I often feel like I am just barely getting by. And, then even when I do everything I am supposed to do or have agreed to do, I still feel like I have barely done enough. I have done the bare minimum. However, I often have people around me surprised (and impressed) that I do so much and that I have so many successes and achievements in life! This reaction I get from people is both flattering and problematic because it tells my brain that this mode of operation (force feeding myself a schedule that is perhaps unreasonable and unsustainable) is a good thing.
I love making people happy. And, I am usually pretty good at it. My high achieving way of life reflects that skill and value. However, it comes at a cost. I feel perpetually behind, guilty when I watch 2 hours of TV and a general malaise of anxiety at most times. This is not the quality of life I want. But, how can I do less?
What I have done is equated my self-worth with the worth of my achievements. If I accomplish a lot, I am fine. If I do not, I am sub-par.
My next step is to untangle my self worth from my ability to achieve. This doesn't mean I stop trying to do what I want to do in my life. It means that I get to make choices about what I want to do and how much I want to do in a given, day, week, month. My worth as a human is the same whether I win a Nobel peace prize or just visit with a lonely friend or sit at home reading.
My student asked me the other day, "How do you do it?!? You always have so much energy!! How do you rehearse til 10pm and then lead a class the next morning at 8am with a smile on your face?!?"
And, I took that moment to respond because I couldn't let this misperception of me continue. I explained, "I don't always do it well. I have to really organize my time and energy to pull off that schedule. I have learned that I can really only do one or two 14 hour days a week. And, after I manage my way through those longs days, I take huge naps on my off days. I don't have super human powers! I can't run on empty forever. No one can!"
My real secret to showing up to work rested and ready to work is a 3 hour nap followed by a nice meal. No magic. No tricks. No energy drinks.
People think I am always sparkly and bouncy. I'm not. I am only occasionally sparkly and bouncy when I am not passed out on my bed or sitting down to enjoy a nourishing meal. My students in the spring musical are burning the candle at both ends. Some may say "They can do it; they are young!" But, I disagree, no one at any age can push through forever. There is a cost to behavior that is forced. So, what do I recommend my students do? They have to complete their school work, likely keep a job, prepare their role for the show, learn their lines and harmonies, recall the dances and be able to focus for 4hrs straight in rehearsals 4x/week.
They really have two options: pull it out at all costs, or make the tough decisions about what behavior really serves them and what doesn't? When are they most authentic to who they are and the person they want to be? What do they really need right now? More flappy birds? or a nap? or a meal? And, are they willing to give themselves that?
I am learning that being exhausted because of overwork is not an achievement. I no longer want to live that life. What I decide to do, I want to do well, with energy and focus and clarity. And, however much that is, however little or grand, is enough.
Beth
Showing posts with label time management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time management. Show all posts
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Time: Your Most Valuable Currency
I have recently become extremely interested in how we document all that we do.
I am fascinated with our current cultural practices with social media in which we continually post pictures of our experiences, achievement, and questions. And, I have noticed a new practice for the way I post. I ask myself: what do I value and how is my post supporting the things I value?
For instance, I recently attended a beautiful dance concert in at ARC Pasadena. It was important to me to come home and immediately write up my review. Even though I wasn't feeling particularly prolific at the time, I wanted to demonstrate just how valuable I felt the experience was by using my time and skill to support it. The blog post offered the community two things: the face value of the performance review as documentation, and, on a more general level, proof that this event was worth writing about. In other words, it was worth my time. By giving my time and attention to the art (in the form of a review), I was modeling how dance is worth putting in the extra time.
As tempting as it is in the blogging world, I try not to use my reviews to elevate myself or my opinions. Instead, I am concerned with the documentation of current dance practices in LA (and beyond) and how written reports and reviews support current dance artists. Speaking as an artist, I can share that the post show stream of "Great job!", "Fun show," and similar comments of Twitter or Facebook feel good. They feel good because it is feedback that someone took the time to give. But, they do not offer the much needed reflection dance deserves. In fact, much of a dance performance's value could come from the discussion and sensations afterward. If we only experience dance for two hours and then leave the theater without a second thought, have we really gotten all we can out of the art form?
