The Rhythm of Your Day

Apartment Therapy

A lot of people think they want to work from home mainly because they dream of working in their pajamas and writing from their laptop in bed while munching on a bag of Doritos and catching up on their Netflix. But take it from me, a work-from-homer: That's a total myth.

I'm not eating Doritos OR watching Netflix!

Seriously, though, who can blame them? Freedom to do what you want on pretty much your own schedule is a pretty enticing concept.

But what those work-from-home dreamers like to ignore is the fact that a) you really do have to get work done and b) there's a whole arsenal of distractions firing at you from all cylinders, trying to impede you from getting that said work done.

For example, here is what I am looking at right now as I type this post:

Cute Dog, looking at me. 
I 'd like to stop and pet her but I won't because I'm working.
Distraction Level: 3

Bits of paper bag pulled out from the recycling bin and strewn about the carpet by Cute Dog,
who chewed it up because she was mad at me when I went running earlier today without her 
(and because it smelled like hamburger.)
Now fighting urge to stop working to vacuum it up and, by the way, 
why won't that rug stain EVER go away?
Distraction Level: 10

Random picture that I took of a flamingo looking at a rock.
Stumbled upon it in my iPhoto Library as I was downloading the dirty carpet and Cute Dog picture. 
Felt compelled to photoshop and share it.
Distraction Level: 7

I could mention more distractions, such as the load of laundry that really should be changed over from the washer to the dryer right now or my closet that needs reorganizing or the frozen chicken breasts that probably should start thawing for dinner tonight or the pitiful looking flowers that desperately need water. But I don't think I need to because you get the point.

No, working from home certainly isn't for everyone, mainly because most people crave already-established boundaries in space and time, and find the parameters between their personal and professional lives in a home office too blurry for their taste. My husband, for instance, telecommutes one day a week and looks forward to it; however, he admits that he doesn't think he could do it two days a week, much less five. 

Now, lest you suspect that I might be the cause of his telecommuting reticence, I can assure you that's certainly not the case. Yes, it's true that I like to bounce my ideas off of him and get his feedback on things and, okay, I might occasionally ask him for a teensy bit of IT help now and then, (he's my tech geek, after all)  I'm generally pretty good at doing my own thing. I think he likes to go into the office because he enjoys being part of a team and gets a kick out of managing and listening and doing all of those things that engage him.

(At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Embrace the Distractions

Even with all of its drawbacks, working from home benefits me tremendously. As long as I build in the distractions in a clever and efficient way, I'm a working machine most days! I'm even going to be so bold as to say that the dynamic structure of the work-from-home model could be applied to work habits in many environments. The key is being able to use your brain in different ways throughout the day, changing the tempo as needed.

Here are my suggestions:

1. Don't Pass on the Little Tasks 

@ Home: On my "official" breaks- the ones that I've earned by doing the necessary work first- I replenish my brain by doing simple activities like folding clothes or washing dishes. These are tasks that can be completed from start to finish quickly and require very little thinking.

A lot of my career education work is on the abstract and creative side and many projects remain open-ended, so it feels good to go in a completely different, close-ended direction from time to time. In fact, it always seems that as I've finished washing the last dish in the sink, I'm usually able to come up with a solution to a problem or drum up a new way of communicating a complex concept.

@ Office: Unless you'd like to come over and do my housework (which you're welcome to, by the way) I'm sure there are some menial tasks that no one would mind you completing at the office. Stapling, organizing the supply closet, sorting papers, filing, stuffing envelopes, or anything that needs doing but takes very little mental energy would do the trick. And you could always earn brownie points by being the clean-up person of the community kitchen.

(No one will suspect your ulterior motives.)

2. You Can't Sit Still Forever!

Remember when you were little? Remember the good teachers who understood that making you sit for hours at a time was a terrible idea for everyone involved? Similarly, when we feel restless from sitting on our bums too long we need to be able to get up and walk around. That necessity to move hasn't really gone away, even though we adults like to pretend it has.

Some remedies for the restless:

@Home: Take a run or brisk walk. Exercise diverts your attention away from problems- and boredom- and those endorphins will put you in a better mood to tackle stuff you don't normally enjoy. Bonus: creative juices often flow better when you get your heart rate up.

@Office: Walk around the office or the block, either alone or with an approachable colleague that's ready for some moving around. Even just standing up and stretching gives your mind and body a break.


3. "If Music be the Food of Love Play On!" -Shakespeare



Music's tonal language of swells and cadences can both stimulate your senses and help relax you. Why not utilize it?

