Regain Your Time - Breathing Space Blog

Here is an excerpt of an insightful article by William J. Doherty appearing UU World September/October 2004, called “Let's Take Back our Time”:

“Welcome to the strange new world where being home for dinner is a radical act. For three decades a new spiritual and social justice issue has been arising in our culture and our congregations, but we've been too busy to notice it. It's the problem of time: over-work, over-scheduling, and a chronic sense of hurry. We have become the most productive and the most time-starved people on earth...”

“This is a spiritual issue as well as a social justice issue.... Over-busyness has spiritual effects. Every spiritual tradition emphasizes the importance of silence and repose; most have some form of Sabbath and seasons of reflection. Our culture of busyness is antithetical to the spiritual life. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton expressed it well in Confessions of Guilty Bystander:

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence, and that is activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of this innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

Regain Your Time - Breathing Space Blog

Here is an excerpt of an insightful article by William J. Doherty appearing UU World September/October 2004, called “Let's Take Back our Time”:

“Welcome to the strange new world where being home for dinner is a radical act. For three decades, a new spiritual and social justice issue has been arising in our culture and our congregations, but we've been too busy to notice it. It's the problem of time: over-work, over-scheduling, and a chronic sense of hurry. We have become the most productive and the most time-starved people on earth...”

“This is a spiritual issue as well as a social justice issue.... Over-busyness has spiritual effects. Every spiritual tradition emphasizes the importance of silence and repose; most have some form of Sabbath and seasons of reflection. Our culture of busyness is antithetical to the spiritual life. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton expressed it well in Confessions of Guilty Bystander:

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence, and that is activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of this innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

Work-Life Balance - Breathing Space Blog

Work-Life Balance: The Prevailing Issue of Our Times
                                  by Jeff Davidson

For several years now, those who apparently have no idea what work-life balance is and have virtually never experienced it are proclaiming that it is passé, in favor of work-life harmony, or work-life integration.

The truth is, these terms all mean approximately the same things. You can split hairs anyway you want, and I suppose that's a good way to differentiate a program if you're seeking to offer one to clients, but the reality is work-life balance is the overarching issue of our time that all career professionals strive to achieve.

As The Work-life Balance Expert®,® I define work-life balance as the ability to experience a sense of control and to stay productive and competitive at work while maintaining a happy, healthy home-life with sufficient leisure. It is attaining focus and awareness despite seemingly endless tasks and activities competing for your time and attention.

Work-life balance entails having some breathing space for yourself each day, feeling a sense of accomplishment while not being consumed by work, and having an enjoyable domestic life without short-changing career obligations. It is rooted in whatever fulfillment means to you within 24-hour days, seven-day weeks, and however many years you have left.

Supporting Disciplines
Several disciplines support work-life balance though, individually, none are synonymous with work-life balance:

1) Self Management
Sufficiently managing one's self can be challenging, particularly in getting proper sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Self-management is the recognition that effectively using the spaces in our lives is vital, and that life, time, and available resources are finite. It means becoming captain of our own ship; no one is coming to steer for us.

2) Time Management
Effective time management involves making optimal use of your day and the supporting resources that can be summoned – you can only keep pace when your resources match your challenges. Time management is enhanced through appropriate goals and discerning what is both important and urgent, versus important OR urgent. It entails understanding what you do best and when, and assembling the appropriate tools to accomplish specific tasks.

3) Stress Management
By nature, societies tend to become more complex over time. In the face of increasing complexity, stress on the individual is inevitable. More people, noise, and distractions, independent of one's individual circumstances, require each of us to become more adept at maintaining tranquility and being able to work ourselves out of pressure-filled situations. Most forms of multi-tasking ultimately increase our stress, while focusing on one thing at a time helps decrease stress.

4) Change Management
In our fast-paced world, change is virtually the only constant. Continually adopting new methods, adapting old, and re-adapting all methods is vital to a successful career and a happy home life. Effective change management involves offering periodic and concerted efforts so that the volume and rate of change at work and at home does not overwhelm or defeat you.

5) Technology Management
Effectively managing technology requires ensuring that technology serves you, rather than abuses you. Technology has always been with us, since the first walking stick, spear, flint, and wheel. Today, the rate of technological change is accelerating, brought on by vendors seeking expanding market share. Often you have no choice but to keep up with the technological Joneses, but rule technology, don’t let it rule you.

6) Leisure Management
The most overlooked of the work-life balance supporting disciplines, leisure management acknowledges the importance of rest and relaxation- that one can't short-change leisure, and that "time off" is a vital component of the human experience. Curiously, too much of the same leisure activity, however enjoyable, can lead to monotony. Thus, effective leisure management requires varying one's activities.

Entirely Achievable
Achieving work-life balance does not require radical changes in what you do. It is about developing fresh perspectives and sensible, actionable solutions that are appropriate for you. It is fully engaging in life with what you have, right where you are, smack dab in the ever-changing dynamics of your existence.

