🦋 💜 🌿 Hi!
How is life treating you?
This week my husband had his wisdom teeth out and I’ve been the helpful person to drive him around and deliver all the ice cream and soup he needs.
It’s another confirmation of a lesson I’ve learned with time:
life is optimal when we take turns leaning on each other. The goal isn’t to be independent, solo individuals doing it all alone. It’s connection.
Also I recently picked up the book “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals,” by Oliver Burkeman.
I love it so much that I’m going to share some thoughts on what it has stirred up in me even though I’m just a small fraction into it.
“The problem with trying to make time for everything that feels important–or just for enough of what feels important–is that you definitely never will.
The reason isn’t that you haven’t yet discovered the right time management tricks or applied sufficient effort, or that you need to start getting up earlier, or that you’re generally useless.
It’s that the underlying assumption is unwarranted: there’s no reason to believe you’ll ever feel “on top of things,” or make time for everything that matters, simply by getting more done.”
Rather than being the typical time management book advising me to squeeze everything possible from all seconds of the day,
this one gives an unexpected message:
the key is to finally accept there will not be enough time to do it all.
Only from this acceptance can you really deal adequately with the time you have.
Only from this place can you see it as wise to step off a hamster wheel that takes you away from what matters most to you.
Although counter-intuitive, accepting limitations leads to more freedom and satisfaction with the time you have.
Fighting it, thinking you are just one new planner or productivity tip away from optimizing all your time, actually creates a greater feeling of time slipping away from you, dangerously out of your control.
I love this book and its message.
It’s been affirming for me and validates many lessons I’ve learned over the past few years.
If you’ve been following me for some time, you may have heard me talking about my desire to make the most out of all of my journals.
It’s led some very cool realizations.
I started digitally archiving every idea and journal entry so that they aren’t lost on a shelf or forgotten with time.
Why do I care?
Because I used to be one of those people that would pick up an old notebook and think,
“This idea is great, why did I not do anything with it over these past years?”
Or upon discovering old notes, I’d notice that I simply keep relearning the same lessons over and over,
without actually integrating them or changing my behavior to match. I was forgetting a lot.
Anyway, since I began to keep a digital archive of my journals in a free program called Obsidian, I figured out ways to keep track of these ideas better.
And I also began to make unexpected connections between entries occurring over the weeks, months, and years.
One theme that continued to pop up was what I began to call my relationship with time.
My Relationship with Time
This relationship with time seemed to cause me a lot of feelings:
-anxiety that I wasn’t doing enough and time was running out,
-stress and urgency that something needed to be figured out quickly,
-overwhelm from feeling that there was so much to do in so little time that I would be immobilized from acting or deciding on next steps at all.
I saw it over and over again and began to note the instances.
By doing so, I could review this theme over time and see the patterns occurring again and again and again.
((Sidenote: If you are interested in how to digitize your notes and make connections like this,
I’m hoping to get a self study course out soon that will teach my methods of digital organization!))
What is really interesting to me is that I have rarely ever heard anyone talk about this “relationship with time.”
It’s always funny to me though when I discover something in isolation.
I can’t unsee it once I see it. After I make connections it seems so obvious, surely someone else could figure it out, too.
The book Four Thousand Weeks is one of the first that specifically addresses it, which is why it feels like a drink of iced water on a hot day.
Why does it matter?
Looking at something as a relationship or a dynamic adds additional richness to how you can understand it.
I’ve heard people talk about their relationship with their body or body image, for instance.
Usually people use this to mean that this relationship is something separate from the body itself.
Similarly a relationship to time is something separate from time itself.
It has ebbs and flows of its own.
When I feel a sense of urgency, the idea that there is a ticking clock feels like a fact to me. Almost like a bear is running towards me and I better move or else.
And, yet, maybe this is an illusion.
Similarly, someone experiencing a toxic body image can look in the mirror and see body flaws that don’t even exist in real life.
Until that person takes a step back enough to realize that their perception may be part of a toxic relationship they’ve developed with their body,
they can continue life without ever questioning the thoughts about their body that cause them so much pain.
They can confuse their relationship with their body, with the body, itself.
Similarly, until I began to step back and understand that my relationship with time and perception of it exist separately from time,
and that they need to be questioned,
I was operating on autopilot under the anxiety that I wasn’t going quickly enough or getting enough done.
It was this noticing of my relationship of time across my journals, along with the feelings I wrote about it causing (anxiety, stress, crippling overwhelm)
that made me realize I needed a change.
These patterns had been running me ragged, on and off, for decades.
It snuck into everything I did: my writing goals, my business, and also my personal life.
This toxic dynamic stole satisfaction from nearly everything
because no matter what I did, there was always more to do (and soon).
To navigate life, I did learn to manage some of these feelings on a daily basis.
I’d decide a particular thing wasn’t so urgent and I should prioritize something else, or just try to calm my stress down that day so I could get back to work.
