THE PIVOT: Confession time – on time management

Time to be open

I’ve got a confession to make on my recent time management.  I’ve been struggling to work on my pivot for longer than I would like to admit…

When you carve up the time pie then you end up with a fractional slice of time you can devote to your passion project i.e. your pivot.  Every moment of time that you’re spending on moving the needle of the pivot is progress and conversely if we fail to convert those priceless moments of time then we are delaying progress. Sounds simple but practically speaking it is not quite that straightforward.

There can always be things that will come up to take up said slither and even if nothing does you have to hope that the fraction is a time period where you really have enough creative energy to be able to make some progress.

Full disclosure time; the last few months have been a challenge. A blur would be putting it mildly. This blog has been a work in progress for so long that I have forgotten my original theme! It’s like an unexpected, unnecessary, untimely and certainly unwanted sabbatical. In fact; this blog has been a work in progress since… a few months.

As I am actively demonstrating, one of the trickiest things to manage and ultimately the determining factor in any successful pivot has to be working in the tiny slither of free (collective Laugh Out Loud followed by a resigned sigh at such a ridiculous idea of anyone having ‘free time’ in this ultra-fast world we currently live in) or disposable time.

Things lost focus and it’s been a moment of fire-fighting one day at a time; call it survival of the fittest on a personal level.  If this sounds very familiar, then it too may strike a chord if you are going through a similar pattern.

Everything in nature follows a pattern and so as a seconds hand move consistently though a cycle like clockwork we are also masters of routine.  We simply don’t tend to like change unless it is forced upon us at which point we can embrace it for personal growth or resist it as if it’s friction.

To force a crack in the pattern (or any other chronic routine) requires more energy than a holding pattern.

How do we create a new pattern? Well this confession is the very first step as I’ve had the realisation that I am in this quandary. As spiritual author, Eckhart Tolle (1) states, “awareness is the greatest agent for change.” So step 1 is non-judgemental self-awareness.  Important point that I’ve learnt the hard way and one to explicitly call out.

That can then lead to step 2, assuming you are still wanting to do something about it which would be to remind yourself of the why? (bother) and then breaking this into micro-steps or baby chunks.

Assuming the previous step was successful in breaking down everything into smaller manageable chunks then step 3 should be a case of taking one chunk at a time and working through it piece by piece, so that it can be completed without overwhelm by taking one step at a time progressing towards the goal. 

In closing, this reflection is me showing how easy it can be for someone (myself as the case in point) to lose momentum and focus when life takes over.  So you may ask what is the penance or lesson following the confession? Please don’t ever beat yourself up for seemingly slow progress. We can only move forwards from where we are, so the keys are awareness, being consistent, persistent, be kind and give yourself grace.

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Reference

• https://medium.com/change-your-mind/eckhart-tolles-most-important-saying-awareness-is-the-greatest-agent-for-change-21e713d64a90