This letter is aimed at encouraging you to try to live with greater ease. Sound worth trying?? Well, one of the factors that I think is essential is trying to remove the boxes in your life. Many of us keep our sport box and our social box and our work box etc totally separate and I wonder what life could be like if we got rid of all the boxes and just had life. Perhaps there would be more room for creativity….

I looked at my cupboard the other day and I realised that if I arranged my clothes differently I would dress differently. My sports clothes are on a shelf, my casual weekend clothes are on another, my work clothes and social clothes are each on other shelves and my bags are on the top shelf far away from reach. This categorising blocks my creativity and I am sure that I could expand my wardrobe considerably and have more fun with more variety and choices if I was willing to integrate things a bit. I realised how habitual dressing is for me and how automatically I keep the categories in place apparently to make life faster and more streamlined.

What would happen if we mixed our social life with our sport or physical life, or put some recreation into our work day… would our productivity go up or down? I am playing with time at the moment which anyone who has looked at my blog will have seen. I am finding that there are many different ways of doing things and often it is our habits that block things rather than life blocking things. I have tried reading when I have a gap in my work day and am actually certain that I am getting more done and have less sense of chaos. So, instead of trying to do ten things in a spare 15 minutes, I am just opening my book. My mind seems to be staying more focused and this is helping my productivity. This is counterintuitive I know, but it seems to work. So I am integrating recreation time with work time. Why not have a meeting while you run or go for a walk instead of a coffee with a friend? Is it really that useful to do no work over the weekend but to kill yourself all week, or would it actually work better for you to work a little less in the week and to do 2-3 hours over the weekend? Maybe then you would have time during your work day to make that social call and enjoy the chat, rather than sending an sms or email. Open yourself to being less boxed and habitual and see what happens. Rigidity of any form is tension producing.
We know from neuroscience that the prefrontal cortex acts like a muscle so when it has been worked hard it needs a rest and some nutrients and air to rejuvenate it…. Would an exercise class, some yoga stretches or some deep breathing be better at this time than bashing on at your desk, even though your productivity and focus are at an all time low?
Please feel free to post your comments on my blog or mail me.

Follow my exploration of the irrational belief I hold that there is ‘not enough time and I can never fit it all in’ if you share this common thought pattern. Maybe blogging can solve the powerful pull of this irrational thought. The reasoning process and discussions may help you with your own thoughts too.