Way back at the start of the first COVID lockdown in 2020, I remember seeing a short clip by the BBC journalist Feargal Keane, reading a poem by John O’Donohue, and it completely floored me.
Time to be slow
John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us (2008)
This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
the wire brush of doubt
scrape from your heart
all sense of yourself
and your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
and you will find your feet
again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
and blushed with beginning
I wrote it out in full and have had it pinned prominently in my then-spare-bedroom-now-home-office ever since. It’s a reminder that it’s OK to not be OK, that some days my best might not be as good as I might hope, and that, as Tom Hanks would say, this too will pass.
It’s possible these days to know the answer to almost anything in a matter of seconds; how tall is ____? what film did I see her in? what’s the weather like in ____ in September? When did ____ die? What might these symptoms be? How do I make ____? And increasingly, I’m finding that sometime I actually quite like NOT knowing for a while, especially if it takes me away from what I was doing; having dinner with my family, watching a film, trying to do something else. The age of distraction is real, and yet our brains aren’t really very good at multi-tasking.
Even longer ago, I heard the lyrics to a great song that encouraged me to
Abandon your ambitions, you’re overwhelmed by what you haven’t done
Roddy Woomble – A New Day has Begun
This isn’t about lowering expectations, or not setting goals, but about not being defined by action and pace and relentless achievements. Living by values can be immensely productive, and is hugely rewarding if your actions have a sense of purpose.
Have a break
It’s also about recognising that doing nothing is a conscious action and choice. It’s not an absence or abdication. It feels like in recent times we’ve at least partly abandoned the ads of yesteryear promoting cold+flu remedies that would mean you never had to miss that presentation. Because when we get sick, our bodies need rest, and it should be OK to take that rest, rather than ‘struggle on’ into work, where we might end up infecting our colleagues. In the same way, athletes recognise the importance of rest in their training schedules – the drive and motivation to train ever harder, faster, longer is real, but as friends of mine have experienced to their cost, over-training is real.
And in my working day (almost always at home these days), we need to remember, and be kind to ourselves and others, that we can’t always be 100% ‘on’ all the time. In the office environment, breaks are easy to take naturally – walking around to see other people, making coffee and chatting while the kettle boils (etc). At home, especially if you’re alone, we have to be more mindful about these things. This is what Kit-Kat has been banging on about for 65 years.
Don’t just react, reflect and respond
There’s a lot of talk about operational agility and being able to better react to changing circumstances. Many people and businesses (including me) had to ‘pivot’ during the lockdowns, not just because they could but as a matter of survival. But in less extreme times, speed isn’t always good. A single tweet or complaint does not necessarily mean your marketing strategy needs a rethink. Knee-jerk reactions are so-called to describe an involuntary reflex, not a mindful, active choice.
And so in 2023 I’m intending to (re)build and sustain better working habits. I know I’m not alone in diving down internet rabbit holes or scrolling mindlessly to occupy myself for a few minutes. This year I’m going to be more conscious, with a bank of alternatives that I can do for anywhere from 5-15 minutes that I can use if I’m feeling less than fully focused, or bored, or distracted. They won’t necessarily get me back on task immediately, but they will be more refreshing than what I tend to do now.
I’m thinking I might create a small deck of cards that I can choose at random (or not), to include things like
- walk around the garden and closely notice 4 different flowers or plants
- mindful breathing exercises (like Wim Hof)
- walk around the block
- play the one piano piece I can actually play (it’s Bach, you know)
- practise my French Horn
- s-t-r-e-t-c-h
- listen to music (again, mindfully, focused)
- just being still (but not at a desk)
That’s a start – I would welcome more ideas. I’m definitely wanting to avoid ‘jobs’ like washing up or preparing food or other household chores; they’re important too, but not part of this.
I Reckon that the more time I spend at my desk, working or especially not working, the more the wire brush of doubt starts to scratch and scrape at me. The fresh pastures of promise aren’t here in this chair, but they’re not far off, and if I seek them out they will bear me back blushed with beginning to respond more positively.
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