@ Home: I replenish my spirit by playing piano. I like the fact that I can get out of my head and into the keys of the piano. Playing allows me to concentrate on building up muscle memory in my hands. When I'm lost in a song I'm focusing solely on the musical language of notes, rhythm, chords and beats (rather than ideas, numbers and information.)

@ Office: Put on earphones and kick back with some jazz or whatever gets you grooving. It can give you a boost of energy or relax your nerves when colleagues or bosses test your patience.

Street Music: Players Welcome

By the way, what if an office had a music room? How awesome would that be?

4. Play With the Rhythms In Your Work

@ Home and @ Office: Think about how to structure your day in a musically dynamic way. My suggestion is to aim for a steady rhythm of work in the morning when the brain is fresh, churning out the assignments that require longer concentration and getting into a flow. Then perhaps switch it up to something slow and melodic in the afternoon, with bursts of hot jazz thrown in to recharge you periodically.
(By the way, yes, you CAN achieve this without a Starbucks Double Espresso Mocha Frappuccino.)

5. And Please, Don't Torture Yourself.

When you feel as if you've hit a wall in terms of idea generation or solving a problem, don't keep trying the same thing over and over, getting the same results each time. (Some say that's the definition of insanity, by the way.) Instead, create a whole new tempo by doing something you never do. Draw a picture of your dog, read some poetry, or heck, WRITE some poetry. Eat your lunch on a park bench, stare out the window at the birds, ride a bike, watch a short film, or, if things get really dicey, go to the zoo on your lunch break and take a closeup of a flamingo. (See stellar example at right.)


Just don't come back to work and waste your entire afternoon sharing your stunning photograph on social media. Or, if you MUST share it, limit it to Instagram. And maybe Facebook. And perhaps Twitter, Phanfare, SnapChat, Google+, LinkedIn, Blogger, Wordpress, Pinterest, Houzz, Flickr, SmugMug, Photobucket, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, and five other social media outlets that will become popular in the time it's taken you to read this post.

Photo credits: wikimedia

How to Bring an Island Home with You

The crazy thing about staying on an island is that you discover the beauty of space. Especially when you are on a particularly small island.

That may sound paradoxical, but it makes perfect sense to me, perhaps because I'm a woman who:
1. loves islands
2. discovered she needed some space.

Now, I always knew that I loved islands, especially the tropical ones.

But what I didn't know- at least not until I stayed on Sanibel Island for 10 glorious days- was that I sought space. I know that now because when I came back home, I immediately began missing that space.

  

Surprisingly, I didn't find I missed the physical space I'd inhabited- the warm, sandy beaches, the gentle waves of the Gulf, the salty air that felt so good on my skin- as much as I missed the mental space.

In fact, the morning after we returned home, I immediately felt squeezed for that space. I had no room to think and to just concentrate on one thing to its completion. I began to feel stressed and overwhelmed with equally pressing tasks, wondering where that "purity of intention" disappeared to, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh referred to in Gift From the Sea.

And, most importantly, how about that "enough" mindset that I myself wrote about just a couple of weeks before we left? Where did that go? I knew that coming back from vacation was always tough- for everyone- but I thought this time would be different somehow, since I'd really felt centered when I left for Sanibel. But apparently it wasn't to be. The Monday After Vacation was kicking my behind.

And I hate losing, especially to a Monday.

But after a couple of days of putting out fires and spinning my wheels with junk that all seemed to be equally important, I realized that I'd forgotten the subtraction part of the equation. I realized that this piece of the puzzle, the heavy-handed, almost ruthless prioritizing, has to come first or there's no room for mental space to exist.

It just took me 'til Thursday to realize that, which is not bad, I suppose. But hopefully next time Monday will be easier to tackle.

(If someone could just remind me that would be great.)

Vacation Space

Going on vacation- a good vacation, that is- automatically subtracts all of the non-essential details from our lives for us, limiting distractions and igniting our ability to be fully present. After all, on vacation we possess only the bare minimum of things we need, all of which can fit in the space of a suitcase. (Granted mine was rather large, but still....)

We give ourselves permission to linger instead, and notice what our family is doing, what nature is doing,

and, ideally, we even notice how we ourselves are doing, physically, mentally and spiritually. 

But what happens when we come back from this vacation? That suitcase of bare essentials gets unpacked, and is matriculated back into a world filled with too many non-essential distractions. Which is why most of us dread that Monday After Vacation: we become acutely aware of all of those distractions that had been pronouncedly absent when we were living fully and simply on our little island.

