Slow Down

“Slow down, you move too fast” is how “Feelin’ Groovy”,  a song by Simon and Garfunkel starts. As I sit here surrounded by the chaos of renovations I only wish I could slow down. Right now in my office, I have 20 bags of books to go into a bookcase that has not yet been brought upstairs. The rest of our downstairs space is crowded into various rooms as we prepare to have the ceiling replaced. Meanwhile, there is a roofer making repairs and lots of noise on the roof. We have a friend to take to the ferry. I am waiting for a call about an AGM I am chairing and oh yes, I am writing this blog.

So, I am guessing that I am not alone in feeling this pressure to GET THINGS DONE! In fact, I remember from my days in the employed workplace that there was a constant and unrelenting push to get more work done with fewer people. Really? How is it possible to do that without burning people out, having more errors, losing customers to cranky staff? We know it’s not and we also know we need to keep on doing.

The question becomes how do we take  a pause, turn off our busy brain and just catch our breath. I have a friend who used to enter into her calendar at least twice weekly the words WS. WS stood for white space and by that she meant no phone calls, texts, computer work or conversation of any kind. She used that time to make notes to herself, meditate, mind map or write. At the end that time she felt refreshed and ready to go again. If you are in the position of being able to control your own time to a certain degree, I highly recommend the WS technique. If you work in areas where you cannot carve out time in your working day, then put it into your evenings or weekends. As little as 15 minutes twice a week will make all the difference to you.

This week my WS is going to be on the ferry as I travel over to Vancouver Island. One hour, thirty five minutes essentially alone. I can hardly wait for Thursday.

PS. If you are wondering why the lamp post picture, check out the rest of “Feelin” Groovey”