"For fast-acting relief, try slowing down." – Lily Tomlin
My girl friend, a very successful business owner, and I, have been trying to schedule attending a local workaholics meeting since January. We're both too busy.
Truth be told, we're so busy, we are also using the workaholic's meeting as an opportunity to visit with one another on the ride over and back. Always multi-tasking – we are the poster children for out-of-control busyness.
As I was getting busy on writing about "busyness", I turned to my trustworthy companion, the dictionary. Under the synonyms for busyness, worlds like "industrious", "diligent", "assiduous", and "sedulous" appeared. Whereas the antonyms – "idle", "lazy" and "indolent" speckled the page in laidback opposition, I wondered which Puritan-work-ethic-Protestant-ancestor-of- mine came up with these definitions.
My point is there is a balance between busy and idle. But I wondered just what the heck it was in the 21st Century.
So I "scheduled" daydreaming in my daily planner. No kidding. My life coach and I discussed this as a skill worth developing. I set my kitchen alarm for 10 minutes, sat on my bed and stared out the window. I waited and waited some more, for the first dream to appear. Nothing. Instead, I became increasingly annoyed at the loud kitchen timer in the background, until eventually I moved into the kitchen to turn it off. I had made it a whole one minute and 38 seconds. Little wonder I picked up a dirty pan and began washing. Hey, at least being productive made me feel better.
And then bingo- it hit me. I was caught in a thought pattern that if I wasn't productive, I couldn't feel good. Like somehow, my "doing-ness" was connected with my worthiness.
Motivated that I was onto something, the next day I went outside to lie on my beach blanket and stare into the sky (sunglasses attached). I was hell-bent on assuming the daydreaming position, even if it is a cliché.
One hour later I woke up with a sun burn, and the neighborhood cat licking my face.
Here's my point. We adults are works-in-progress. Children have the market on this daydreaming. I can remember when I was a kid I use to day dream for hours- about what I would do when I got older, what my life would be like, who would be in it, and what I would do with all my free time.
Today, like so many of us, I have to work on "not-working."
The following Top 10 Tips have helped me greatly. I hope they do the same for you.
- Stop multi-tasking
- Stop multi-tasking as your read this
- Practice meditation (notice, I did not write "medication")
- Flex your "NO" muscle, and if you aren't comfortable saying "No thanks" right away, give this a try: "Let me think about it and get back to you." Make sure you do get back to that person!
- Learn to prioritize
- Know your core values and align your activities off of those values
- Change your negative inner critic to a positive inner coach
- Set personal and professional boundaries
- Stop breaking agreements with yourself
- Find others who will support you
