Back on Schedule
#Balance is the key for living a fulfilled life. We are constantly juggling the things we do every day to obtain enjoyment, meaningfulness and responsibility. When that balance is upset, anxiety, frustration and anger can take over as we struggle to hold everything up on our own strength to keep our lives moving forward in a positive direction. Upsetting the load can cause us to stumble backward. Our strength is the fulcrum point that everything rides on and there is just so much we can handle. If we are not aligned with the weight we carry, things can go topsy-turvy. The more balanced your load is, the easier it is to carry it, maintaining that forward momentum toward your goals.
#Stability is important too. An unstable load can shift, upsetting the balance of the things you are carrying. When your load is off balance, you stumble off the path and may even fall. We can go even further with this analogy because some of us carry different weights and some have help, but today, I’m going to keep it simple and personal.
I enjoy writing. If I could, that is all I would do, but that would put my life way out of balance and I would most definitely fall. The most obvious problem with this scenario is, well, I need to eat. I need a place to live. I need exercise. So, just writing would be bad. It would be an unbalanced life. But that’s obvious. Everybody needs those things. It’s the little dumb things that really get in the way. Things like mowing the lawn, shopping, vacuuming, family get-togethers, fixing the fence, painting the bedroom, changing the oil in the car, balancing the checkbook, and so on. I call this slush.
Slush is the unexpected stuff that gets thrown at you every day. The things that slow your progress toward your goals. Of course, the amount of slush varies between individuals. Some of us have much more slush than others. Those who have little are not affected by it as much. But some people, like me, have more slush than they have time, which can be devastating. Slush is like the weeds that grow up, choking out the pretty flowers we enjoy and it has a very negative effect on your balanced life. Have you ever tried carrying a tank full of water? It sloshes back and forth, shifting its weight from one end to the other. It is impossible to keep it balanced.
So, how do large vessels such as tractor trailers, trains, or cargo ships that haul around massive amounts of liquid handle this problem? They use baffles. The hold is lined with multiple walls that divide the cargo area into small sections, preventing the slush from sliding all the way from one end to the other, thus balancing the load. And that is exactly what we should be doing with our lives. We need to setup baffles for our slush.
Let me explain. When we balance our lives, one of our biggest objectives is time. Slush chokes out our time. To baffle time simply means to set schedules. That is all. If I schedule Tuesday and Thursday evenings for the slush, it can no longer invade my time for the things I really want to do. My life, my time, now balanced. I now schedule time to write in four-hour blocks on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. If anything, and I mean anything, gets thrown at me during those times, I ignore it. The phone calls, the emails, the text messages, all ignored. I take care of them on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
It might sound a little regimented and inflexible, but I have no problem with that. It simply means nothing can interrupt my time to do the things I really want to do. I am no longer frustrated that I am not getting any writing accomplished and I am getting more things done on my off days than I did when I bent and swayed, giving way to every little task that came my way. I recommend you give it a try.
This means that I am back on schedule with my writing and in just a week I got more finished than I did in a month. So, if you need to contact me, don’t do it on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday evenings. I won’t reply.
Article and photos by Jeffrey David Montanye
#JeffreyDMontanye #balancedLife #writing
Hits: 102
