Reflect, Rethink & Cherish: How to Transform Your Time
This is a guest post by Caroline McGraw, who writes about ‘how to see disability as opportunity’ at A wish come clear.
When I opened Katie Tallo’s Life Cleanse Starter Kit, I balked at the first exercise. Yes, that’s right. Me, a person who loves motivational material and workbook exercises. I write about ‘disability as opportunity’, and I believe in small changes making a big difference. But still, I didn’t want to do that exercise. I felt an internal resistance to the idea of tracking my time.
As many of you know, the first exercise/”eye opener” in the Life Cleanse Starter Kit is a time log. It’s a simple (but pretty!) chart that lets you write in how you spent your time each hour of the day. On the surface, it’s not intimidating.
In actuality, it’s a fearsome thing.
This fear– which arose within me at the sight of this time log– led me to believe that it might be a very important exercise for me to actually, you know, do.
You should know upfront that I’m a person who keeps lists and writes schedules. I fill my Google Calendar with both work and personal appointments. My calendar includes entries such as, ‘30 minute run’, ‘Provider Coalition meeting’, ‘nap’, ‘coffee with Sarah [my best friend]‘ and ‘dinner with J [my husband].’
As such, I didn’t need to physically write out a time-log; I could simply look at one of my hyper-detailed Google Calendar days and analyze it. I had the data.
What I didn’t have was the nerve.
It turns out that I wasn’t afraid of Katie’s time log (with its lovely lavender border) as much as I was afraid of the “take away” questions that followed.
I’ve discovered a paradox within myself, and I don’t think I’m the only one. We live in an age of organization, and yet there’s a distinct absence of reflection. I can track my schedule and routines with the best of them, but I have trouble with sitting down and considering how my schedule made me feel. Am I happy with the way I’m spending my time? Do I feel that my time commitments reflect my deepest values and beliefs? Do I bend over backwards to make things work for other people, and disrupt the rhythm of my days in the process?
These are intimate questions. These are questions that get us to the heart of the matter. They require you to spend some time actively listening to yourself.
Reflect: Are you afraid to spend time thinking about your schedule, to consider what’s serving you and what’s not?
That said, I’m in a much better place to answer these questions now than I’ve ever been. I’m spending a lot of time writing, which gives me energy and gladness. I’m fighting for and guarding time alone with my husband, because that time is precious to me. I’m keeping up my family and my relationships within the L’Arche community, because these are foundational for me.
However, there are a few areas in which I know I could be spending my time more wisely. First, I sometimes hesitate to make plans with friends. I tend to assume they’ll be too busy and so I put off making contact. Or I imagine the worst and think they don’t want to talk to me. Once I recognize this attitude as a false assumption, I start reaching out to my friends and initiating plans to spend time together.
Rethink: Do you wait for others to reach out? Do you assume the worst when your friends don’t get in touch?
Next, a commitment I had trouble keeping was my ‘Artist’s Date’. If you’ve read Julia Cameron’s classic The Artist’s Way, then you know that she recommends setting aside at least 2 hours per week to do something playful, something that feeds your creative spirit. It can be anything from browsing an antique store to running a new route to listening to a CD and dancing like crazy. The point is to do it alone, to cultivate creativity in whatever way feels right to you.
An ‘Artist’s Date’ is really hard for workaholics to handle. Give me a freelance assignment that involves 6 blog posts a week, in addition to my own site’s posts? Done. Tell me to keep our apartment as tidy as possible? You bet. But tell me to go out and have fun for a few specific hours each week? Now that’s a real challenge.
When I let myself take time for those ‘dates’, I usually love them. The main difficulty lies in holding that time sacred. I allow myself to schedule things that conflict with my time. I leave my phone on and check my texts. I self-sabotage.
Rethink: How do you self-sabotage on commitments you’ve made to yourself?
Finally, I noticed that, though I’m usually a punctual person, I typically arrive late to one regular event in my schedule: a Taize prayer service I attend each Monday evening. (Taize prayer is a meditative form of Christian worship, one that involves a good deal of silence in addition to simple chants sung in many languages.) I love the service, I’m loved and encouraged by the people there, and I’ve been attending for nearly 3 years. Why the tardiness?
Again, it was a question of intimacy. My experience in Taize calls me to go deeper into who I am and who God is. Some days (all right, most Mondays), it’s easier to stay ‘on the surface’ where the to-do lists are, where I know what’s expected of me. It’s easier to be late and thereby avoid that intimacy a little longer.
But I don’t want to settle for that. I can fight for what I know is important to me: my relationship with God, my relationships with people. I can commit to arriving on time, even though it makes me face my fear.
Cherish: What is there in your life that’s worth fighting for?
Today, I challenge you with this quote from Katie: “Reflect, rethink and cherish [your time], then don’t waste another minute of it.”
If you’re scared, well, same here. But it helps to know that you’re not alone. It helps to make lavender borders on your time-logs. It helps to realize that, whenever you balk at doing a self-reflection exercise, you’re on to something important.
Fear not that you have wasted too much time hesitating. Your journey is just beginning.
Namaste,
Caroline
32 Responses to “Reflect, Rethink & Cherish: How to Transform Your Time”
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This is so true. So many are afraid to be alone with themselves. They are afraid of what they will discover about themselves and the work it will take to change. The best feeling in the world though is coming home to ourselves. The work this takes is so worth it. Thanks so much!
Dandy, thank you for your comment. You have a great way of summing it all up: “coming home to ourselves” indeed
I love Julia Cameron. I’m doing her book “Walking in the World” now, along with other bloggers on “Journaling Saves”. I wrote a blog post on my favorite time for reflection, every morning while the sun comes up. The title of the post was ‘reflections on devotions’. I also do the morning pages Julia recommends. They kind of go together. As an author I need to reflect. That’s one of the ways I get creative. I haven’t done Katie’s cleanse yet but it seems like a whole lot of common sense. Something some of us don’t have.
