Hello, amazing humans šš½
Oh my goodness. Iām so grateful to all of you for your beautiful notes and feedback and juicy shares of my first newsletter! It feels so good to be writing again, and Iām glad it hit home for you, too.
So many of you signed up for paid subscriptions, and Iām so grateful for your support! Iāll be posting some special treats for you very soon, so keep an eye out for those.
This week, Iāve been thinking about time: how to get more of it, use it better, and show up better in the minutes I have.
Back when I was an aspiring foreign correspondent, someone lent me the book One Crowded Hour*, Tim Bowden's biography of the Australian combat cameraman Neil Davis. Davis was a frontline war correspondent for more than a decade in South East Asia, and this book was the inspiration for me choosing the region as my base for many years.
In the flyleaf of all his journals, Neal Davis used to transcribe lines from Thomas Mordauntās poem, "The Call":
"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name."
Like the dorky aspiring corro I was, I copied these lines into the front of every Moleskine I lugged around the world with me for a decade, and romanticised the drama and excitement of Davisā life and work. Well, until covering two coups in Thailand, horrendous poverty and violence in Myanmar, and several natural disasters disabused me of the romance.
But the excitement of filling my life so completely, filling it with meaning, always felt captured by that quote. Iāve never been reckless enough for the ālive fast, die youngā epithet, but Iāve always wanted to cram as much in as I can, have always been impatient to make things happen, to do, do, DO.
Itās part of what has made mindfulness practices such a challenge for me, and such a reward. As a hyperactive human, sitting still was excruciating to start with, and so difficult to be with. All I wanted was to be out in the world, swinging like a monkey from branch to branch, just like my racing mind.
Persevering with a meditation practice has had an enormous effect on my perception of time. When Iām teaching mindfulness, Iāve often likened this experience to that moment in The Matrix when Neo realises he can dodge bullets: that everything starts to slow down and you have ātimeā to observe whatās really going on.
As my meditation practice has developed, it has made the āinternalā bullets slow down, too. Helped me see what Iāve been running from in my life, and helped me to sit with and quietly observe them.
You can control so much of what happens in life ā but the rest? Other peopleās actions. The stock market. The world. They all fall outside that purview. Wishing it were different can be a source of great suffering.
I want to be clear: learning to be with things you canāt control is NOT the same as standing impassively in the face of injustice, or letting people steamroll you because you just donāt mind anymore. Itās about controlling the things we CAN control, and spending the freed up, less angsty time on the causes we care about.
*Incidentally, Melbourne band, Augie March named their hit tune, One Crowded Hour after the same biography.
šLetās Start Small: The Tupperware Drawer
My friend Tom took one look at my Tupperware drawer and said āIām worried this means you have OCD.ā š³ For the record, I donāt, but I grew up in a house where we had enough Tupperware for a family of 20, but could never find a lid that matched the containers.
It always drove me crazy, so when I finally stopped being a nomad and started my own collection of containers, I vowed to never create that situation for myself.
Enter āThe Lids On Methodā.
The Lids On Tupperware Drawer is a hill I will die on: I never have to waste time hunting for a matching lid, from storing leftovers, to popping them in the dishwasher, to putting them away. The lid stays with its buddy.
Now, to those of you who argue this takes up too much room, I counter with a challenge to check how often you use the bottom of your stacks and stacks of mismatched containers. Also, to consider how long it takes you to match them up when you need them.
Iām similarly anal about socks, although my dog, Mose Allison the Jazz Puppy, does his best to ruin that system.
š§Ŗ Excited Adult Quotient
So what do sock hygiene and Tupperware OCD have to do with time? These are both small experiments I started running in the āThings I Can Controlā column. Yes, they are silly, small things, but when youāre trying to rush out the door on a Monday morning, they can be the make or break for you getting to your first meeting on time.
I also have a dedicated spot in my house for all my keys, my passports, and most importantly, my AirPods, which always want to run away from me. Iāve also started experimenting with food prep for the work week. More on that as we get more results š .
š¬ļø One Breath At A Time
With all these experiments, I always have to remind myself to add them thoughtfully. I love to take on all the things, and try and change too much at once. Adding one a week is a good way to test if itās making a difference, and to prevent myself being overwhelmed by trying to āfixā everything.
And if youāre already feeling overwhelmed enough, may I offer a couple of minutes to breathe?
āš½ Letās Do It Together
What tiny time saves have you experimented with? Are you Team Lids On?
What little things annoy you in your immediate vicinity that you could spend a little time repairing, or trialling a new system on?
ā¤ļø Right Now Iāmā¦
š Reading Priya Parkerās wonderful The Art of Gathering, a beautiful how-to on creating spaces, curating connection and opening opportunities for dreaming and collaboration. I love the blur between the work and personal worlds, and Parker does a great job addressing connection in both.
šŗ Watching this reboot of āJoyful, Joyfulā from Sister Act 2 from a recent episode of The View, and then of course, watching the original, because Lauryn Hill Forever š
šµ Listening to Angie McMahonās wonderful album, Light, Dark, Light Again
and constantly coming back to the anthemic āExploding.ā
The lines āIf the alternative is heavy holding//I hope that Iām always explodingā may well be what I transcribe into the front of my new journals.
š¦® How Can I Help?
As always, you can hear me answering curly work relationship questions at 745am AEST Thursdays on Libbi Gorrās Enterprise Breakfast show on Disrupt Radio, and on Disruptās The Advisory Board.
I run workshops on preventing burnout, mindfulness, clear communication and my personal favourite: āHow Not To Be An A$$holeā. If you need a keynote, something to shake up your team, get them working well together, or even a loving, relaxing meditative treat to celebrate a job well done, let me know by replying here, or book me directly through my website.
I'm giving this lids on thing a go. Perhaps a useful metaphor for keeping things together in life. I'll start with Tuppaware.
Iām extremely excited to have a sister in the ālids onā method. I was originally ālids offā but then my husband came home with a story about his workmate, a fellow optimisation specialist, who was firmly ālids onā and had furthermore done a scientific study about which takes up more space in the drawer. Ever since I have been a convert and I will NEVER go back. Thanks for spreading the good word!!!