When we see a movie, we often deepen our experience when we then discuss it with our friends afterward, or read reviews of it by trusted sources, or watch the feature commentary by the director and actors. In other words, our post-show time is important. It gives value to the art experience. And, this is what I am coming to realize is lacking in the dance world. We see a show and often we don't have post show experiences that take us deeper into the art work. Just as sport show commentators break down all the plays to better understand the twists and turns in a game, dance critics should be breaking down a dance work to identify its inner workings, strengths and weaknesses, innovations and traditions. This can afford those interested but unfamiliar with dance an inside look to the dance experience, while challenging veteran dance patrons to pin point the value of what they love so much.
As I wrote my recent review, I was concerned with three things.
1. How can I deepen the experience for someone who has seen the show?
2. How can I document the experience for posterity?*
3. How can I best convey the reward of the dance experience?
I gave my time, because my time is the most valuable currency I have. It is a limited resource that I am very aware of day in and day out. If you haven't guessed already, I am pretty busy, some might say over committed (haha!). I don't have a lot of "free time," that time is precious to me.
So, what is worth my time? What is worth taking my time to document and reflect. What is worth your time? How are you canonizing your life? One Instagram at a time? One twitter post? One Facebook update? What is that affording you? What does documentation afford us?
Are your giving your time and attention to the things you truly love? I find that scrolling through my Vine feed (for instance) affords me little more than a distraction. I have also noticed, my quality of life seems to go down when I get too invested in following my Facebook news feed. Not because I don't have good friends with interesting posts, but because ultimately, very little information is life changing. And, it uses up my most valuable resource all too easily.
I understand that you are taking your time to read this blog post. And, I am honored by your choice. I hope that I afford you something that you will take with you as you go along your day or week. I hope that this read is ultimately worth your time because you either love dance, the arts or entertaining vague questions about time and value.
There is a great book by Tim Ferris called "The 4 hour Work Week." While I am not interested in changing my life to that degree, he does bring up some important points about time management and the value of our time. Perhaps reading that book last spring planted the seed for this blog. But, in the end, Ferris is right about one thing. We choose how to use our time.
So, are you using your time for the things your love? To support the things you love? To honor and deepen your understanding of yourself and the world? Or are you getting caught in the white noise of empty information?
Beth
* Side note: the definition of posterity is "for all future generations." What are we giving our next generation? How are we making real what we experience as life through our documentation of it? Are we getting to the nitty-gritty of it all? What will people know about me when they look back at my Twitter feed? Am I giving them a complete experience of who I am? Or would entering my world be like entering a house of hoarders?
I am fascinated with our current cultural practices with social media in which we continually post pictures of our experiences, achievement, and questions. And, I have noticed a new practice for the way I post. I ask myself: what do I value and how is my post supporting the things I value?
For instance, I recently attended a beautiful dance concert in at ARC Pasadena. It was important to me to come home and immediately write up my review. Even though I wasn't feeling particularly prolific at the time, I wanted to demonstrate just how valuable I felt the experience was by using my time and skill to support it. The blog post offered the community two things: the face value of the performance review as documentation, and, on a more general level, proof that this event was worth writing about. In other words, it was worth my time. By giving my time and attention to the art (in the form of a review), I was modeling how dance is worth putting in the extra time.
As tempting as it is in the blogging world, I try not to use my reviews to elevate myself or my opinions. Instead, I am concerned with the documentation of current dance practices in LA (and beyond) and how written reports and reviews support current dance artists. Speaking as an artist, I can share that the post show stream of "Great job!", "Fun show," and similar comments of Twitter or Facebook feel good. They feel good because it is feedback that someone took the time to give. But, they do not offer the much needed reflection dance deserves. In fact, much of a dance performance's value could come from the discussion and sensations afterward. If we only experience dance for two hours and then leave the theater without a second thought, have we really gotten all we can out of the art form?