But the feelings would pop back up about something else.
I managed the feelings so that I could function, but without truly addressing the underlying premise of the relationship itself that was running in me as a long term pattern.
A Big Change
Losing my father in 2021 increased my anxiety so much so that thinking about a deadline could make my heart pound so much I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.
And when I operated on that urgency, my nervous system was so dysregulated I would not be thinking right.
Then I would try to something quickly, and screw it up so badly it usually took me more time in the end to unravel the knots rushing had created.
It provided the perfect opportunity to go easier on myself.
Basically there was no other sane option.
Since then I developed some new mindsets to lean into, to reshape my relationship with time.
Lately, slow but steady has been my mantra.
As is, going at my own pace.
Also, taking my time.
I’ve come to create a new meaning for that phrase, “take my time.”
Usually, it means going at a slower pace, but I like to think about it as grabbing my time for myself when I need it or want it. Like grabbing it with my hands.
Take that slow morning coffee.
Take that walk.
Take that opportunity for peace.
This time is mine first, not anyone else’s.
At the end of the day, this is my life, and I don’t want to spend all of it spinning and spinning.
I’m still human, still a work in progress, still figuring it out.
But I’m happy to say I have found a better kind of life than I used to have. Thank goodness. I have a better relationship with time and productivity that is much less toxic.
Here’s another quote from Four Thousand Weeks to cap off this reflection:
“We’re often obliged to find ways to cram more into the same amount of time, even if we end up feeling busier as a result….
So I don’t mean to imply that once you grasp what’s going on here, you’ll magically never feel busy again.
But the choice you can make is to stop believing you’ll ever solve the challenge of busyness by cramming more in, because that just makes matters worse.
And once you stop investing in the idea that you might one day achieve peace of mind that way,
it becomes easier to find piece of mind in the present, in the midst of overwhelming demands,
because you’re no longer making your peace of mind dependent on dealing with all the demands. …
​You begin to grasp that when there’s too much to do, and there always will be,
the only route to psychological freedom is to let go of the limit-denying fantasy of getting it all done and instead focus on doing a few things that count.”
Did you see my recent email where I talked about the dangers of consistency?
It feels related to this discussion on time.
…
If you need help with your book or business writing:
I help people write for your book or business. I take this attitude of patience and “slow but steady” into my coaching and editing work that I do with people.
Many of my clients have found this soothing and helpful to making faster progress in the long run on the things that really matter.
It’s also permission to follow the fire of your creativity and the life force that wants you to go outside, take a breath, be a human being not a human doing.
It’s possible to live a good life while being a writer, creator or entrepreneur…
Sidenote: should I rename that?
Maybe I should rename my coaching package from being called “Rapid Progress” to something else? What do you think? Any ideas?
Or not…
Ironically, being more patient with myself has resulted in fewer instances of time-based anxiety and crippingly overwhelm.
As a result, I am making progress on the things that really matter, and wasting less time on things that don’t matter so I can enjoy more of my life.
It still feels like Rapid Progress…just not as frantic or stressful.
I’ll have to chew on that.
…
Free virtual writing cowork coming soon
-If you want to feel more motivated to get some writing, creating or work done, come join!
-You’ll also be able to ask me questions about your writing, nonfiction book, or business marketing projects.
Mark your calendar for Friday, July 11!
Lasting two hours from
11 AM-1 PM Eastern, or
8AM-10 AM Pacific
Come and stay for a while, or hop in during the middle and join us.
You can work on your editing, writing, creating, marketing, idea organizing.
It is free!
Get the inspiration or answers you need for your book or business, and then get to work!
You can ask me questions about writing, marketing, organizing your ideas, a course you bought from me, and more during the Q&A section.
And of course, there will be some friendly chat!
Then, during the coworking time we will work on our projects independently.
Words from our last free event:
“It was good to co-work with you and the group today. I feel like I made so much progress just writing this one email and, of course, sharing about our life and work. Amazing. Have a great rest of your week.” – Uli
How do I sign up?
Register for our free cowork session on zoom here​
FAQS:
Can I come for just part of it, if I have to leave?
That’s fine! Yes, just pop in for a bit.
If you have a question, and cannot attend in full:
consider sending me the question in advance via email or putting it in the chat during the session and perhaps I can record my answer even if you have to leave before I answer it.
Can I come late?
Absolutely, yes, just please make sure you are muted if we are working quietly.
Is there a recording if I can’t make it?
Yes and no: I might record parts where I am teaching or answering an important question. But the part where we are quietly working? Nah. Probably not.
Do I have to talk or be on camera?
Nope. You can just hang out if you want.
Can I invite a friend?
Yes! Absolutely, I run a small editing and writing coaching business and, thus, I love being referred to others and meeting new people.
Register for our free cowork session on zoom here
Thanks for reading
