Revamp your relationship with time

One of my favorite newsletters is Ingrid Fetell Lee’s School of Joy Joyletter.

In a recent issue, she shared that after her TEDTalk went viral, she was faced with a slew of options.

Lots of people gave her advice, but Susan Cain (author of the wonderful Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking) asked a question that unlocked everything: 

How do you want to spend your time? 

I LOVE this take. 

When it comes to big life decisions, we can talk ourselves right into “safe” choices that don’t really make sense. We can succumb to societal pressures. We can take Strengthfinders and Enneagram and Myers-Briggs tests. We can make pro and con lists. We can think. A lot. 

There Isn't Enough Time

As an ambitious person with a big vision and high standards, an insatiable thirst for learning, and a pinch-me-lucky list of people I love, I have been plagued by this feeling that there isn’t enough time – and therefore I must be efficient, I must rush, I must optimize – for much of my adult life.

Spoiler: It hasn’t been helpful. 

I recently finished Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, and it has reframed my macro-level understanding of time. 

Because, there isn’t enough time for me to do it all.

To read all the books and visit all the museums and have all the languorous dinners with all the people I love. 

Which leads to one part accepting that fact and feeling the accompanying surrender ...

And one part being really clear about how I do want to spend my time.

Not what I want to accomplish, but how I want to spend my time. 

I’ve made my way to a career that fills me up. In general, days when I work with clients are better than days when I don’t. I feel energized, not drained. 

But there’s all this other stuff that needs to happen so I can do the work I want to do and live the (beyond-work) life I want to live. 

So I hired an incredible assistant for a few hours a week, at the urging of Rachel Rodgers in We Should All Be Millionaires. 

My assistant, Katie, is helping me work through my backlog of projects, and she’s bringing a talent and expertise that I’m thrilled to have on my side. 

The Right Kind of Busy

During the interview process, when I was sharing the types of work I want help with, she said, “I get it – you’re just too busy.” 

I was so happy to realize that wasn’t actually the problem.

Or, rather, I'm too busy, but not in the way people might think. 

I'm busy taking walks in the woods with my kids, rather than figuring out an Instagram plugin.

A few Sacred Nature encounters from the last week as I was busy doing what fills me up: 1. a snake (or, as they were dubbed at the retreat, a "nope rope") that visited while I was pruning our blackberry bushes, 2. a mama turtle who made her nest and laid her eggs at the local playground, and 3. a nest of baby birds inside our grill, much to our surprise. (We cooked inside -- don't worry!) 

I'm busy curling up with a great book, rather than tinkering with my new logo.

I'm busy having a lunch date with Michael, rather than migrating to a new email platform.

So I brought in the support I need so I can have the life I want. 

Which means, come the summer solstice, I think we’ll be ready to roll out some exciting changes to the look and feel around here. I cannot wait to share it with you. 

***

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yeah, must be nice,” I want you to listen to that thought! That is a part of you perking up to a deeply felt longing. 

This move was way more affordable than I imagined (without being exploitative!), and I know it’ll pay for itself in no time. 

It took a fundamental shift in my sense of worthiness – not my bank account – to make this possible.

If you’re curious what this could look like for you, let’s talk. Schedule a free 60-minute vision casting call here to explore how you want to spend your time – and how to make that a reality. 

I can’t wait.