Takes Less Time to Review than to Do
Monday, May 21st, 2007A while back, I was groaning over the turbulence of my mental waters. I just knew that I had a bunch of stuff to do that I wasn’t getting to. Which was true. But then I did my review and learned something.
I arrived at some level of “Mind Like Water” just from doing the review. Actually, I didn’t even do a full review–that usually takes me three or four hours–this was just a mini-review–maybe an hour. And sure, in doing the review, I also did a few things–it feels impossible to keep myself from it. But the big relief seemed to come not from what I completed, but from regaining a sense of control over my stuff instead of feeling controlled by it. It would have taken forever to actually do enough work to regain a sense of control and a steady hand.
I concluded a few things.
- Sometimes, things are not as out of control as my mind tells me they are. Doing the review cleans up all those frayed ends and fragmented bits of work in my mind, revealing a more accurate–less exaggerated–picture of my actual work load.
- Sometimes, when I hear myself or others say, “I’m very busy,” it has nothing to do with work. It has to do with being drained of the energy that is required to fret over the gigantic tangled knot of ambiguously defined work that is looming overhead.
- If I’m not careful, I can be overly soothed by regaining a sense of control in the Review and fail to press forward to actually do the work that I’ve defined.
- I do better and more creative work when I start with a Mind Like Water