Better Living Through Less Clutter - Breathing Space Blog

With the introduction of satellite television, the Internet, which was not prominent before 1993, and all the consumer choices that exist, many things that compete for your time and attention. If you cram that into the same 24-hour day or 168-hour week that you have always had, then your perception will be that time is speeding by.

For example, if you talk to a friend, watch a single television show while doing nothing else, read a book, or engage in any singular activity for one hour, you will have a certain perception of how quickly that hour will pass. But, if you pack more tasks into that same hour: the television being on, trying to read a book, maybe eating, maybe looking at 4-year-old; maybe a friend calls; maybe fiddling with an iPhone, and so on, then you perception of time changes. So, the more things that you can fit into that hour, then more things compete for your time and attention, and the faster that hour passes will seem to pass.

Does this seem like all the makings of a chaotic life? We each have 24 hours in day, so how are you supposed to fit in all of your daily tasks without getting so stressed out or frustrated that you cannot finish any? The answer is: less is more.

You can only eat one meal at a time. Focus on the task at hand and reflect on that 60's phrase, Be Here Now! You can actually taste the food when you are eating. You can actually watch the show that you are watching. You can actually play the sport that you are playing. Have the emotional and financial strength to let go of all the peripheral items competing for your time and attention and focus on the activity at hand.

The message that is being disseminated in contemporary society is to practice multi-tasking. "Do multiple things at once." "Click here." "Push here." "Turn me on." "Switch me on." Every place you look, you are besieged by more items competing for your time and attention. Now, people actually have dwindling attention spans. They lack the ability to remain focused on the same subject for more than a few minutes and, sadly, some people for more than a few seconds.

The key to reclaiming your time is to practice the art, something I call an art, of doing one thing at a time. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Focus on the task at hand and be present in the moment.

Better Living Through Less Clutter - Breathing Space Blog

With the introduction of satellite television, the Internet, which was not prominent before 1993, and all the consumer choices that exist, many things that compete for your time and attention. If you cram that into the same 24-hour day or 168-hour week that you have always had, then your perception will be that time is speeding by.

For example, if you talk to a friend, watch a single television show while doing nothing else, read a book, or engage in any singular activity for one hour, you will have a certain perception of how quickly that hour will pass. But, if you pack more tasks into that same hour: the television being on, trying to read a book, maybe eating, maybe looking at 4-year-old; maybe a friend calls; maybe fiddling with an iPhone, and so on, then you perception of time changes. So, the more things that you can fit into that hour, then more things compete for your time and attention, and the faster that hour passes will seem to pass.

Does this seem like all the makings of a chaotic life? We each have 24 hours in day, so how are you supposed to fit in all of your daily tasks without getting so stressed out or frustrated that you cannot finish any? The answer is: less is more.

You can only eat one meal at a time. Focus on the task at hand and reflect on that 60's phrase, Be Here Now! You can actually taste the food when you are eating. You can actually watch the show that you are watching. You can actually play the sport that you are playing. Have the emotional and financial strength to let go of all the peripheral items competing for your time and attention and focus on the activity at hand.

The message that is being disseminated in contemporary society is to practice multi-tasking. "Do multiple things at once." "Click here." "Push here." "Turn me on." "Switch me on." Every place you look, you are besieged by more items competing for your time and attention. Now, people actually have dwindling attention spans. They lack the ability to remain focused on the same subject for more than a few minutes and, sadly, some people for more than a few seconds.

The key to reclaiming your time is to practice the art, something I call an art, of doing one thing at a time. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Focus on the task at hand and be present in the moment.

Birth and Death, and In Between - Breathing Space Blog

Here are some motes from What to Do Between Birth and Death: The Art of Growing Up, by Charles Spezzano, Ph.D. (William Morrow):

* You don't really pay for things with money. You pay for them with time. "In five years, I'll have put enough away to buy that vacation house we want. Then I'll slow down or get out of this business altogether." Okay, that means the house will cost you five years. That's one-twelfth of your adult life.

* Translate the dollar value of the car or the house or anything else into time, and then see if it's still worth it. Sometimes you can't do what you want and have what you want at once because each requires a different expenditure of time. Those are the moments when you have to think of the cost of the thing in terms of time and not dollars.

* The phrase "spending your time" is not a metaphor. It's how life works.

Birth and Death, and In Between - Breathing Space Blog

Here are some motes from What to Do Between Birth and Death: The Art of Growing Up, by Charles Spezzano, Ph.D. (William Morrow):

* You don't really pay for things with money. You pay for them with time. "In five years, I'll have put enough away to buy that vacation house we want. Then I'll slow down or get out of this business altogether." Okay, that means the house will cost you five years. That's one-twelfth of your adult life.

* Translate the dollar value of the car or the house or anything else into time, and then see if it's still worth it. Sometimes you can't do what you want and have what you want at once because each requires a different expenditure of time. Those are the moments when you have to think of the cost of the thing in terms of time and not dollars.

* The phrase "spending your time" is not a metaphor. It's how life works.

