Two weeks into the new year reality starts to bite. You kicked of with all your resolutions and threw all your energy into your favourite projects. You showed great discipline and focus and things were really clicking along.
But now you get to the point where the admin you have been ignoring, just to get everything else going, has piled up enough to demand attention.
You plan your next couple of weeks and you realise that you do not have the time in your day to include the new project that will be starting soon. And you know you have to fit it in because that’s the one that’s going to pay the bills.
And your account statements having been arriving just after your bills so you know it is going to be a tight squeeze no matter what happens.
So what do you do?
Do you dive into despair and depression or do you gird your loins and enter the fray?
It doesn’t matter because in the end gritting your teeth or hiding under a rock will get you the same results – stress, ulcers and an earlier death.
When I worked at the Tatham Art Gallery we sometimes had power outages. That means the electricity stopped.
And that meant the lights went of, the computers died and the only one phone line functioned (because the switchboard had no ups).
Time slows down
In these rare times I was immediately struck by the sense of time slowing down. I wondered about the speed of life more than a hundred years ago. Maybe it was because of the age of the building.
In the late 1800s, when the building was built, life certainly happened at a different rate. And yet it seems as if people managed to accomplish so much more.
So, when life charges at you I want you to slow down rather than speed up or run away. Switch of the computer and the phone and the lights and just become aware of yourself and where you are in this world.
- Clear your desk, take out a clean piece of paper and write down what is important to you. What is the one thing that you would like to do today, now, that would make your day worthwhile.
- Then go and do that one thing for the next hour or so. If you can complete it in that time then great. If it is a bigger project like writing a book then just make a significant dent. Spend the time on it with your full attention.
The world is not going to stop. Nobody will die. Life will carry on and everything you need to do will still be there to do when you are done.
But first, now, you need to know that you can do the things that you want to do despite everything else.
Just a note: If you are in essential services like fighting fires or nursing terminally ill patients then yes, somebody might die if you take of an hour or two.
Take your hour when you can afford to, but remember to take it as soon as you can – you owe it to yourself.
