Reflection: I’d had a busy couple of weeks with projects, commitments and deadlines on every front. When the calendar cleared last Wednesday, I decided to pause and step away for a mental wealth day. That’s the kind of day when you focus on making a few sizeable deposits in the sanity bank account.
I spent ten minutes in the office, cleared a few urgent messages, put an away message on my phone, and settled in to enjoy the open space.
As the day unfolded, I puttered in the garden, visited on the street with several of the neighbors, lunched in the sun on the back deck, napped in the hammock, chatted by phone with several family members, and simply enjoyed the fish in the pond, the birds in the trees, and the tulips in the flowerbeds.
A greeting card from my sister arrived in the mail that morning and set the tone for the day. The front cover featured a figure reclining in a hammock under the palm trees with these words: “Nowhere to go and all day to get there….” That became my mantra for the day!
I love that sentiment, it’s such a contrast to what we are more likely to experience in our everyday lives: “Everywhere to go and no time to get there!”
Action: Life doesn’t always lend itself to a mental wealth day. But, it may be possible to create a mental wealth moment or hour. And as you step into that openness of time, try breathing in the possibility that just for now, you have: ‘Nowhere to go and all day to get there!” (more…)
PAUSE – 13.21 – Antidotes For Overload
May 29, 2013
Reflection: Suppose you’re chatting with a friend and she tells you that, in addition to working full time as usual, these are the projects she has planned for the summer: repaint the house, dig up a new vegetable garden, xeriscape the front yard, host a friend’s outdoor wedding, build a new deck on the cabin at the lake, take her parents on a weeklong roadtrip, manage her son’s softball team, and chaperone her daughter’s soccer team on a trip to Minneapolis.
Any thoughts? Any advice?
Suppose the list shifted from personal projects to an equally lengthy list of workplace assignments with the regular family and community responsibilities ‘on the side’.
Any thoughts? Any advice?
I can’t help but think of the old parenting adage: “Be careful how you load up your plate. Your eyes could be bigger than your stomach.” The same caution applies to our ambitions beyond the dinner table. Far too often, our aspirations outweigh our capacity. It’s little wonder that overload is so often the order of the day.
Action: What, then, is the preventive medicine to keep us from landing in a state of overload quite so often – especially with projects that are within our control or under our influence? (more…)
PAUSE – 13.20 – How Well Do You Pace Yourself?
May 22, 2013
Reflection: Have you ever walked alongside someone whose stride was much longer or shorter than yours? Have you ever partnered on a project with someone whose pace was entirely mismatched to yours? They moved, spoke and concluded everything in a flash – or they ambled, pondered, and decided waaaay toooo sloooowly for your comfort?
If you have, chances are that you know first hand the frustration of trying to keep up or the irritation of needing to slow down.
Our set points vary one from another; and they may shift over time. Life experiences can temper our choices along the way. If we’re paying attention, through trial and error, we learn when we need to give a person or an issue more room, and when the time is ripe to urge to action.
In any given situation or relationship, the ‘right’ pace energizes, while the ‘wrong’ pace exhausts. And, of course, it’s all terribly subjective and situation specific.
When lives are on the line (think fire or medical emergency), a fast paced response is essential. But not everything we face falls in that urgent category – even though much is presented that way.
There’s a leadership style known as ‘Pacesetting’ that invigorates some and frustrates others. Pacesetters are notorious for setting very high performance standards and modeling them for others. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – except that pacesetters tend to be obsessively high on expectations and perilously low on empathy. Without empathy, this kind of leadership may not even register – much less respond to – the stress that others experience along the way.
Action: So, how do you put these ideas about pace to work? (more…)
PAUSE – 13.19 – Keeping The Grunt Work From Grinding You Down!
May 15, 2013
Reflection: I spent much of last weekend in the garden. Raked the leaves out of the beds and corners. Mulched them with the mower. Added them back to the soil. Trimmed last year’s dead foliage from around the new growth on the perennials. Picked up the branches the winter winds stripped from the trees. Hauled perennials, buried in their pots, from the beds where they’d spent the winter. Hosed the spring dust from the trees and decks.
Do I love doing this stuff? Not really! As much as I try to approach it in a mindful way with an appreciative mindset, in truth, it’s dusty, dirty, back bending (sometimes back breaking) work.
