Living Like Lucy
Dan
will be the first to tell you that I’m highly organized, probably to a
fault. My pantry reveals my touch of OCD
and my love of brightly colored bins with freshly printed labels. I’m often teased at work due to my perfectly
aligned files and meticulously arranged desk.
On the surface you’d think “she’s got it together,” but behind the eyes
is a self-proclaimed overachieving perfectionist with a never ending “to-do”
list. I feel guilty if I’m just vegging
and have not checked everything off the list.
I always feel like I’m rushing from one task to another to ensure the
list is complete by the end of the day.
It’s often hard for me to relax, unplug and fall asleep. I have a suspicion that I’m not alone. Perhaps I’m alone with the color coordinated
labeled pantry but not alone with the haunting never ending “to-do” list.
We’re
taught to be ambitious motivated doers.
We need to do more, do it faster and do it better. It’s all about the hustle to outsmart,
outwork and outperform the competition. We’re
taught to do more, achieve more and get more.
Bookstores shelves are lined with books about this sort of thing. Shonda Rhimes wrote “The Year of Yes,” and Sheryl
Sandberg’s “Lean In,” are just a few. Maybe
we’re going about it all wrong. What if
what we really need is a year of saying “No” and a chance to just sit the heck down?!
Recently
a friend told me about a woman they met who is, by all social standards,
considered highly successful. She owns
several homes around the country, travels in a private jet, sits on the board
of directors of several companies and is a highly paid high level
executive. One would think she’s got it
all but if you look deeper you see someone who is divorced, out of shape, and
on her phone constantly. Did she get all
she has at the cost of her health and relationships? Does she go home at the end of a long day to an empty house? I’m just guessing here, but it sure makes you wonder.
The
Economist magazine took a survey in 2015 with people from 8 countries. The majority of the respondents said they
find it difficult to meet the demands of both work and home life. Employees in the U.S. report working on
average 47 hours a week. Surprisingly, 1
in 5 claimed to work 60 hours or more!
There was an additional survey that included 36 countries where over one
quarter of the people said they felt rushed, even in their leisure time! The Economist magazine cited a prediction
from 1930 when a leading economist predicted that technological advancements
would give workers more leisure time.
The Economist magazine reported, “The explosion of available goods has
only made time feel more crunched as consumers struggle to choose what to buy
or watch or eat in the limited time they have available.”
Am I
just a box checker? Do I really need to
do all the items on my list or is it the perfectionist within? It’s time to clear the clutter of our
commitments and keep only the key critical items that are truly important,
bring us joy and are aligned with our values.
If there’s an item that remains undone on this list day after day, is it
really important? It’s time to be brutally
discriminatory and evaluate the reward versus the commitment. It is really worth it?
We
all know the dangers of multitasking when it comes to cell phones and driving
but what about while we’re sitting at our desks at work? I found several studies that report our
productivity goes down as much as 40% when we try to do two things at once. The problem is we think we’re accomplishing
more by checking email or sending a text while listening to a meeting on a
conference call. I’ve been guilty of
working on something at home with the TV on beside me. You see it all around you. How often do you see someone looking down at
their phone while they're walking? Sometimes
that scenario ends poorly, sometimes it ends hilariously funny, but still
poorly.
This
week I made a conscious effort to avoid multitasking and, to be honest, it was
difficult at first. If I was on a
conference call I didn’t look at my email or my cell. If someone knocked on my door, during the
meeting, I held them off until the call was over. If I was working on something I would avoid
doing anything else until I was done. I
read about a time management technique that I tried this week. It’s called the Pomodoro Technique, developed
by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980's. The
basic concept is to focus on doing just one thing for 25 minutes and then take
a 5 minute break. I tried to
do this at least twice a day this week as well.
I
quickly discovered that it doesn’t take nearly as long to do something when I’m
strictly focused on just that one thing.
I made great progress on major projects at work and at home. I immediately felt more connected to people
because I didn’t have one eye on my cell phone.
I really liked the 25 minute technique and plan to continue it and to do
it more often. The biggest experience was
the immediate decrease in my stress level.
Multi tasking is not only inefficient but it’s stressful. We all
know the implications of stress on emotional eating, so enough said there!
Recently
we received tragic news that a previous neighbor of ours passed away. He was my age and it was unexpected. One moment he’s here and by morning he’s
gone. I was in the midst of working on
this week’s lesson when I heard the news.
Hearing about the death of a friend, no matter what the age, makes you
look at your own mortality. When it’s a
friend, who is your same age, stops you in your tracks! Why am I worried about a freaking “to do”
list? Really? It's like the saying that no one on their deathbed ever wishes they had spent more time at the office. Brendon Burchard said, “At the end of our lives
we all ask, did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?” There is zero chance that in the midst of any
and all potential questions will there be anything that remotely resembles, “Did
I check everything off of my list?”
Luke
23:43 it says, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise.” I believe that when we die we do go to
heaven, I also believe that no one really knows what happens there until you go
yourself. Perhaps because our minds
couldn’t handle or understand how glorious it is. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Now I know in part;
then I shall know fully.” (1 Corinthians
13:12) I once heard the idea that, upon arrival into heaven, your angels show you a book of life.
It’s a book of the story of your life.
Each page is full of pictures and movie like video clips of your whole life. You feel the feelings of how your actions made other people feel as you review your life. What if that were true? We’re all taught the golden rule from Matthew
7:12, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Maybe this idea could be true.
Maybe leaning in and saying yes isn’t all bad, but unless you like living like Lucy in a chocolate factory, it’s got to be about balance. This week has been life changing for me. I truly have reevaluated a lot of things. Instead of worrying if I got all the boxes checked at the end of the day, I now ask, “How do I feel about the kind of person I was today? How did I make other people feel?”
Maybe leaning in and saying yes isn’t all bad, but unless you like living like Lucy in a chocolate factory, it’s got to be about balance. This week has been life changing for me. I truly have reevaluated a lot of things. Instead of worrying if I got all the boxes checked at the end of the day, I now ask, “How do I feel about the kind of person I was today? How did I make other people feel?”
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