Creating Space

Not being one to give up a good fight, I decided to battle that Return-From-Paradise onslaught head-on. I was determined to bring some of that "vacay" mentality home with me.

So, in order to recapture my less-is-plenty mindset, I started subtracting. I ruthlessly unsubscribed to insignificant email lists, promotional garbage and arbitrary social media updates (there were far too many to count.) I postponed some non-pressing activities to a time when I could better prepare for them. I deleted all of the little STUFF (a better four letter word exists but I won't use it) that had been building up in my day-to-day living but which had gone unnoticed until it disappeared for 10 days.  Then, with all of this build-up gone, I again re-focused on the most important goals in my business and in my personal life.

And, you know, it felt really good! Almost as good as a day at the beach.

So, What Truly Belongs In Your Suitcase?

Why not create your own mental island of intentional, peaceful living? You could start by subtracting those trivial things that are big on distraction and little on payoff. I'm not talking about the challenging, important responsibilities critical to your livelihood, family and health. I'm talking about those meaningless distractions that hinder rather than propel your work or life forward.

And what will you do with all that mental space that's now freed up?

Here are some ideas I came up with while lingering a bit: 

Relish sweet moments.

Stare at a bird.

Reflect. 

And notice reflections.

 

Find inspiration  

in color

and interesting textures. 

Find shapes in cloud formations...

and watch the sun melt into the horizon.

Island Time

It's not easy, cutting back or saying "no" or ditching things you aren't absolutely sure about ditching. But I think it's essential. We need mental space or our bodies and brains start to revolt. And the only way to guard and protect this space is to set up protective barriers, and build in margins of time that surround our most treasured activities. Otherwise, our priorities get washed away with the tide of daily living.

I urge you to try it: build in "island time" to your life and discover the great things that happen. 

This dude's definitely built in some island time.

Island Wisdom

My family and I recently returned from a fantastic vacation spent on Sanibel Island. More pictures shall soon follow, but I thought it appropriate to first share a quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, a book I return to year after year when I want to reclaim a sense of serenity. 

A little background: Ms. Lindbergh wrote this book while she was staying in a tiny beachfront cottage on Captiva Island (which neighbors Sanibel Island) back in the 1950's. I love the book's simplicity and, of course, its inspiration: a sea that almost magically washes millions of intricate shells to shore. Lindbergh eloquently uses these shells as metaphors to describe the varied phases of a woman's life.

Decades after this book was originally published, the little islands of Captiva and Sanibel, I'm happy to report, remain wonderful places to go shelling. Most importantly, however, Ms. Lindbergh's insights into life, solitude and relationships are still incredibly relevant in 2014.

Here is one of my favorite quotations:

“...I want first of all... to be at peace with myself. 

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. 

I want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints -to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony...” 

-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Gift from the Sea

Photo: Creative Commons via Flickr.

Wondering Within

“Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”

-Saint Augustine of Hippo

(354-430 A.D.)

from Confessions

Where O Where has My Productivity Gone?

Similar to the dog days of summer, I can't seem to get anything accomplished right now.  I feel as if I have 50 pound weights on my legs. I have contacts I need to make, projects I need to undertake, but my momentum is gone at the moment. I feel deflated and unable to bounce back to a more productive state. I'm at a loss over how I can fit in everything I need to do.

Do you ever feel like that?

When I get in this state of mind I know I need to coach myself. Therefore, I invite you to an open door coaching session. With me. For me. Which is inherently self-centered and a tad neurotic, but perhaps you can relate.

Self- Coaching Session

Me: So, I'm frustrated because I can't get off the ground on several projects.  I fantasize about going away for a night or two, just to immerse myself in work for long chunks of time, but I know that's not realistic.

Coach Me: You sound pretty discouraged and immobilized right now.

Me: Yup.

Coach Me: Well, I'm betting that these projects of which you speak are quite large in nature.

Me: How'd you know?!

Coach Me: Because we're one in the same.

Me: Oh, right.

Coach Me: So, these large projects are going to be overwhelming and very daunting until you break them down incrementally, something you don't automatically think to do as a big picture type person.

Me: True.

Coach Me: Instead of focusing on something you can't control, such as erratic schedules, disruptions, and a lack of large, uninterrupted windows of time, focus on what you can do.  Concentrate on breaking down reasonable projects into small, five to 10 minute pieces.  Consider postponing the big projects that can't be broken down easily. Focus on the ones that are doable given your working-from-home circumstances.

After all, you wouldn't ask your four year-old to eat a big old hunk of meat without first cutting it into bite-size pieces would you?

Me: No Ma'am.