More Meetings = Less Breathing Space - Breathing Space Blog

The typical employee spends +30 hours monthly in meetings and regards at least half of that time to be unnecessary. The calculated cost of unnecessary meetings is $37 billion a year.

Research by Bain & Company indicates that the typical manager consumes at least one full day each week in meetings, and that senior executives devote 40% of the work week in ineffective meetings. None of the findings above includes the time preparation and follow up time consumed before and after meetings.

More Meetings = Less Breathing Space - Breathing Space Blog

The typical employee spends +30 hours monthly in meetings and regards at least half of that time to be unnecessary. The calculated cost of unnecessary meetings is $37 billion a year.

Research by Bain & Company indicates that the typical manager consumes at least one full day each week in meetings, and that senior executives devote 40% of the work week in ineffective meetings. None of the findings above includes the time preparation and follow up time consumed before and after meetings.

My "Breathing Space" Origins - Breathing Space Blog

Now and then people ask how I derived the title of my book, "Breathing Space."

One afternoon, I was speaking on the phone to a mentor and he mentioned that he needed to "get some breathing space." I wrote down those words.

The phrase became one of the powerful guiding forces in my life. From that conversation, I devised the Breathing Space Institute, wrote the book "Breathing Space," and have since given hundreds of lectures for audiences across the nation and around the world on managing the daily pace with grace, mastering information from any communication overload, and, of course, having more breathing space.

My "Breathing Space" Origins - Breathing Space Blog

Now and then people ask how I derived the title of my book, "Breathing Space."

One afternoon, I was speaking on the phone to a mentor and he mentioned that he needed to "get some breathing space." I wrote down those words.

The phrase became one of the powerful guiding forces in my life. From that conversation, I devised the Breathing Space Institute, wrote the book "Breathing Space," and have since given hundreds of lectures for audiences across the nation and around the world on managing the daily pace with grace, mastering information from any communication overload, and, of course, having more breathing space.

Got Breathing Space? - Breathing Space Blog

When you don't have, or feel you don't have, an extra moment to read philosophy, history, or science, when great literature, plays, and novels are as foreign to you as hieroglyphics, do you have any chance of seeing your work, career, or life in a new light?

Got Breathing Space? - Breathing Space Blog

When you don't have, or feel you don't have, an extra moment to read philosophy, history, or science, when great literature, plays, and novels are as foreign to you as hieroglyphics, do you have any chance of seeing your work, career, or life in a new light?

Does Time Fly? - Breathing Space Blog

According to findings published in Scientific American, the human brain generates images faster when it experiences positive emotions. Time seems to "fly" when you're having fun! Conversely, the brain reduces the rate of image making during negative emotions. This could explain why misery seems to linger. So, Norman Vincent Peale was right all along: positive thinking is essential!

Does Time Fly? - Breathing Space Blog

According to findings published in Scientific American, the human brain generates images faster when it experiences positive emotions. Time seems to "fly" when you're having fun! Conversely, the brain reduces the rate of image making during negative emotions. This could explain why misery seems to linger. So, Norman Vincent Peale was right all along: positive thinking is essential!

Can One “Slow Down” Time? - Breathing Space Blog

Each minute holds so much potential, but they still race by quickly: The way you experience time passing each day is based on your perception. You can slow down time if you choose. How? Whenever you feel you’re racing the clock or trying to tackle too much at once, try this exercise:

Close your eyes for sixty seconds and imagine a pleasant scene, perhaps one in nature, with a loved one, or something from childhood. Let the emotions of that place and time predominate. Give yourself time for the visualization to take hold. Then open your eyes and return to your present task. You might find that the task and the pace at which you are working no longer seem so stressful.

One effective method for catching up with today is to periodically delete three items from your to-do list without even doing them. Before you shriek, consider that much of what makes your list is nonessential. If you can eliminate three items, it will rarely impact your career or life, and doing so frees up some time for yourself in the present. Nice gift.

Trust Your Intuition - Breathing Space Blog

There is no research to prove the age-old notion of “woman’s intuition,” but there is some evidence that certain types of people are more intuitive than others. Kathy Dalton, Ph.D. a visiting scientist at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina discovered that musicians, visual artists, fiction writers, and actors seem to have stronger intuitive powers than others. And, apparently we can all improve our own ability to proceed based on intuition (thereby saving oodles of time and gaining some breathing space!)

Trust Your Intuition - Breathing Space Blog

There is no research to prove the age-old notion of “woman’s intuition,” but there is some evidence that certain types of people are more intuitive than others. Kathy Dalton, Ph.D. a visiting scientist at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina discovered that musicians, visual artists, fiction writers, and actors seem to have stronger intuitive powers than others. And, apparently we can all improve our own ability to proceed based on intuition (thereby saving oodles of time and gaining some breathing space!)

Boxed In? - Breathing Space Blog

They all need Breathing Space: A study of American families reveals troubling trends: Too much stuff, too little time.

Boxed In? - Breathing Space Blog

They all need Breathing Space: A study of American families reveals troubling trends: Too much stuff, too little time.