When we see a movie, we often deepen our experience when we then discuss it with our friends afterward, or read reviews of it by trusted sources, or watch the feature commentary by the director and actors. In other words, our post-show time is important. It gives value to the art experience. And, this is what I am coming to realize is lacking in the dance world. We see a show and often we don't have post show experiences that take us deeper into the art work. Just as sport show commentators break down all the plays to better understand the twists and turns in a game, dance critics should be breaking down a dance work to identify its inner workings, strengths and weaknesses, innovations and traditions. This can afford those interested but unfamiliar with dance an inside look to the dance experience, while challenging veteran dance patrons to pin point the value of what they love so much.
As I wrote my recent review, I was concerned with three things.
1. How can I deepen the experience for someone who has seen the show?
2. How can I document the experience for posterity?*
3. How can I best convey the reward of the dance experience?
I gave my time, because my time is the most valuable currency I have. It is a limited resource that I am very aware of day in and day out. If you haven't guessed already, I am pretty busy, some might say over committed (haha!). I don't have a lot of "free time," that time is precious to me.
So, what is worth my time? What is worth taking my time to document and reflect. What is worth your time? How are you canonizing your life? One Instagram at a time? One twitter post? One Facebook update? What is that affording you? What does documentation afford us?
Are your giving your time and attention to the things you truly love? I find that scrolling through my Vine feed (for instance) affords me little more than a distraction. I have also noticed, my quality of life seems to go down when I get too invested in following my Facebook news feed. Not because I don't have good friends with interesting posts, but because ultimately, very little information is life changing. And, it uses up my most valuable resource all too easily.
I understand that you are taking your time to read this blog post. And, I am honored by your choice. I hope that I afford you something that you will take with you as you go along your day or week. I hope that this read is ultimately worth your time because you either love dance, the arts or entertaining vague questions about time and value.
There is a great book by Tim Ferris called "The 4 hour Work Week." While I am not interested in changing my life to that degree, he does bring up some important points about time management and the value of our time. Perhaps reading that book last spring planted the seed for this blog. But, in the end, Ferris is right about one thing. We choose how to use our time.
So, are you using your time for the things your love? To support the things you love? To honor and deepen your understanding of yourself and the world? Or are you getting caught in the white noise of empty information?
Beth
* Side note: the definition of posterity is "for all future generations." What are we giving our next generation? How are we making real what we experience as life through our documentation of it? Are we getting to the nitty-gritty of it all? What will people know about me when they look back at my Twitter feed? Am I giving them a complete experience of who I am? Or would entering my world be like entering a house of hoarders?
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Being a better Over-Achiever
(Please note: I don't really consider myself an overachiever, but many of the people surrounding me tell me that I am, so, for the purposes of this post I am going with it. )
What I do consider myself is a "chronic over-scheduler/ double-booker." I proved this again just yesterday when I had promised to help out two friends at the same time by guest teaching in two places at once. I tell you it is nice to feel wanted, but it feels terrible to let people down.
One would think that proper calendar management would solve this problem, but, I am here to argue that something else is at the root of this: A complete misunderstanding of time.
I just figured out that "flexible time" is NOT "free time." Gasp!
In other words, I suffer from the misperception that having hours in the day that are "flexible" means that I have hours that are "free." So, I tend to operate under the misunderstanding that I can say "yes" to anything that comes along during those time frames, when in fact those hours may be needed for other things (or are already spoken for).
Now, I know that there are those of you out there who are thinking "Why doesn't she just look at her calendar?" "She must not be organized." " This seems like such an easy fix." I envy you, because if I thought like you I wouldn't have this problem in the first place. I have use a calendar, I tried to be organized, but still I let this happen.
I have experienced this over-scheduling, super busy, running-around-like-crazy, double-booking lifestyle over and over again. And, I believe it is because I THINK I have more time than I do and therefore don't feel the immediate need to reserve my flexible time, to make it un-free.