Coach Me: Exactly.  So cut up your projects into manageable portions, and you'll see how doable the work becomes. You just need a couple of small, incremental victories each day to make you feel like you are making headway.

Me: True.

Coach Me: But in order to make these victories happen, you'll have to carve out those bite-size portions in your day. They should be compatible with your schedule and become a regular fixture on your calendar. Ensure these chunks of time are a priority, with very few exceptions! If they're not carved out and protected as dedicated work time, they'll disappear.

Me: Hmmm... good idea.  Why didn't I think of that?  It's so simple!

Coach Me: You kind of did.

Me: Oh, right.

Coach Me: Lastly, if you expect yourself to accomplish a two to three hour project in 15 minutes- -while simultaneously making dinner, walking the dog and doing laundry- you're setting yourself up for major disappointment and a sense of failure.

Me: Yes managing expectations, that's a big one isn't it?  But it's much easier said than done.

Coach Me: Well, My Dear, that's why you have me to help you.

Me:  Okay, now you're getting kind of cocky, aren't you?

Coach Me: I think this session is over.

The Distractions of July (and the Other 11 Months Too)

I really love summer.  I love the fresh cut flowers from the garden, the beach trips, the fresh fruit that actually tastes really good, especially when compared to the paltry offerings during the winter.
I can't seem to get anything done with all of these fun things to do, but I like them all the same.

Taking time to capture a butterfly

But then summer starts to get a bit settled in, and I'm reminded of the downsides to summer: the oppressive heat, humidity, mosquitos and, most unfortunate- time at the pool. Because time at the pool means I have to wear a swimsuit.  And wearing a swimsuit... well, God help me.

The Bathing Suit Wars 

I am a competitive sort, and I really don't like losing to others, especially others of admirable sveltitude (not a word, by the way.) However, I've been dealt a crushing blow this summer: in my version of The Bathing Suit Wars, I have lost. For now, anyway.  I know there are always sit-ups, jogging, yoga, cutting back on my calories- really hate this one- and other regimental changes I can certainly implement.  However, the bottom line (pun is intended here) remains: I don't wear swimsuits like I used to, and I hate that fact.

The Former Pant leg Perpetrator

But you know what I hate even more? The fact that I waste an ounce of energy on how I look versus how I feel!  What a pitiful use of time.  It's a pathetic habit I wish I'd been able to drop during my teenage years, yet it still hangs on like a Pit Bull on a pant leg.

(Disclaimer: I can use that expression, my Pit Bull lovers, because I used to have a Pit Bull-mix, who tasted many a pant leg in her lifetime.)

Besides implementing changes I can make and accepting those I cannot, lately I've had to work at banishing the old self talk, especially when I pass by the full length mirror on the way to the pool.  Since I've abandoned my initial plan of stealthily removing that blasted mirror in the middle of the night, I'm reduced to remembering that physical health must trump obsessing over body image.  I fall within normal weight, and I can't complain about not being in shape. So I know I need to dismiss that distraction and focus on something much more productive, like my business, helping people reach their career potential, my family, and challenging myself intellectually.  Those are values that are dear to me, and much more intrinsically important than whether you can bounce a quarter off the abs of the woman next to me in the kiddie pool.

A festive distraction- Fourth of July dessert contest at the pool

Second bottom line: this summer I've been especially distracted by the superfluousness surrounding me.  So many activities are there for the taking during the so-called lazy days of summer.  Since I've written two posts on distraction recently, I highly suspect I'm exerting a boatload of energy resisting distractions right now.

Besides being highjacked by all of the typical summer pleasures, my children are out of school and working from home feels futile. Household distractions abound, ready to be picked up, put away, cleaned, fed, negotiated, reprimanded and corralled. I'm constantly tempted to just do everything the kids want and the house beckons me to do, saying "no" too few times. Maybe it's the heat.


That being said, it's time to go and get some serious work done.  


But first, take a look at this adorable picture of a goat I found!  I got a little waylaid while going through my photo files...
  

Ed (He looks like an Ed, don't you think?)

My Pitiful and Pithy-less Pinterest Poem

Pinned with love from mfs.piccsy.com

Oh, for heaven's sake,
How much TIME can Pinterest take?
It sucks all my TIME
Though I have not the TIME
To meander around for a million projects to make

When will IT ever go away?*
*It won't.  It will just be replaced.

I want to write
I want to read
I'd even like to sew (but I won't)

Lobster and Swan 

Instead I surf
For photos I like
Inspecting and searching and projecting the life
Of another more romantic and playful than I.