What I DO love, though, is the result. It’s rewarding to see things set back in order once more; and it’s energizing to know that I’ve set the scene for good things that lie ahead.
I love the fresh growth, the new shoots, and the blatant optimism of bulbs which, having weathered the winter, push through bravely the ground. Most of all, I love the promise of color and beauty that lie ahead. And, that’s why I do the work.
I’m pretty sure – even if you’re not a gardener – that you’ve got plenty of grunt work in your world, too. Maybe it’s the demolition before a renovation. Could be something physical like a kitchen reno, or something cerebral like a remake on your business website. Maybe it’s the research legwork before launching a new product, designing a new program, or entering a new market.
Grunt work is rarely glamorous or engaging in itself, but it’s an investment that can take us someplace we really want to go.
Action: How do you pull yourself through the obligatory grunt and groan to the eventual great and grand? These four strategies can help: (more…)
PAUSE – 13.16 – Where Might Imperfect Be More Than Enough?
April 24, 2013
Reflection: One of life’s great stressors is the drive to make things perfect. Sure, there are circumstances where perfection matters. Defusing a bomb and fixing an aneurysm come to mind.
Now, I don’t know about your world, but those tasks have never been part of my everyday life. As I heard someone observe recently, not everything we do is ‘rocket surgery’!
What I do see is a lot of time and effort invested in perfecting that last 10 or 20% whether it’s writing the perfect report or maintaining an immaculate home.
There is a time to improve our skills and advance our performance by applying a critical eye to the task at hand. But it will be a joyless painful journey if we are perpetually bent on perfection – ever at the mercy of a critical mind.
Poking holes in progress is a hurtful inclination if we don’t stop to embrace and appreciate where we have come from and what we have accomplished – however imperfect it may be.
Early in my attempts to paint with watercolors, I made a lot of mud – mud being the painterly term for ‘greyed out colors lacking contrast and shape’.
What I’ve come to understand is that many who do not paint themselves consider even minor mud a masterpiece. We stand in in awe of what others attempt, simply because we can’t imagine ourselves having the courage or skill to give it a try.
Don’t be too quick to discard, reject, or condemn the results of your own efforts. There is often a place for less than perfect outcomes. In fact, a certain quirkiness may bring value of its own.
Japanese potters practice the art of Kintsugi – mending broken objects by filling the cracks with resin sprinkled with powdered gold. They believe that objects with their own imperfections and history become more beautiful – not less.
Action: So, here’s a question to pause and ponder today. Where, in your life, might imperfect be more than enough?
Reflection: How tightly crammed is your daily and weekly schedule? Are there gaps or just glimmers?
For years now, I’ve advocated in favor of white space. Time held free between meetings, commitments, and events that serve as a buffer in a busy life.
Meetings spill over, traffic jams, and a body’s got to eat sometime!
But buffers offer more than just a way to meet physical needs and stay on time. They give us room to breathe, and time to think.
Suppose you’ve just finished a meeting with a few members of your team. There’s merit in pausing to consider the ‘so what’ of the experience:
What do you need to do next as a result of the exchange?
What kind of coaching would help someone stay on track or grow in skill?
What does this new information mean for where you are headed?
What does it say about how far you’ve come?
In the absence of time to think about these things, in the pressure to race forward to what comes next, we lose our way. We also lose the opportunity to celebrate progress, shift direction, and build capacity.
Action: Place a high value on pausing for reflection. Make and take the time to think.
Block 10 or 15 minute buffers between events. Keep your intention front and center. Encourage others to do the same.
Reap the considerable rewards of a more considerate pace and a more considered experience.
Quote Of The Week: This space intentionally left blank. Jeff Weiner
Readers Write: In response to last week’s message, What’s New In Your World, Pause reader DC writes: Thanks for the wonderful link! I have watched it and forwarded to friends and family. They are just so cute. And, yes, if you just could go a quarter turn in your listening skills, you’d clearly understand what they are saying. Have an amazing day, I plan to do so!
Yeah, you! If you’re the one with the endless list of things to do. The one who always volunteers for that last minute job, chairs the committees, works the extra shifts, hauls the kids, hosts the socials, and generally goes the extra mile!
Yeah, you! If you’re the one who puts yourself at the bottom of those lists in invisible ink. The one who makes sure everybody else leaves on time, remembers their vitamins, books their vacations, and gets those pats on the back.
