PhotoCredit: ClockingOut
I have talked previously about my inner White Rabbit. My always-on sense of urgency. An inner clock that ticks loudly, telling me that I am behind. I must work harder. I must work faster. I'm late!
Shifting this is hard. It's an in-built mechanism that likely evolved early in my life and is supported by just about everything in our modern world. The inevitability of being behind in an ever-expanding and relentlessly changing universe. We cannot possibly read enough, have enough meetings, attend enough lunches/dinners, be fast enough on email/text/slack and we definitely cannot ever be cool enough on social media.
There are some excellent counterpoints. Cal Newport is a personal favorite. Newport's concept of Slow Productivity is especially appealing to me. But he and his kind are a rare breed. Lone vegetarian wolves in a forest of white rabbits. If you have dealt with rabbits you know they will destroy the habitat and starve the wolves out. Ok, so I stretched a little to make that metaphor work.
Lately I am not enjoying Fast Productivity at all. I feel I am hyperventilating my way through life. It's not fun and I also don't think it's effective. So, I decided to embrace Graceful Productivity.
In a nutshell this means a couple of things. First, I always embrace the rocks, pebbles and sand methodology from Steven Covey. I did a fun video tutorial on this if you need a refresh. I create my list the night before and I stick to it. But life happens and we need to be able to shift gears. Items of the pebble variety can easy-peasy transfer over to the following day. Some items can be delegated or even outsourced. This is the graceful element. When we are hyperventilating our way through the day, we miss the obvious. When we are present, graceful, we see opportunities to move things around and frankly be more efficient.
Essentially, it's not all or nothing. We don't need to be in either the Deep Focus/Slow Productivity Cal Newport world OR the frenetic 'Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook' world of Gary Vaynerchuk. Give yourself permission to find your own pace. Manage your energy and you will manage your time.