Thanks for this post.
Thanks for the recommendations, Clar ~ I’ve only completed The Artist’s Way thus far, but I’m eager to read more. Here’s to a marriage between common sense and creativity!
Great post, especially this: “Fear not that you have wasted too much time hesitating. Your journey is just beginning.” Your words remind me to wake up to the present moment. The past is gone;the future’s not here yet, so now is all we’ve got.
I have Parkinson’s and other chronic illnesses but have found it’s possible to have a life that’s happy and fulfilled.
The theme of my blog is how to be happy regardless of external circumstances.
Thank you Eileen ~ your story is inspirational, and your site is too! I look forward to reading more.
Last month I did a silent retreat at an Ignatian Spirituality Centre in Wales. 8 days of silence.
There was a chap there who said (before the silence started!) that, since illness had forced him to give up work, he now regards God as his employer and asks God each day what he should do!
Before the retreat, I was a list maker, schedule maker, obsessive planner and someone who kept a time log, hoping to squeeze more out of each day.
Since the retreat, I’ve stopped making most lists (just an essential one for work), stopped scheduling my time so much, stopped planning and stopped keeping a time log. I get up, pray about my day and then do what I feel like and what I feel God is inviting me to do.
I am actually getting more done than before AND I’m happier.
I like the idea of letting God lead one’s day, rather than first imposing our lists and agendas onto it! As you said, one often ends up getting more done that way, somehow. Your happiness is testament to its effectiveness as well.
A time log can be a valuable starting point (when you’re periodically evaluating how you spend your time), and I believe Katie put it at the start of the Life Cleanse for that reason ~ it helps you be honest about your time, and then move into spending it differently ~ in a more graceful and true expression of what matters to you.
Thanks for your comment, Jen!
Welcome Caroline. I too found that reflecting on how I spend my time was were valuable. I too had been putting it off, and even wanted to rush through all the reflections in one days. Instead I let the insights and wisdom unfold. The day I tracked my time, I was very focused and relaxed. I often think I need to track and reflect each day
Thanks Marci! Glad to know I wasn’t alone in avoiding that task, and that you were able to “let the insights and wisdom unfold.”
Caroline, So many of us give so much to everything and everyone that we forget about our own needs. Having to consider what is serving you and what is not can be down right frightening, yet enlightening. Thank you for reminding us that it is okay to consider our own needs.
Frightening yet enlightening ~ you said it! Thanks for your comment, Michelle.
Thanks Caroline. Your post is a powerful reminder for me to not sabotage my personal committments by feeling obligated to always put others first.
You’re most welcome, Jason. I definitely need that reminder myself!
Caroline, I have to say that I love how you write. Something in your prose makes me hear your voice. Without pretense, you speak your truth in words and phrases that connect to me deeply. I’m so glad you offered this post to my readers and shared your wisdom on this page. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your soul self. Much love, Katie
Thank you Katie! What a welcome message to receive first thing this morning. I’m honored to post here
Great post, Caroline! It puts together some elements that are really worth considering: making to-do lists alone is not enough, we shouldn’t sabotage things that are important to us, and exactly those things fear us because they are so close to our heart. I’m already making progress with focusing on one thing at a time (thanks to ZenHabits’ Focus) and I will keep this article in mind as well.
Well said, Esther! Thank you for stating it so clearly. (I’ve read a bit of “Focus” and am looking forward to reading the rest soon!)
There is the joke about the drunk who lost his car keys in the bar and is searching for them over by the pool table. His friend says “But you lost them over by the bar” and the drunk responds “I know but there is more light over here”. I think that’s a good analogy for many time management systems. Keeping detailed records on what you are doing is far easier than having the courage to really step out of your comfort zone do the thing that is hard and challenging but really matters and makes a difference.
Riley
Great point, Riley! It’s tempting to stop once you’ve finished the ’surface’ work, and to neglect the work that “really matters and makes a difference.”
Hi Caroline,
I can’t even tell you how much I resonate with the “Artist’s Date” dilemma!! It’s easy for me to plow forward with things that make me feel “productive,” and so much more difficult to take time for fun, friends, and most importantly, time with my husband! Breaking out of non-value-added routines can be such a challenge. It’s something I’ve become very aware of over the past couple of weeks. I’ve decided it’s time to get serious about making what matters most a priority in my life. Oh but where to begin??
hi Adrienne ~ Glad to know I’m not alone. Thanks for sharing solidarity in this.
PS ~ I very much enjoyed checking out Experience Life Fully ~ will definitely return
You have touched upon so many important points that it’s a challenge to respond in a logical manner. Yes, I do find myself putting my “online work” first, and sometimes getting so caught up, I forget to spend time having “fun.”
My problem is organizational and allocating time slots for each activity, since I get carried away from reading and responding to various people I find interesting, and trying to do things that will propel me forwards.
When our family lived on a tropical island in Belize for one year, this was probably the only time in my life when I had so much time to “live” and appreciate the true beauty and love of nature. This stayed with me for about a year or so, until I gradually got caught up in a busy lifestyle again, where time was being used for work-related activities, and guilt came in when I didn’t feel productive. How sad is that?
Thanks for your beautiful post.
Thank you for your comment, GutsyWriter, and for sharing where you’re at! I hope that both of us will be able to slow down and reflect, in order to “appreciate the true beauty” that is around us, always.
Caroline, this post is great! You ask the perfect questions, and I think you are so right in pointing out that the questions we avoid the most lead us to true positive change. Thanks for the encouragement; I feel truly inspired to change self-sabotaging habits.
Thank you SEB!
That’s great to hear ~ I’m glad it made an impact.