We all need to watch this, pull over, and stop. By Scott Stratten:
Your Leading Thoughts
- Do you stop?
Video: You Need To STOP.
11
Tag Archives: rest
How do you make time to think?
I put this out on the Like Minds blog this week. It’s a fabulous talk by John Cleese on creativity, mainly about how to be more creative by setting boundaries in space and boundaries in time.
He makes the following 6 points:
- Sleeping on a problem helps creativity.
- The unconscious mind works creatively even when you’re not creatively engaged (John tells a great story to illustrate this.)
- Interruption breaks creativity, and it’s hard to pick up the flow again.
- We don’t know where we get our ideas from – we don’t get them from our laptops – they come from our unconscious. If you get in the right restful mood (not being busy), you are not going to have any creative ideas. This really resonates with me and my over busyness.
- You need to create a “tortoise enclosure” by: creating space and creating time. This creates an oasis that is separate from ordinary life. Boundaries in space, boundaries in time.
- Most people who don’t know what they are doing have no idea that they have no idea what they are doing. This explains why so many people are unfocussed.
I want to focus on what John says about creating an oasis that is separate from ordinary life, set by boundaries in space and boundaries in time.
Do You Have Space?
Here’s my dilemma. I have no space like this. I am “balls to the wall” as the saying crudely goes, and I consider myself as being quite creative in this tight space. I wonder how much more creative I could be. I must be wasting a lot of time without having this time to focus and think clearly.
Likewise I’m sure this is true of many people – do we have time to reflect? I’ve written a lot about this, but just don’t seem to be able to get this right. I would say that my problem is one of delegation – I have too much to do myself but struggle passing it down the line. The catch 22 is of course, if you don’t delegate, you don’t get time, but you need time to delegate!
One comment on this blog was bang on with this, by Robin Dickinson, with regards to “Harmony”:
Harmony is achieved when the inner me and my outer actions are in-synch. It’s almost the opposite of GTD thinking where different aspects of me get scheduled and prioritized. Imagine the body try to schedule your breathing or your pulse??
Your Leading Thoughts
I need you help here today as I have got to sort this out:
- Do you have creative space? How do you build it? How do you keep it?
- How do you effectively delegate in order to create this space?
I’m Back!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnyKNHc__g4
If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch direct on YouTube.
Hello friends – I am back from Spain (36°C) to the glorious English summer of clouds and rain. Certainly I am very, very rested and relaxed. I did no work except on the first two days, and for the majority of the holiday I didn’t even know what time it was as my watch and phone were out of sight!
A year ago after my summer holiday I said I felt re-envisioned, which was just before we launched Like Minds. This time, I feel like I’ve got a bit more re-prioritised.
Getting perspective, getting away and seeing things with fresh eyes, is a wonderful byproduct of a holiday. I find that month-on-month, we add things into our life that often are very unproductive, but we take them on because they demand our attention, and we get into the tradition of doing things for the sake of doing them. Many times we don’t even see this happen.
Or we find we are putting disproportionate amounts of time into the things that don’t yield the return that we should be putting more time into.
What I’ve found is that because a holiday STOPS you doing the little things like this, you are forced to reconsider what the priorities are.
Your Leading Thoughts
- I’m keen to know how you get perspective and how you find holidays help you.
A Request From Me, To You
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiGwPwo5PtU
If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch it directly on YouTube.
I’m taking a much needed break over the next 3 weeks. My eyes have been very sore and are stressed to the point that I need to wear glasses for a while to ‘reset them’, according to the doctor.
This is the product of working very hard on Like Minds Helsinki, launching the Like Minds Club, doing more and more consulting with Aaron+Gould, doing A LOT with Touch 10 and really raising the media standard at The River Dream Centre, and also putting together the main parts of Like Minds Conference, Autumn 2010.
I’ve done more in the last 4 months than I have in any whole year before and I certainly feel that (with my sincere thanks to Michael Meyers, Drew Ellis and Robin Dickinson in particular), I have sharpened my focus, developed a stronger NO in order to have a stronger YES, and really built things of value.
So it is with joy that I now take a much needed break, but at the same time I know I will miss engaging with you all as much as I usually do.
What I will be doing is posting things here a few times a week that I’ve already lined up, and it is along this line that I have a request for you all, as my friends, peers, influencers, colleagues and brothers and sisters: Connect with each other in these comments.
Let me check in every few days and find that you’ve gotten to know each other more – that those of you who haven’t commented and have come and shared your much valued views – and that those of you who normally only comment on the post and not other’s comments have found new joy in discussing issues with one another.
And finally, let me come back to hear that you’ve scaled the levels of communication – that you’ve emailed, skyped, collaborated and even met up with one another – and created more valuable relationships.
I’ll catch you soon,
Scott.
Relaxed, Refreshed, Re-envisioned
So I’m back from holiday. It was great – you can check out some photos here and here, as well as some video. I was very unplugged, no blogging, a little tweeting, and my Google Reader is like an overgrown orchid. I’m very relaxed, very rested, and very refreshed.
But most of all, I’m re-envisioned.
There’s nothing like time away to get perspective, and at the end of every day, I’ve had the peace of mind to consider my purpose. That’s right – purpose. Not the inconsequential, the temporal, or even the financial, but the things that I will regret for eternity if I do not do. The things that I was born to do.
I make no apologies for openly discussing my Christianity, and as the domain reads scottgould.me, I’m not inclined to ever to do so. Furthermore, your wonderful encouragement as of late inspires me to continue to be open, real and honest. No surprise, then, that this discussion of purpose is first and foremost a spiritual thing. Now for me, this isn’t some wishy-washy effervescent saying that has some ethereal meaning, nor is it a vague pointer of possibility. My purpose is in my hands, and I must work it out.
