Thoughts on Time
I have been doing a lot of reading lately, which is actually not abnormal, but most of the books have centered around burnout, busyness, overwhelm, strategic thinking and hibernating. I request books from my library a lot and you never quite know when a book is going to show up, especially if there are people waiting. So the fact that all of these books showed up at the same time made me think-ok Universe, I hear you.
One thing I struggle with is that our identities are tied to our jobs. When you introduce yourself it is usually your name and your job. I’d love to introduce myself as an empath, a reader, a crafter, a coach, a person slightly obsessed with Ray and Charles Eames, but instead I give my job as my identity. When our job is our identity we don’t leave space for all the other very important things, like family/family of choice, friends, cooking, reading, playing the ukulele, writing stories, going for hikes, or all the innumerable things that make up who we are.
On top of that our second identity is tied to how busy we are. We are all trying to out busy each other. Why? Status is now tied to busyness.
All of this to say that we do have time. Years ago I banned the word busy from my vocabulary because I realized I was using it as an excuse. Either an excuse to a friend who I didn’t really feel like spending time with, or an excuse to myself because I was afraid to do something like taking a pottery class or a comedy class. What happened was I became less busy. I still had stress, don’t get me wrong, but my lack of time was due to how I was choosing to spend my time.
What if you were to carve out fifteen minutes for yourself each day? What would you do? What if you could expand that time to fit thirty minutes and then an hour. What could you do just for yourself?
Here are some books that have really influenced how I use my time:
- 168 hours: You Have More Time That You Think by Laura Vanderkamp
- Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing and Underliving by Celeste Headlee
- Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
If you have any favorite books or resources, please drop them in the comments.
