Friday Feature: The World's Greatest Places of 2021

Full disclosure: I haven't read this week's feature...yet. But, since I'm on vacation, I thought I'd share some beautiful places with you. It seemed only fair.

Have a great weekend! See you next week.

Claiming Time

Pixel2013 via Pixabay

About a week ago, I needed to (once again) have a little chat with myself. It was a familiar chat -- the one about not having to be SuperWoman -- but historically, I've been a poor listener when it comes to that topic.

Lately, though, I've really been feeling the crunch. I've always said yes to too many things and I've always been able to (somehow) make it all work. But recently, the line between wanting 36-hour days and needing them has become a thin one. When I stumbled across a line in a magazine (thank you, Live Happy!) and found myself, I decided it was time to take stock.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that despite rising income and wealth globally, the stress of having very little free time contributes to reduced happiness, poor sleep and eating habits, and higher levels of anxiety.

Like everyone else, I have free time. I'm not going nonstop from the moment I rise to the moment I fall into bed. But am I using my free time well?

I am not.

I can't add any more hours to my days (and I'm not really sure I want to), but I can purposefully stake my claim to a portion of the hours I do have. Staking my claim to that time doesn't mean squeezing in a little more work, even if it's work I love. It means taking time for intentional down time.

Intentional down time isn't the same as putting unexpected moments to good use (that means it's
not checking my email on my phone while I wait in line at Starbucks), nor is it mindlessly engaging in an activity, (so it's not losing track of time while I play games on another electronic device as I watch late night television or binge-watch The West Wing either).

Intentional down time is exactly what it sounds like: carving out downtime (even if it's less than an hour) and choosing what I will do with it.

Some days, the carving is the hard part -- actually putting downtime on the list. Other days (usually weekends), deciding how I want to use the time is the hard part. It seems I'm never at a loss for choices.

A funny thing has happened since I started trying to reclaim some snippets of free time  -- my creativity has stirred. As it turns out, there seems to be a connection between taking time for myself and coming up with topics (besides taking time for myself) for my blog posts. When I allow my brain some down time, it's pretty talented at putting it to good use.

All the more reason to continue this downtime habit.

It's actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I'm not naive enough to believe there won't still be busy times where I'm reduced to playing Words with Friends while binge watching reruns, but I like using time for stuff I want to do instead of just stuff I have to do. In fact, I highly recommend it.

So, please -- join me. Pull up a book and a chair and enjoy some quiet time. You'll be glad you did.

Friday Feature: Mindfulness, Dan Bova and Blue Lobsters

Standing in line at CVS, I fell prey to a last minute purchase. I've been immersing myself in positive psychology out of both personal and professional interest and, when I saw the Mindfulness magazine, I had to get it.

I've been reading it slowly, so I could savor it (it's more interesting than the journal article I'm reading for class). The other day, I read Dan Bova's laugh-out-loud piece about trying to become a morning person and I really, really wanted to share it, but I couldn't find a digital version. So I searched Dan Bova online and I'm sharing his blue lobster piece instead.

Really.

Photo: Time Shop

The two articles are completely unrelated, connected only by their author. But, when I find an author whose voice I like, I want to read more.

Even if they write about crustaceans.

Meanwhile, my impulse buy is pictured on the right. Just in time for summer, it has good articles about slowing down and savoring everything from moments to food to life.

Dominoes, Jigsaw Puzzles and Tapestries

Photo: lorettaflame via Morguefile

When I found out I was going to be teaching only one class this semester, I panicked. With college tuition payments lurking just around the corner, every income source matters, and going from three classes (an anomaly) to one was a little scary.

Fortunately, the panic was short-lived. If there's one thing I've learned in the last four years, it's that God has a plan, and I'm not nearly as in control as I think I am. I figured if I was only teaching one class, it was because there was something else in my life I needed time for.

As it turned out, that thing was my daughter's final semester of high school. As I prepare to turn the calendar page to April, I have the sudden sense of responsibilities tumbling like dominoes. As we trade in college visits for college decisions, the finality of this part of my daughter's education and all it brings with it is beginning to hit. I refuse to participate in countdowns -- at least so far. They only add to the panic, and make it hard to enjoy the high school days that remain.

And that enjoyment can be pretty challenging anyway. It seems that we no sooner finish one thing than it's past time to embark on another, and avoiding the nag-ignore cycle that was so prevalent earlier in the year is more difficult than I thought it would be. One decision begets another, one event paves the way to the next and before I know it, she'll be accepting her diploma and moving her tassel as I breathlessly try to keep pace.

Until then, I'm enjoying the mundane tasks -- shoe shopping, answering texts, car rides together -- the little pieces that make up the jigsaw puzzle of life. Little pieces that a full course load would render challenging, if not impossible, to enjoy.

Cohdra via Morguefile

I don't want the events of my daughter's last semester of high school to feel like items checked off a list; I want them to be strands of thread woven around the edges of her childhood tapestry. But that takes skill, patience and time. Some days, I'm not sure I have any of these, let alone all of them, but by concentrating on the last one and making deliberate decisions about how I spend my time, I'm more likely to tap into whatever expertise I do possess.

The tapestry is almost finished, and my daughter deserves every bit of beauty I can weave into it.

Saturday Special: Recapturing Time

morguefile.com

As someone in perpetual organization mode who also writes about organization, I'm a sucker for any title that promises de-cluttering assistance. And when I see the word "clutter" in a title, my mind immediately goes to the physical stuff that creates a barrier between me and an organized life.

But in today's fantastic and optimistic article (Eleven Ways to De-Clutter Your Day), Jeff Haden offers tips on reclaiming an all-too-precious commodity: time. Even better, he makes it sound easy. I can just feel the extra minutes returning to me.

I'm planning on printing this piece out and using it as a sort of checklist (though I don't think he'd approve of that plan, based on tip #5). That way, I can pick one idea each week, chipping away at the list and recapturing lost minutes as I check the relevant items off my list.

How about you? Where will you start?

Twitter Truths

technorati.com

Scrolling through the Twittersphere this morning, I had to chuckle at this tweet from Sarah Reinhard:

"What is this "biting off more than you can chew" thing people ask me about? Huh? #Igetitalldone #99percentontime"

And, of course, I had to retweet, not just because of Sarah's characteristically funny hashtags, but because the sentiment is oh-so-familiar.

I thought that when I retired, life would slow down. Though I knew I wasn't finished working, I also knew that whatever jobs I took on in this next season of my life were likely to be part-time, giving me
more control over my schedule and therefore more time to do all the things I enjoy doing.

As it turns out, that list is long, and retired or not, I still have only 24 hours in a day. In addition, the "jobs" -- as in the plural form -- which have replaced the single job I left behind two years ago --sometimes seem as though they require the energy of a much younger person.

Fortunately, these jobs add much to my life -- pleasure, satisfaction, creative and intellectual fulfillment. The one thing they don't add is time (in fact, they subtract it, sometimes exponentially).

But there's not a single one I'd relinquish. Some days, I feel as though my head is spinning, and other days, I simply curl up and take a nap in sheer self-defense, but overall, to quote Sarah's hashtags, "I get it all done, 99% on time."And on a good day, the energy I expend seems to create more energy in the process.

The truth is, I don't know how to be any other way. I've always approached life with an "all in" attitude; I'm just not capable of passing up the opportunity to do something I love. And when I pause and think about the things I might not have done if I'd been more practical with the expenditure of my time, I'm even more certain that saying yes -- within reason -- is right for me.

But it helps to know someone like Sarah is on the same crazy ride because let's face it -- life's better when you have company for the journey.

Word Count Wednesday: 5245 :-)