Now, I’m great at working hard. I regularly work 18 hour days. No problem with hard graft. But I’ve not been so good at working smart – i.e., being effective and efficient. Getting Things Done has helped me dramatically with this, however whilst reading The Four Hour Work Week, I’ve been inspired to work even smarter, and to work far more effectively and efficiently. Perhaps the greatest quote for me thus far has been:
Doing an unimportant task well does not make it important
I’ll get to writing more about my practical everyday working of this later, but if you look through a 50,000 foot lens, this is saying to me: doing things that aren’t my purpose well does not make them my purpose. Cold water in the face. Breath. Read it again. Doing things that aren’t my purpose well does not make them my purpose.
In other words I can run a great business, handle clients well, market myself wonderfully, etc – but that does not make business my purpose. As far as I’m concerned, business is a means to an end, a means to fulfilling a purpose that is far greater than any of these things.
Here’s the deal: it’s all about people. People. And as long as my head is stuck in paper work and posturing, I’m missing out on what it’s all about. I don’t want to be a successful businessman, have my home and my gadgets, enjoy great holidays, care for my family and friends, and that’s it. I want to be a successful businessman who uses the business, the influence, and the profits, all to help people – people I know, people I don’t, people near and people afar off.
The more I read the news, the more I watch documentaries, the more I see tomorrow’s generation, the more I see the pains of this world, the more I realise how selfish it is to live for yourself, your family and your friends, and no more. For every person reading this post right now, the world doesn’t just need our empathy – although that’s better than ignorance – it needs our expertise, our willingness, and most of all, action.
I’m no stranger to labouring for the needs of others. I don’t want to brag on myself, but I have spent half my life actively serving others from the small tasks to running teams of people geared towards social aid and social change. But so easily, the temptation for your fulfilling solely your own pleasure, for your own self-actualisation at the neglect of others, for glory, for fighting for your own ‘reputation’; they all too easily ensnare us.
Thus, I have begun a relentless drive for purpose, and am liable to cut off some of the things that aren’t playing a part in it. If I get it wrong, I’m a work in progress, and I’ll become more balanced with every scar, as well as every success.
I’m also liable to write a bit rougher, and with a bit more conviction. My aim here remains the same: inspiration, decision, example and action. Only I’m rapidly becoming far more inclined towards engaging with those ideas and those people who move things forward, and who at the least, are in the arena.
Perspective
When spinning so many plates as a husband, business man, a pastor (not the pastor, BTW), and handling all the curve balls of life, you sometimes come crashing down to the ground. I’m sure you’ve been there too – am I right?
When you’re living on the ground, you can’t see the wood for the trees. This is the place of straws that break the camels back, the little things that make you snap. You are so focussed on the next hour of your life that you loose balance, becoming obsessed about the tiniest things that have flared up emotionally into massive issues. That’s why David Allen in Getting Things Done talks of getting off the runway to the 10,000, 20, 30, 40 and 50,000 feet levels.
When I take my head out of the sand and begin to soar with the eagles a bit, I get perspective. I see beyond the temporary. I see beyond the current hour, and see its place in relation to coming days, weeks, months and even years. I even see the current hour’s place in relation to eternity. But taking off from the ground often requires help. You need other people to fly with you, who’ll help you fly and get perspective when you don’t have the energy too yourself. These close friends, mentors, and teachers are people who have perspective themselves and are wise, hence their voice carries weight when they speak into your life, as well as a current of air that can lift you up. As the Proverb says, “He who walks with the wise will grow wise.”
When your head is down, these people not only help you lift it up, but they remind you that the journey is the adventure – so soak up every moment of it, rather than wasting away looking to a distant ‘someday’.
My best bit of advice for getting perspective? One of my favourite preachers, T.D. Jakes said “if you have a problem that can be solved by money or a holiday, then you don’t have a problem.” How about that for perspective?
Image courtesy of extranoise
Switching Off
I’m currently reading The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, and amidst the mixed reviews I’ve received, I’ve been enjoying it and found this gem while I was skim-reading last Saturday:
An abundance of information has created a poverty of attention
Now being a marketeer I love ideas that spread, so a saying that rhymes like this is right up my street. But I also find it overwhelmingly true. In my rant last month on the commoditisation of content, I made the ascertion that we are drowning in content. Tim says it far more beautifully, and reveals the consequence of our high level of media consumption: attention poverty.
So let me get down and get real. I wake up at 6am every morning and, as you know, pray and read my bible. But recently at 6am, I wake up and I’m thinking ‘blog’. I actually have a rule for no work between the hours of 11pm and 7am which I call the ‘eleven-to-seven’ rule – but last month I have all too often worked during those hours. When I’ve picked up a book to read, or fancied going for a calming walk, I’ve ended up flipping open the laptop and going through my to-do list.
In short, I’ve found that I’ve been unable to switch off. And it’s because I have so much information during the day, my mind is buzzing when I want to rest.
The whole point of me blogging is to sharpen my thoughts by using them to help others, and I know that you learn just as much (if not more) from the scars as you do from the successes. In exchange for my vulnerability, and the jabs and pokes I’ll get for my honesty, I’m asking a favor from all of you who read this – whether by RSS, as a note on Facebook, by email, or if you’ve stumbled here by mistake…. I want you to leave a comment and share with me how you switch off.
So if you’re not on my actual website, then click here, and let’s talk about this!
Why Monday Is Quiet On My Blog
Mondays are quiet for me because Sunday is my game day. At our Church:
- 90% of the congregation are there on a Sunday
- 90% of our visitors come on a Sunday
- 100% of our income comes on a Sunday
- 80% of our teaching is given on a Sunday
- 70% of our pastoring work is done on a Sunday
Sunday is my favourite day of the week because everything from Monday to Saturday is building up – to Sunday.