redefining time

Unless you're lucky enough to live on your own private island (and believe me, I’m saving for mine!) there must be times when almost every working person feels somewhat overwhelmed by trying to keep up with daily events.

I don’t have to list the sources of our overload. Suffice to say that most of my colleagues—and I’m sure it’s the same for you—receive between 150 and 400 business emails every day.

Many of these solicit responses, which in turn, demand further attention. And that’s before you add daily or routine responsibilities, and before you’ve carved out time for special projects, meetings, business-related travel, professional development, networking. Or that thing called a life!

For 13 years I’ve been a proponent of Stephen Covey’s old catchphrase: “Why just manage your time, when you can LEAD your life?” But the work world has changed dramatically since he introduced his Quadrant II, First Things First philosophies, and just as we upgrade technology to keep pace, we must also upgrade our thinking and re-evaluate work habits.

Like most people, I frequently work according to other’s schedules. But on days or weeks when I’m driven only by deadlines, I’ve adapted a method of redefining my time using Jack Canfield’s Breakthrough Results Time System.*

Canfield breaks his week into three kinds of days: Best Results Days, Preparation Days, and Rest & Recreation Days.

Best Results Days: On these days, you’re seeking a high return on your investment of time by spending at least 80% of the day focusing directly on your primary area of expertise, or as Canfield calls it, your core genius, i.e. the one thing you do really well and enjoy doing so much that you would do for nothing. This might be writing, speaking, teaching, painting, sculpting, coaching, filming, editing, designing, negotiating, building.

Preparation Days: Consider this as prep time, crucial to making the most of your best results days. This might include planning a new product line, developing resources, training new team members, seeking out a life coach or mentor, hiring a housekeeper, learning new skills, writing copy for a seminar, or selecting images for a marketing presentation. Assuming you have available resources, delegate anything you don’t do well or don’t enjoy doing—this will free up more time to pour into best results days.

Rest & Recreation Days: Usually the first thing we give up when we’re super busy, but vitally important for renewed creativity, mental clarity, and life balance. Adopting Canfield's rules, an R & R day extends from midnight to midnight and involves NO work-related activity whatsoever! That means you are ‘unavailable’ to clients, staff, vendors, and anyone or anything else business related. I know many who will shrug and say they simply can’t do this, and I’ve been guilty of it myself, but honestly, is the world going to stop if you take one day off? (If you answered yes to that question, get over yourself!! ;-)

The key to making any system work is to remain flexible and— keeping the big picture in mind—set clear expectations and boundaries with yourself and those who work alongside you.

In a typical week, I plan two prep days and three-to-four best results days, but as with anything, this changes week to week; sometimes day to day. And since I spend so much time hunched over a keyboard for work, I have one full day a week where I absolutely refuse to even look at a PC.

How about you: Do you ever feel like stopping the world for a day or two? And if so, how do you cope? What work/life balance tips do you have to share?


*The Success Principles™ How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield.

jet lag ramblings

I read years ago that when you wake in the middle of the night, keeping one eye closed ensures that you’ll go back to sleep with ease. Haven’t found it to work for myself, but nevertheless I still open only one eye. 1:50 am. Sigh … I am NOT getting up.

Seven minutes, a million thoughts, much pillow-puffing, and two impossibly fidgety legs later I throw back the duvet and jump out of bed. It’s pitch black. And silent outside, except for a heavy stream of rain rushing down the storm drain. I nudge the shower lever to maximum red and step inside, groaning in semi-masochistic pleasure as the stinging heat smoothes the cricks of a restless sleep.

I’ve been fighting this all week. After five weeks overseas, I’m stuck on Greenwich Mean Time; up by 2 am—a living, breathing zombie by 6:30 pm.

The good news is that I’ve wrapped at least eight hours work before 10 am every day. And in the peace of the early hours, the world outside my window presents an entirely different perspective.

Ideas that seemed ridiculous or tough to fulfill at two in the afternoon, seem reasonable and easily achievable at 3 am. Logic that eluded me at 8 pm, is razor sharp at 4 am. Challenges that made me want to hide my face in the pillow at 11 pm, become great opportunities at 6 am.

The bad news is that I have dark shadows under my eyes and my eyebrows are permanently raised in an attempt to pull open my eyelids. Plus, my current hours are just plain anti-social.

Four-thirty-am and I’m starving. I mean, eat the whole horse and tail, ravenous. (Although as a vegetarian I don’t recommend horse or tail.) So I pull on my ski jacket and head to the only local place open at this hour … Denny’s.

I feel bad about this, because for a couple of years after reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, On (Not) Getting by in America, I boycotted all franchise diners and discount stores whose employees worked for poverty-level wages.

