Time Management

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Your internal little kid-your right brain-needs attention, too. Just a few minutes of something fun and pleasurable can signifi­cantly restore your ability to work productively. There are a lot of simple ways for you to give your­self the break you need:

 ∎ Call a friend to make a date for lunch.

∎ Daydream about a recent vacation or one you'd like to take.

∎ Browse through a mail-order catalog to pick out future purchases.

∎ Enjoy a piece of fruit or a glass of water.

  DECONTAMINATING WORK TIME WITH JOY BREAKS

 If you are contaminating work time, the chances are good that you need more frequent joy breaks. Most people only function at peak efficiency and total concentration for fifteen-to forty-five-minute periods, then need to break their activity with something that refreshes and invigorates them.

This can be accomplished by shifting from one kind of work to another. In a meeting, you can shift from listening to contribut­ing, or from hearing information to making decisions. After an hour and a half, however, you may need to do something entirely differ­ent. You need time off to renew yourself. Several deep, slow breaths, a good stretch all over, a brisk walk, or a hike up and down a few flights of stairs can help to revive your body.

Click here for more on Joy Breaks

DECONTAMINATING PLAYTIME BY LETTING GO OF GUILT

If you are contaminat­ing playtime, there are two issues to consider. Do you value your play for its own sake, experiencing and sharing fun, joy, and downtime as a necessary and valuable dimension of life? And do you give yourself unconditional permission to frequently enjoy free play?

 Sometimes we simply need to unlearn our polarized belief that only work is important and realize that without refreshing, renewing play, we lower our capacity for high-quality work and our ability to enjoy life fully. Also, without refreshing, joyful play, our life can lose all of its enthusiasm. Constant work un­balances our immune system. Doctors who were surveyed in an American Medical Association poll believed that anywhere from 65 to 75 percent of illnesses occurring prior to the age of sixty-five are made more severe by unrelieved exposure to distress.

Most of us will never "finish" everything we could possibly do. Responsible adults generate work simply by working, so if we insist on finishing all our work before we can play, we'll never get to play. Play needs to be seen as a balancing resource that is as necessary to retaining our mental and physical health as are regular, nutritious meals, stimulating exercise, and enough rest.

At times, however, our guilt is an appropriate inner warning that we have made commitments to ourselves and others that we are not honoring. Perhaps we have been playing long enough, and now it is time to return to work. Only you will know what fits your situation and when you need to either turn off inappropriate guilt or heed a legitimate warning.

DECONTAMINATING PLAYTIME BY GETTING BACK TO WORK - but with a different perspective

The Peace Pilgrim: In the last decade, a woman in her seventies known only as The Peace Pilgrim walked across America, spreading her own spirit of love and tranquility. This list describes the inner changes she experienced as she gained a new and broader perspective on life:

∎ A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experiences

∎ An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment

∎ A loss of interest in judging oneself

∎ A loss of interest in judging others

∎ A loss of interest in conflict

∎ A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others

∎ A loss of ability to worry

∎ Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation

∎ Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature

∎ Frequent attacks of smiling through the eyes of the heart

∎ Increasing susceptibility to love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it

∎ An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than to make them happen

DECONTAMINATING TIME THROUGH BALANCE

Balancing different life activities is the key to optimum performance. Examine your time and how you spend (or contaminate) it. Remember that balance doesn't mean a simplistic fifty-fifty split of work and play. The division might be five to ninety-five in a situation where you need to concentrate or focus with a time deadline, or it might be seventy to thirty when you are relaxing with the kids but still need to be wearing your parenting hat. And it changes daily or hourly. Balance is whatever is necessary to keep your life at optimal per­formance at any given moment:

∎ Sometimes you may need to getaway and enjoy time alone.

∎ You may need to find help in accomplishing a task rather than trying to do everything yourself.

∎ At times, you may need a ten-minute nap or a vigorous round with a jump rope.

∎ And sometimes you may need to go ahead and finish a specific onerous task and get it out of the way.

You must decide how to balance your life, for only you can see the big picture. Only you know what your commitments and goals are and can hear your inner voice. Learn to listen to your body and trust it. When you get restless, have on hand creative ways to rest, delight, and renew yourself.

When you are working too hard, your body tells you to slow down and take a break. The same is true of play. If you are playing and get restless and distracted by thoughts of work, your subconscious may be telling you that it's time to get back to work. By trying to keep the big picture in mind, you will see that work and play are both essentials of a bal­anced, fulfilling life. Then, when you are trying to have fun but keep thinking of work, you can work or plan for a while and again release your capacity to play.

As you enjoy more family and personal time, you will bring more productive energy, much clearer and more creative thinking, and a better attitude to everything you do. You will become a better listener and will be less likely to become grumpy, preoccupied, or impatient. Unhappiness is often the result of burnout that happens when we constantly contaminate both our work time and our playtime.

Learning to create a system with which to see your life, not as a series of notes to be played, but as a symphony to be harmonized, will help you find more time and deeper enjoyment of the time you have.