for leisure activities.

Well sure. That makes sense. But actually creating more work-life balance?

I’m not so sure.

It’s one thing to say that when people have more time they will use it for non-work related stuff. If you have six more hours available to you because your shifts have been cut, then of course you will likely spend them with your family or on your own fitness or volunteering in your community.

It’s a completely different thing to say that people will consciously choose more work-life balance.

Life balance comes from making conscious choices about how you spend your time.

It’s about knowing your priorities and then aligning your actions with them. It relies on the same principles whether the economy is turned up, down or inside out.

I’m sure if you could add an extra 2 hours to the day – stretch it to 26 hours – you’d think that there was more potential for work-life balance. But what would likely happen is you would go back to your unbalanced ways once you got used to the extra 2 hours. Unless of course you starting making decisions about how you spend your time based on your priorities.

That’s exactly what will happen as a result of the recession too.

People are considering all kinds of life changes – simplifying things, getting back to basics, enjoying  their leisure time. But they will return to old habits once the economy picks up unless there they make a concerted effort to do something different. During this recession people are reacting to the circumstances, rather than being proactive about creating the kind of life they want.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

You can take this opportunity and begin to create more life balance. You can be proactive. You can begin to do the things that will help you sustain this balance once the economy starts rockin’ and rollin’ again.

Tune in tomorrow for some tips to get you started.

Multi-tasking is either the backbone of civilization as we know it, or the scourge of our very souls.”

So says journalist Heidi Stevens in a recent article describing the multi-tasking mania of an Illinois mother.

I’d say it’s not either/or. It’s both.

Somewhere along the line we got the idea that multi-tasking is a good thing. We even began revering people who seemed to be able to do ten things all at once. We began the mantra that multi-tasking is a necessary evil.

Nonsense.

We aren’t designed to give our focus to multiple things at the same time. Oh, sure walking and chewing gum are fine. But when it comes to trying to do something of importance along with one or more other tasks, all that happens is that we do none of them particularly well.

That’s how we find ourselves in a culture that loves mediocrity.

You can not have a meaningful conversation with someone while you are checking your email.

You can not drive safely while texting or putting on your make-up.

You can not listen to how your kids’ or partner’s day went while you’re watching TV.

How do you spend your time? 

One of the reasons why people think they don’t have enough time is that they shove too many unimportant things into one time slot. They don’t give their mindful attention to the task at hand, especially the really important things like connecting with loved ones.

Fold laundry and watch TV – sure. 

Expect someone to share what’s really happening in their world while your attention is diverted – not a chance.

I’d suggest that it’s better to do fewer things well than a bunch of things half heartedly.

Take a stand for single tasking – especially where it matters.