But today I’m beyond hungry, I’m belly-growling famished, and it’s the only place open at 4.30 am. I vow to thank the waiter for covering the midnight-to-six shift and promise to tip generously.

gone fishing

Someone close to me needs very special care and attention over the next few days. So with that said, let's just say that spring is right around the corner ... and "I've gone fishing."

See you in two weeks!!

Hugs, Bibi.

connecting with nature

I’d spent many exhilarating hours sailing in the sunny bays of San Diego, but had never had an urge to kayak. Truth be known, I’d always thought kayaking looked slow. (Interpret that as dull!) And I wasn’t altogether too sure that I’d fit my Amazon-like frame into the tiny narrow cockpit of a kayak—let alone keep myself upright. (Interpret that as chicken!)

But then I moved to the emerald waters of the Pacific Northwest, and each weekend, as I explored a different lake or river trail, I felt land-locked as I gazed at the hundreds of brightly colored sails streaming by. At the time, I was a returning student; funds were limited, and the cost of hiring a sailboat prohibitive—maybe a plastic, blow-up dinghy?

Ditching that idea—and with more than a little trepidation—I took a four-hour introductory class to kayaking on Lake Washington and, within the first thirty minutes, became a lifetime kayaker.

Kayaks don’t merely float on the water—they put you in the water, at one with nature, allowing access to areas that other boats can’t get to. Down in the wetlands for example, where you can paddle within a couple of feet of blue herons blending almost invisibly into the tall wispy reeds. Where otters, busily gathering floating sticks and leaves, dodge around your kayak as though it's part of their terrain. And where mama duck, sensing that your quiet gliding action poses no threat, swims right alongside you with her babies.

One of the brightest blessings of kayaking is that you can get far away from the aggravation of noise pollution, forgetting for a few hours the cacophony of screaming sirens, freeway rumbles, boom-box low-riders, and raging leaf-blowers.

Quiet calms the soul as you surrender to the rhythmic heartbeat of a well-timed paddle lapping the water’s surface. Sensory overload releases its toxic grip as birds natter lyrically. And priorities shift, as cool winds wrap around you, gently whispering, nudging you on.

Doesn’t matter whether you kayak at sun-up or sundown, there’s always some new wonder to experience. For me, almost nothing matches the sight of a mighty bald eagle swooping down within feet of your kayak to capture an unsuspecting salmon working his way back to the creek. Or the simultaneous rush of panic and awe as the black and white arc of an Orca whale surfaces, just yards away, dwarfing your kayak.

I’ve gasped in child-like delight as I rounded a cove and Mount Rainier jumped seemingly out of nowhere. Or as a turtle suddenly popped his head at my side. I’ve felt a rush of warm comfort at the simplicity of a setting sun easing its honey-colored fingertips below the ridges of the majestic Cascades. And a midnight island coastal tour by the light of a Harvest moon? Well, let’s just say that puts the ‘ahhh’ back in romantic!

life's seasons

I have three prints on my studio wall. I bought them in the tiny English fishing village of Mevagissey, Cornwall, several years ago while visiting family.

Something intangible drew me to the women in the prints; I studied their faces and the unspoken details of their body language. Each had a silent strength about them, a look of quiet courage deep in their eyes.

They represented three generations of a native Indian family, each understanding and embracing their individual and collective responsibilities within the tribe. They were women who could climb over or around any obstacle; who would do whatever it took to keep those close to them safe and warm and loved.

Each of the women became instantly symbolic of the three generations of women in my family. Myself and my sister; my mother, and grandmother. I’ve seen the prints that way for almost a decade, periodically drawing strength from the still courage and hushed knowing in each of the women’s faces.

But life goes on and the eldest of our generation died just weeks before my eldest niece-and-God-child, and her twinkle-eyed Irish partner, began their own family.

I knew that in the measures of time, things had shifted. I knew that we’d lost a generation, gained a new one. I knew that in theory I was no longer represented by the youngest member of the three strong Native Indian women hanging on my wall—and that I had a new role to fulfill in life’s cycles. Still, I was reluctant to move up, to be represented by the older, middle generation.

But when I flew to England and held my great-niece for the first time, what I already understood on an intellectual level, shifted on a more spiritual level.

I loved this baby from the second she was born, before I even saw her. And as I felt and smelled and kissed her soft skin, blew raspberries on her long fidgety legs, pulled up the pale pink socks around her ankles, I loved her even more.

I knew with fleeting, bittersweet emotion, that with the birth of this precious beautiful being the seasons had moved on without me. And by the forces of nature—like it or not/ready or not—I had already moved up to the middle of our tribe.