I am very fortunate to have a stable job teaching dance full time. And, if I ONLY taught my classes then I would have a lot of truly "free" time. But, I also wouldn't be fulfilled personally, and I would quickly become stale as an instructor who is not active in the art making process. So, I commit, commit, commit. I get honestly excited by the possibilities and opportunities in research, choreography, dancing, guest lecturing, presenting at conferences, writing online courses. . . the list goes on and on. But, it lands me in this wretched place of overcommitment time and time again.
After much thinking on the issue: Here are the goals I have developed in attempt to remedy this problem:
1. Learn to reserve at least a 2 hr block of time for organization (email, grading, planning, follow up).
2. Ask all commitment inquiries to be emailed to me (no exceptions!) so I can immediately check my computer calendar and see if in fact I am "free" AND whether it does not infringe on my 2 hour block of time for the day. (This email idea is courtesy of my sister in law, also artist and teacher).
3. Accept the reality that I simply cannot do it all. (I can achieve but not overachieve! I am only human.)
I will start there. But, still all of this depends on my ability to mentally accept and differentiate between the nature of having a flexible schedule and a free schedule. I have to see the open spaces on my calendar differently. I have to protect them even when it means disappointing someone I admire or care for. Maybe it sounds silly, but maybe there are some of you out there who feel the same way, always running around and often feeling like you are having to let people down because either, you didn't have time, didn't schedule properly or are just too stressed and tired to do a good job.
I am so ready to learn this lesson.
So, I have to get going, it is time to put this into practice.
Beth
What I do consider myself is a "chronic over-scheduler/ double-booker." I proved this again just yesterday when I had promised to help out two friends at the same time by guest teaching in two places at once. I tell you it is nice to feel wanted, but it feels terrible to let people down.
One would think that proper calendar management would solve this problem, but, I am here to argue that something else is at the root of this: A complete misunderstanding of time.
I just figured out that "flexible time" is NOT "free time." Gasp!
In other words, I suffer from the misperception that having hours in the day that are "flexible" means that I have hours that are "free." So, I tend to operate under the misunderstanding that I can say "yes" to anything that comes along during those time frames, when in fact those hours may be needed for other things (or are already spoken for).
Now, I know that there are those of you out there who are thinking "Why doesn't she just look at her calendar?" "She must not be organized." " This seems like such an easy fix." I envy you, because if I thought like you I wouldn't have this problem in the first place. I have use a calendar, I tried to be organized, but still I let this happen.
I have experienced this over-scheduling, super busy, running-around-like-crazy, double-booking lifestyle over and over again. And, I believe it is because I THINK I have more time than I do and therefore don't feel the immediate need to reserve my flexible time, to make it un-free.
I am very fortunate to have a stable job teaching dance full time. And, if I ONLY taught my classes then I would have a lot of truly "free" time. But, I also wouldn't be fulfilled personally, and I would quickly become stale as an instructor who is not active in the art making process. So, I commit, commit, commit. I get honestly excited by the possibilities and opportunities in research, choreography, dancing, guest lecturing, presenting at conferences, writing online courses. . . the list goes on and on. But, it lands me in this wretched place of overcommitment time and time again.
After much thinking on the issue: Here are the goals I have developed in attempt to remedy this problem:
1. Learn to reserve at least a 2 hr block of time for organization (email, grading, planning, follow up).
2. Ask all commitment inquiries to be emailed to me (no exceptions!) so I can immediately check my computer calendar and see if in fact I am "free" AND whether it does not infringe on my 2 hour block of time for the day. (This email idea is courtesy of my sister in law, also artist and teacher).
3. Accept the reality that I simply cannot do it all. (I can achieve but not overachieve! I am only human.)
I will start there. But, still all of this depends on my ability to mentally accept and differentiate between the nature of having a flexible schedule and a free schedule. I have to see the open spaces on my calendar differently. I have to protect them even when it means disappointing someone I admire or care for. Maybe it sounds silly, but maybe there are some of you out there who feel the same way, always running around and often feeling like you are having to let people down because either, you didn't have time, didn't schedule properly or are just too stressed and tired to do a good job.
I am so ready to learn this lesson.
So, I have to get going, it is time to put this into practice.
Beth
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