Might you be feeling just a tad overwhelmed by all you’ve undertaken or a tad under-valued from being taken for granted?
Well, stop right there! It’s time for a glance in the mirror and a heart to heart chat!
Whether you realize it or not, you matter! And not just because of all you do in support of those around you. You matter simply because you’re who you are and that you’re here. And, by the way – you are enough!
Whether you hear it from others or not – you do make a difference in the lives of those around you. Just don’t be making that contribution from a feeling of lack, an overactive sense of duty, nor at the expense of your own wellbeing! Take care of you, too!
Reflection: What do you think? When it comes to work-life conflict and balance, are we making progress or sliding deeper into the morass? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.
To help us determine the results, Ontario researchers, Duxbury and Higgins, have just released their 2012 survey of Canadian employees. It’s the third time in two decades (1991 and 2001) that they have gone to the proverbial well to set benchmarks for how we are doing on the work life frontier.
I can tell you now, if you placed your bet on ‘backsliding’, you are a clear winner. But, of course that means, that Canadian workplaces and employees are the losers. Here are a few highlights from the survey info provided by 25,000 Canadian employees.
Work demands continue to increase dramatically. The typical employee now spends 50.2 hours in work related activities each week. By gender, 68% of men and 54% of women now work more than 45 hours per week compared to 55% of men and 39% of women in the 2001 survey.
Work spills into ‘off-hours’. 54% of employees take work home on evenings and weekends where they spend another 7 hours/week on work (much of it email).
Role overload is common. 40% report high levels of total role overload. The source? 32% report high work role overload and 26% report high family role overload.
The impact of work life conflict on the workplace includes absenteeism, reduced productivity and increased draws on employee benefits. The personal impact includes loss of sleep, low energy, and less time for selves – notably fewer social and recreation activities.
As you might guess, stress levels are up. 57% report high levels of stress, and 40% report moderate levels of stress. Only a lucky 3% report low levels of stress.
Action: D & H offer these recommendations for organizations. (more…)
PAUSE – 12.34 – Chiaroscuro
December 12, 2012
Reflection: Clients tell me all the time that the most difficult challenge in the midst of overload is to know where to focus your attention and how to keep it there. Tasks seem equally important and there are lots of them in play. It’s easy to find yourself bouncing around accomplishing little or nothing at all – an experience that adds to the overwhelm.
When this happens to you (and this is one of those seasons when overload runs rampant), it’s time to practice chiaroscuro. What, you say? Chiaroscuro? No, you don’t need to know how to spell it or pronounce it, you just need to know how to use it.
In the world of art, chiaroscuro is a technique that highlights the main subject in the foreground, while shifting the lesser details into the shadows. When applied to a painting for instance, your eye may wander through the entire image, but because of the high contrast your attention repeatedly returns to the main event.
It’s a formal term for what my most recent art instructor told me would strengthen my watercolors. In his words, “Show more gumption with your darks.” And truly, when you add contrast, when you force a few elements into the background, the main focus pops to the fore. (more…)
PAUSE – 12.31 – Stretching Time Through Service
November 21, 2012
Reflection: Meet Gil and Soto. They run the Breakfast Room at the Best Western Arroyo Roble in beautiful Sedona, Arizona. It’s a busy spot with travellers coming and going – solo business folks in a hurry, retired couples with all the time in the world, active families in hiking gear eager to hit the red rock country trails.
Over the years, I’ve stayed at a number of ‘breakfast included’ hotels. The quality of the food has varied, but what has been pretty consistent is the lackadaisical, ‘I’d rather be anywhere else than here’, atmosphere set by the staff who manage the service.
That’s what makes Gil and Soto stand out. In the midst of the busy morning press (greeting guests, answering questions, orienting new comers, replenishing food trays, clearing tables), they are unfailingly smiling, welcoming, and helpful.
On our last morning, I told Gil how much I appreciated the way he and Soto went about their jobs. He commented that he’d learned a thing or two over his many years in the workplace. He noted that coming to work with a smile on his face and a desire to be of service to others makes all the difference in how people respond and in the way he experiences the pressures of the work itself.
Reflection: I’d had a busy couple of weeks with projects, commitments and deadlines on every front. When the calendar cleared last Wednesday, I decided to pause and step away for a mental wealth day. That’s the kind of day when you focus on making a few sizeable deposits in the sanity bank account.
