Tag Archives: Time
It’s Alive! How to Really Take Control of Your Time
This week the ezine goes live with a NO COST Not-So-Quarterly Accidental Entrepreneurs Community Call. The topic is productivity and motivation, also known as taking control of your time. Here’s a quick-and-dirty synopsis of what I’ll be sharing. The truth … Continue reading
Why Fear Is a Good Thing: Waking Up to Success and Self-realization
There’s nothing quite like self-employment to bring up fear. There are plenty of things to be afraid of. Will anyone hire you? What if they think you charge too much? Are you really good enough at what you do? What … Continue reading
Life Is Short, Now Is Infinite, What Are You Up to Today?
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Kurt Vonnegut A few days ago I wrote a sticky note and put it on the kitchen counter. It said: “Harvest greens.” … Continue reading
Getting Organized: The Incredible Lightness of an Empty Basket
There’s a basket in my office where I put things I’m not quite ready to deal with or that I plan to use in the near future. I toss in notes from a teleclass, like the one Susan Harrow did for us last fall, intending to enter them into Evernote. I store bank statements until I get around to reconciling them. I stash outlines for Profit Alchemy.
You get the picture.
Most of the time, I’m satisfied to let things collect in the basket. But eventually, usually when the basket is about three-quarters full, it becomes a psychic irritant. When I see it, I feel heavy. Almost guilty. Definitely out of synch with myself and my business.
Then I know it’s time to deal with the basket.
Getting started is a process
I don’t deal with the basket the moment it begins to weigh on me. Instead, I make plans to deal with the basket.
At first, I have intentions. After a while–sometimes a long while–the intentions become plans, and I put them on an action list. And once on that list, dealing with the basket gets moved from one date to another, until through some unseen process, the day arrives when I actually deal with the basket.
The process can take weeks or months. In my case, the process has been going on since the end of the Self Employment Telesummit in October. Today (January 20) I finally dealt with the basket.
Your mileage may vary.
Hold your plan to deal with the basket firmly, but lightly
I’ve found that it’s best to hold plans to deal with the basket both firmly and lightly.
Firmly, so you don’t consign the basket to permanent limbo. Lightly, so you don’t castigate yourself for putting it off (again). Because the more you beat yourself up, the more inclined you will be to put the basket out of your mind (and quite possibly out of sight) forever.
In other words, be mindful.
The day to deal with the basket will arrive
If you hold plans for dealing with the basket both firmly and lightly, the day will come when you’ll know it’s time to take action.
The thing is, knowing this is a subtle thing. You need to be reasonably mindful, in touch with your senses and emotions, or you’ll miss the signal altogether.
Set the conditions for receiving the signal
You’re unlikely to receive the signal to deal with the basket unless two conditions are met.
* There is white space in your schedule.
* You can see the basket directly or indirectly, as through a note in your to do list.
When the signal arrives, answer the call promptly. There’s no knowing when the right time will come around again.
Four rewards of dealing with the basket
In addition to the simple, but not insignificant, satisfaction of seeing an empty basket, dealing with it yields four rewards:
* Retrieval of hidden gems.
* Freedom from basket monsters.
* Freedom from unrealized possibilities.
* A rested mind.
Retrieval of hidden gems
Hidden in your basket are goodies you’ve been saving until you have time to do something with them. Now you get to do the things that extract value from those goodies.
* Transcribe and file valuable notes.
* Send thank you cards.
* Make the phone calls you’ve almost forgotten you were going to make.
Do each thing now, otherwise it ends up back in the basket, neater perhaps, but just as unfinished.
Freedom from basket monsters
When you lose sight of what’s in the basket, the mind manufactures monsters. The monsters shrink when you get them out into the light of day. And they vanish when you do the thing that gets them out of the basket for good.
Disentanglement from unrealized possibilities
The basket is the repository for good ideas, brainstorms, and possibilities. So long as they remain in the basket, they remain in the realm of possibility, which is a good thing.
But it’s also a bad thing. Because eventually those unrealized possibilities begin to weigh on you. They morph from what could be into what should have been.
As you clear the basket you have my permission to let go of those possibilities, no strings attached.
There are more where those came from.
A rested mind
A funny thing happens as you clear out the basket. Your mind begins to clear as well.
Simplifying, completing, and letting go free your mind. Even though dealing with the things in your basket is work, it’s work that leads to completion.
And when you complete something, your brain releases a small amount of endorphins, nature’s own feel-good juice.
And that’s the incredible lightness of an empty basket.
Photo by Ritwik Parashar via Flickr
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Success, soul, and the daring adventure
Quick take
Risk is woven into the fabric of self-employment. It issues pointed, if not always polite, invitations to self-awareness.
Self-employment places you at the intersection of intention, instinct, choice, and desire. In the marketplace, your hopes and fears meet the hopes and fears of the world. At this intersection, you risk wealth and well being on many levels.
If you have the fortitude to look steadily at the truth about your choices, you will learn much about yourself and about building wealth. With time, attention, and some manner of faith to sustain you, you will discover your unique path to creating wealth in all dimensions.
The bigger picture
Risk is woven into the fabric of self-employment.
Every choice you face entails a measure of risk. How will you look? How will you feel? Will others approve? Will you gain or lose money? Will you have more or less quality time?
For the self-employed, risk is a constant teacher. If you are a willing student, you will learn much about business and about yourself. What’s more, you will learn how your own well being is entwined with the well being of those around you.
The lessons you learn will not protect you from risk. Instead, they will give you a keener appreciation of it and an appetite for self-awareness and possibility.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing
As Helen Keller wrote, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
The question I invite you to ask in the year ahead is: “What does this daring adventure want from me?”
I believe that risk is a pointed, not always polite, invitation to increased self-awareness and self-efficacy. The pressure cooker of risk urges you to be ever more deeply responsible for your spiritual, emotional, and material well being. In terms of self-employment, it requires you to be responsible for creating wealth in all dimensions.
Risk happens when you put your hopes on the line
Self-employment places you at the intersection of intention, instinct, choice, and desire. There your hopes and fears meet the hopes and fears of the world.
At this intersection, you risk your wealth and well being on multiple levels. You find out instantly if your insides and outsides are in alignment.
With time, attention, and some manner of faith to guide and sustain you, you will be better able to sense into Life’s unfolding mystery as encoded in everyday events. You will discern more clearly your unique role in the cosmic dance.
It’s in accepting this unique role that you experience true success, wealth, and well being in all dimensions. Then, for a moment, and in spite of all the effort that the effortless dance required, you know yourself to be in the right place at the right time.
And you know this, not because things are going your way, but because you will have found a still point within yourself that orients you in the turbulent tumble of ongoing events. In that moment you experience unalloyed success.
This, I think, is what Dame Julian of Norwich meant when she wrote, “All is well, and all manner of things be well.”
In the year ahead, I wish for you the imagination to embrace new possibilities for wealth and well being in all dimensions. I wish you the courage to take the attendant risks. And I wish for you the enduring awareness that you are always at the right place and the right time. That, indeed, all manner of things be well.
Together, let us show up, serve, and thrive.
Happy New Year!
Molly
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